0:02

Good morning, my friend. Dr. Lee Warren here with you. It's Frontal Lobe Friday,

0:05

and we're going to do a little self-brain surgery to change our minds about

0:08

something here this morning. I'm giving you an old episode this morning. It's more than 100 episodes ago,

0:14

way back in season nine, at the start of season nine.

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We did an episode called Taking the Self Out of Self-Brain Surgery,

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Taking the Self Out of Self-Brain Surgery.

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And I did that because a reader had written in and asked me to parse out the

0:27

difference between the self-help industry and what we do.

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And I just want to remind you of some of the things that we talked about in

0:33

that episode and tomorrow on self-brain surgery Saturday,

0:36

give you a little bit deeper dive into sort of the ideas behind self-directed

0:42

neuroplasticity and self-brain surgery and cognitive behavioral therapy and all these things.

0:46

Because I got another email yesterday from a gentleman who really articulated

0:51

the question very well, and I don't have time to fully address it this morning.

0:56

So I want to preface the answer to that email with this episode.

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So here's the email that I got yesterday. Thank you for the incredible work you're doing. Before going any further,

1:05

please know this is not meant as a critical email. It's simply me trying to get some clarity in what I think is a crucial distinction.

1:11

In your podcast, you often make the clear distinction between what you do and self-help.

1:16

I think it's really important and gives many of us who are suffering a lot of hope.

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However, when I hear a lot of the work you encourage us to do,

1:24

it sounds like self-help. The idea of changing our minds, examining our thoughts,

1:28

choosing where to put our attention sometimes makes me feel like I have the

1:32

lion's share of the work.

1:34

Could you please give us a clear delineation between self-help and your approach?

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Listen, the writer of this email asked not to be identified,

1:41

so I'm not going to identify the person. But here's the deal.

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My belief is that our creator, the great physician, has wired us in a particular

1:49

way. And if we live our lives in that particular way that he designed us to

1:53

live, we will have the best outcome.

1:55

We'll become healthier and feel better and be happier. The closer we get to

1:58

a renewed mind that he says we already have, the closer we get to the mind of

2:02

Christ, then the more structural changes will happen in our brain,

2:06

and our brains will become more like the brain that Jesus would have had,

2:09

never harmed by negative thinking, never sinned against himself or committed

2:13

self-malpractice or violated any of the other Ten Commandments of either God or self-brain surgery.

2:18

And so we have to sort of make this distinction between things that we do in

2:23

response to and with the help of Him. According to the way he built our brains, according to the principles of neuroscience,

2:30

and things that we do all by ourselves with our own power and our own energy.

2:34

The problem with traditional quote-unquote self-help is that if you think it's

2:38

all up to you, you will get tired, you will get worn out, you will find over

2:42

time that you don't have the juice to keep it up.

2:44

And I'm telling you that there's a way to live where you do actually do some

2:48

things, and what you're doing you're getting better at.

2:50

And when you do those things the way that God designed you to do them,

2:54

they become more efficient and more automated

2:57

over time and you find yourself breaking free

3:00

of chains and things that are holding you back and you're

3:03

not having to feel like you're doing all this work all the

3:06

time to continually make the same things happen you're going to find this sort

3:10

of effortless mastery in your life we're going to go deeper into that tomorrow

3:14

we're going to talk about philippians 2 and a little bit about work and about

3:17

farming and a little bit about about community and some things like that that

3:20

have to do with how we're designed to process and proceed through our lives.

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First, I want to give you this broad answer we talked about way back in season

3:30

nine about how to take the self out of self-help. It's a mind shift.

3:35

It's a perspective change and it'll help you. But before we get started with

3:39

any of this stuff we're going to talk about today and tomorrow,

3:41

I have a question for you. Hey, are you ready to change change your life? If the answer is yes, there's only one rule.

3:49

You have to change your mind first. And my friend, there's a place where the

3:52

neuroscience of how your mind works smashes together with faith and everything starts to make sense.

3:58

Are you ready to change your life? Well, this is the place. Self-Brain Surgery School.

4:02

I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and this is where we go deep into how we're wired.

4:06

Take control of our thinking and find real hope. This is where we learn to to

4:10

become healthier, feel better, and be happier.

4:12

This is where we leave the past behind and transform our minds.

4:16

This is where we start today. Are you ready? This is your podcast.

4:21

This is your place. This is your time, my friend. Let's get after it.

4:26

Music.

4:32

I got a letter recently from a reader, and he was incredible,

4:37

very kind and thoughtful. And he said, hey, I teach Bible studies. I'm using your work.

