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Hey, my friend, Dr. Lee Warren coming at you here with the Dr.

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Lee Warren podcast today where neuroscience and faith