4:42

I'm using your work to help other people.

4:44

I really appreciate your books. He said, but I just have one little concern,

4:47

and I'm modifying some of the things you write in my classes that I teach.

4:51

And he wrote out this long passage of excerpts from a couple of my books.

4:55

And then on the right side, he added some language in to insert some more specific

5:02

scripture and Christian ideas and Jesus' name in the middle of some sentences.

5:07

Because he wanted to make the point that self-brain surgery doesn't come from

5:11

yourself, that the power behind it is Jesus. And that's correct, okay?

5:16

It's correct. If you really want to take it all the way, and I don't think this

5:20

gentleman listens to the podcast, because I think if he did,

5:23

he probably would have heard me say a million times, like there's three different

5:28

ways that you can make your life better, okay? And two of them, the self-help people have it right.

5:33

There are two different ways and two different levels of improvement you can

5:37

make in your life that don't involve the Lord at all in the big sense, okay?

5:41

Now, in the underlying sense, here's what I believe.

5:45

God created the heavens and the earth, and he created your incredible brain.

5:49

Brain. And if you can learn how to operate it more efficiently,

5:53

you can have, you can improve your life.

5:55

Even if you don't give him credit for it. And even if you don't understand that

5:59

he's the reason you're able to do it or that you even have that brain. Okay.

6:03

You can't. And that's why Jesus said, Hey,

6:06

the Lord causes the rainfall and the just and the unjust, the sun shines on

6:10

the good and the bad, like, like the world is there and God made it and the

6:14

rules and how science works and how gravity works and all of that applies.

6:19

Even if you don't recognize that there's a creator, even if you're one of these

6:22

super smart people that thinks that there's no God, right?

6:26

And thinks that you can understand how everything works and that it's explainable

6:30

without a creator, you can actually harness the power of science.

6:34

You can build a windmill and use the wind that God gave you to power your home,

6:38

even if you don't believe that God made the wind blow, right?

6:42

So this Dan Harris idea that you can take thousands of years of Eastern mysticism

6:48

and sum it up into that basically those guys learn how to turn the sound off

6:52

so they stop hearing all the clutter and the noise and they can get themselves

6:56

quiet enough to learn how to put some space in between whatever their life stimulates

7:00

them and how they respond to it. And that doing that will give you about 10% happier.

7:05

And Dan Harris said, hey, that's enough for me. I needed to get my anxiety under control.

7:09

And for me learning to calm my brain and think about my thinking and just make

7:13

better thought decisions before I react, that made me a little happier and that was enough.

7:18

And you can do that. You can utilize the fact that your nervous system reliably

7:22

improves when you take charge of your thinking, whether or not you believe that

7:26

God gave you that brain and that God is in there wanting to communicate with you. You can.

7:31

I had a—Susie Larson made a post on Facebook about my podcast,

7:35

and last time I was on her show, and a bunch of her readers wrote in and said,

7:39

hey, I started listening, and Dr. Warren is really helping me. And this one woman wrote and posted on Facebook

7:44

this long response of how, I wish you wouldn't call it self-brain surgery because

7:49

then people are going to think they can do it all by themselves.

7:51

And nobody can change their minds without God helping them.

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And I'm sorry, that's incorrect. You can change your mind without giving God credit for it. You can.

8:00

Now, He gave you the mind and He gave you the ability to do that.

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But you can do it without coming into contact with His Holy Spirit.

8:07

You can do it apart from a saving relationship.

8:10

You can make yourself a little happier. You can. And that's why there's an $11 billion self-help industry.

8:17

That's why diet and exercise and mind change programs and seminars about how

8:23

to think more positively and Zig Ziglar and all these guys.

8:25

And Zig was a Christian, but my point is that you can do all that and not have

8:31

it be in a specific spiritual context. You can.

8:35

But there's also another level of self-help, and that level is what we call.

8:39

So I've told you before, the 10% happier is not enough.

8:42

If your problem is just mild anxiety or a little bit of thought racing issue,

8:47

10% might be fine for you, right? But if your thought problem is you've lost your child or you have a glioblastoma

8:53

or your husband cheated on you or your bottom dropped out of your business and

8:57

you're homeless now or any of those things, if that's your problem.

9:02

Then 10% happier is not enough. And you need to become significantly more in

9:06

control of your thought life to make a difference and find a way forward and

9:09

find anything that looks like hope and engage in that agency and pathway and all that stuff.

9:13

It's not enough to be 10% happier, but you can become significantly happier

9:19

by just hacking the way that your brain works and learning how to make it work to your advantage.

9:23

You can do that without a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.

9:27

You can become significantly happier happier

9:30

because like i told you before magic precedes science

9:33

there's always somebody who figures out how a system works

9:36

and can use it to their advantage even if

9:39

they don't understand the full science behind it or in the spiritual context

9:43

even if they don't understand the power behind it really is because of how god

9:47

wired your incredible brain right remember when moses was getting the israelites

9:51

out of trouble most of the signs that he performed pharaoh's magicians could

9:56

perform too Two, they figured out how to make magic work.

9:59

It wasn't magic. It was just they understood how to manipulate physics and biology and all those things.

10:05

They figured some of those things out, but they didn't have the power behind

10:09

them of God being on their side. And that's why they didn't come alive like the Hebrews did under God's direction, right?

10:19

So you can become significantly happier without God helping you. You can.

10:25

You can do it. But my contention is that when you really have a major problem

10:32

in your life or when you really finally admit to yourself that all these strivings

10:36

that you're making in your life aren't really making you happier or they're

10:40

not really giving you hope, I think that's when you feel this call in your heart that there's something

10:46

bigger out there for you. And maybe that's where you are today, friend. Maybe you haven't ever really figured it out.

10:53

You need Jesus in your life. Maybe you never really even believed in him,

10:56

but maybe you have come to this

10:59

place where 10% is not enough and even significantly happier isn't enough.

11:03

There's more and you know, there's more and something's calling you.

11:06

I'm going to give you some ideas today. Okay. Now I want to just say it for the record.

11:10

If you've read my book, hope is the first dose in the very first chapter after

11:15

the, after the prologue, I wrote at the end of the first chapter,

11:18

very specifically this, in the following pages, I'm going to be talking a lot

11:23

about things you can do to try to live again after TMT turns the lights out in your world.

11:29

But in all the talk about changing our minds, self-brain surgery,

11:33

and fighting for faith, do not think it's all up to you.

11:37

Because TMT, the massive thing, will take your strength and your resolve,

11:42

and you will soon despair if you miss this one important point.

11:46

Just as you have to actually walk into the cancer center to receive the radiation

11:51

beams you did not invent and cannot administer to yourself, there's some work

11:57

to be done in learning to live again, but you don't do it alone.

12:00

I already told you that the first dose is hope, but it comes in the syringe

12:06

of grace from the skilled hands of the great physicians.

12:09

See, I put it right there plainly. Listen, I'm not trying to to beat you over the head with it.

12:13

If you're coming to this idea that something deeper in your life needs to happen

12:17

for you to recover from this massive thing or this series of many massive things

12:21

or these major traumas or tragedies, and it's just not enough to try to bootstrap

12:25

it, and 10% is not enough, and significantly happier is not enough,

12:29

and you know there's something deeper that you need, I'm trying to get you there.

12:35

And I call it self-brain surgery for one reason.

12:38

You can actually change how your brain works by harnessing the power of directed

12:42

neuroplasticity and learning how to think differently about the things that

12:46

you experience in your life. You can. But the reason I call my book Hope is the First Dose is because that's the only

12:54

part that's really up to you, is making a decision that you need some bigger help.

13:00

Now, the secret, the underlying secret, is that even that part isn't up to you.

13:06

Because Paul tells us plainly in Philippians chapter 2. Check this out.

13:14

Paul says it plain, Philippians 2.13, it is God who works in you to will and

13:22

to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

13:27

Listen to that again. It is God who works in you to will and to act in order

13:33

to fulfill his good purpose. Do you get that?

13:36

Don't feel like it's all up to you because even the idea that there's something

13:42

more out there doesn't come from you. You don't have to create this.

13:46

God puts that idea in you. Your creator, no matter how far from him you are,

13:50

no matter whether you believe in him or not, that nudge that says there's got

13:54

to be something more in my life, my life has to have more purpose than this.

13:58

My life has to have more meaning than this. I've got to be able to find some kind of power to move forward after this massive

14:05

thing has happened in my life. God puts that nudge in your heart, friend. It's not up to you.

14:11

And so, yes, I call it self-brain surgery, But you're not even responsible for

14:15

the initial urge that that drive, that desire in your heart that there's got

14:19

to be more comes from him. He wants you to have a life that's full of meaning and purpose.

14:24

He's got purpose for you and he puts the drive in you. So you're not even responsible for that.

14:30

Peter says it different. Second Peter three, nine. The Lord isn't really being slow about his promise.

14:36

As some people think, no, he's being patient for your sake. He does not want

14:41

anyone to be lost, but wants everyone to repent.

14:46

So if you're banging your head against your own life and you're saying,

14:49

why is it so hard? Why isn't...

14:53

All these things that say they're going to make me happier. Why aren't they

14:56

making me happier? Why am I not able to recover from this? Why am I stuck in this problem?

15:00

Why, why, why? And then when you finally start crying out to God,

15:03

you say, well, why does it feel like my prayers aren't being answered?

15:06

Why does it feel like it's taking so long? And Peter says, God doesn't want anybody to be lost.

15:13

He's patient with us. He's waiting for us to cry out. Remember yesterday we

15:17

talked about Isaiah. The Lord longs.

15:20

He longs to be gracious to you. He rises to show you compassion.

15:26

He wants to help you. He doesn't want you to be lost.

15:31

He doesn't want you to be in despair. He doesn't want you to be hurting.

15:35

John 6, 44, nobody can come to me. This is Jesus, John 6, 44.

15:41

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.

15:46

You see that? Paul said it, and Jesus said it, and Peter said it.

15:51

God's doing this work inside you to stir you up, to make you reach out for him

15:56

so he can do the thing he wants to do for you.

16:00

He's got the syringe full of grace. He's got the treatment plan.

16:03

He's got the ability to help you, but you have to just say, I need it.

16:08

I'm ready for it. And that's the reason I call the book. Hope is the first dose.

16:12

Okay. Please read it. If you haven't read it yet, please, it's going to help you.

16:14

I promise it's a treatment plan for recovering from trauma and tragedy and the

16:19

massive things that happen in our lives, Hope is the First Dose.

16:21

Everywhere books are sold, go get it. Season nine of the podcast sponsored by Hope is the First Dose.

16:27

You need it, okay? But here's why I called it that.

16:31

The book is about the treatment plan. The book is about how you get your brain

16:36

ready for what happens in your life.

16:40

How you get your brain ready to respond, Respond to be resilient,

16:44

to hold on when hard things happen, to not crash and not lose hope and find your feet again.

16:50

How do you do that? Well, you do it through prehab and loading your brain full

16:53

of all these good things and having some stuff and some decisions made ahead

16:56

of time about who God is and what he can do for you. And then if you're in the middle of it.

17:02

You do it by learning the techniques of self-brain surgery,

17:05

of biopsying your thinking, putting some space in between stimulus and response,

17:09

and then eradicating lousy attitudes and getting rid of doubt and filling up

17:13

faith and severing sick synapses and all these little crazy operations that I teach you, okay?

17:19

Trusting and transplanting good thoughts for bad thoughts, all these things

17:23

that we talk about on the podcast all the time.

17:25

Go back and listen to some of those. That's the self-brain surgery piece.

17:28

And then there's rehab, getting yourself a community and working hard to heal

17:33

and move forward and build better habits and be more resilient for the next

17:36

time TMT comes around because it's not ever gone.

17:39

There's always going to be another massive thing, right? That's how life works.

17:43

So the point of all of that is the treatment plan is stuff that you can learn how to do.

17:50

Do. But the analogy is like if you come to my office and you have back pain

17:56

or a brain tumor and I tell you, hey, we've got the team, we've got the operating

18:00

room, we've got the technology, we've got the radiation and the chemotherapy and the drill and the microscope,

18:06

we've got everything you need. All you have to do is show up at 530 on Monday morning and sign the consent form.

18:12

We'll do the rest. We'll put the IV in for you. The anesthesiologist will intubate you and put you to sleep.

18:16

I'll do the surgery. Damon and I and the team, Kristen and Al,

18:19

everybody will work work hard together to help you.

18:21

And then after surgery, we'll get you hooked up with the physical therapist

18:24

and the occupational therapist, and we'll get you the rehab you need and the

18:27

chemo and radiation and all that stuff. And all you have to do is have enough hope that we can deliver that plan for you.

18:36

Have enough hope that you can get out of bed and get dressed and drive yourself

18:39

to the hospital and sign the consent form. That's all you have to do. And then after surgery, yeah, you've got to do some

18:44

work and you've got to do some rehab and all that.

18:47

But we're going to take care of you. And that's the point here, okay?

18:52

God draws you. God gives you the plan. God makes the invitation.

18:56

God schedules the surgery. God prepares the hospital, okay?

19:00

The church. God prepares the work.

19:03

And he even initiates the desire in you to have it.

19:07

Where you come and you wake up and you say, I'm sick and tired of my back hurting so badly.

19:13

Somebody's got to help me. I can't do it. I've tried all the physical therapy

19:17

stuff. I've tried all those exercises on Instagram.

19:20

I tried that copper pad that you stick to your back that I found on a commercial.

19:24

I've tried all of it, and I can't fix it. Somebody's got to help me.

19:28

And in that desperation, you come to the doctor's office, and somebody gives you a plan.

19:33

And you didn't make the surgical microscope. You didn't craft and build and

19:38

machine the surgical table that you're going to lie on.

19:41

You didn't make the anesthesia machine. You didn't create the science behind

19:44

how anesthesia works and how surgical techniques work.

19:47

And you didn't train all those doctors and nurses yourself. You didn't have to do all that.

19:52

You just had to have the wall that you hit that said, it's time for me to get some help.

19:57

And other people had all that stuff ready and harnessed the science and were

20:01

there to prepare for you and deliver for you.

20:04

But you had to have enough hope to get in the car and drive because that's hope is the first dose.

20:10

That's why hope is the first dose. Okay.

20:13

So, yes, long story to tell you this.

20:16

I didn't come at you and beat you over the head by saying you have to include

20:23

the word Jesus Christ and you have to outwardly acknowledge that God is behind

20:27

all this in every sentence and every word that you write and say and everything

20:31

you think about on the podcast. I don't want you to think that way. Why? Why?

20:34

Because if you're seeking, I want you to find a place here in a community here

20:41

of people who will say, yeah, we've got some tools for you that you can use

20:45

and you can start running some reps in your life of these things that will make a difference.

20:49

And at some point you're going to come to say, yeah, I'm making progress, but I want more.

20:55

And that more is where the door opens for you to become almost infinitely happier.

21:01

Because when you're infinitely wiped out by your life,

21:04

when you're infinitely crushed by the weight of the massive things that are

21:08

happening to you, you need more than some hack to become a little bit happier

21:13

or some hack to become significantly better able to control your thinking. You need more than that.

21:18

And to get across that finish line into this quantum faith world where you can

21:22

have a devastatingly hard life but still manage to have meaning and purpose

21:26

and even maybe hope and happiness again, you need your creator to get involved in that.

21:31

The software of your mind operates best when it's under the influence of the

21:36

programmer, of the guy who made it.

21:38

And the hardware of your brain works better when it's under the influence of

21:43

the person, the physician who made it in the first place.

21:46

I'm different than the great physician. I can work on brains,

21:50

but I could never create one. And so your father, your great physician, your healer knows you more intimately than I ever could.

21:59

He has scanned you more completely than I ever could with an MRI machine.

22:03

And he can heal you more completely than I ever could with surgery.

22:07

And so that's the next level. But I would just submit to you that getting to that place requires some work

22:15

on your part in order to change your mind.

22:17

But don't feel overburdened by that.

22:20

Because as I've shown you in this short short episode, that work doesn't even initiate with you.

22:25

And you don't really have to do it. All you have to do is what Romans 12 says.

22:31

Don't be conformed anymore. Just get to the place where you say,

22:34

whatever the world is giving me is not working and I'm tired of it.

22:38

And I can't, it's just not enough, God.

22:40

And just open your heart and your mind to the idea that you would rather stop

22:45

trying so hard to make yourself fit into what the world says will make you happy,

22:51

because it's not working. And then Romans 12, two goes on to say, rather be transformed.

22:57

It doesn't say transform yourself. It says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

23:03

That's how you change your mind. And that's how you change your life.

23:06

And all you have to do is sign the consent form.

23:09

It's to say, I need help. I need hope. I'm ready for this operation that you can perform.

23:17

I need you to change my mind. I need you to change my life.

23:21

And friend, the good news about all of that is that you can start today.

23:26

Music.

23:32

Hey, thanks for listening. The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is brought to you by my

23:36

brand new book, Hope is the First Dose. It's a treatment plan for recovering

23:40

from trauma, tragedy, and other massive things. It's available everywhere books are sold.

23:45

And I narrated the audio books. Hey, the theme music for the show is Get Up

23:50

by my friend Tommy Walker, available for free at TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

23:54

They are supplying worship resources for worshipers all over the world to worship the Most High God.

24:01

And if you're interested in learning more, check out TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

24:05

If you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer,

24:09

WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer.

24:12

And go to my website and sign up for the newsletter, Self-Brain Surgery,

24:17

every Sunday since 2014, helping people in all 50 states and 60 plus countries

24:23

around the world. I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and I'll talk to you soon. Remember, friend, you can't change your

24:27

life until you change your mind. And the good news is you can start today.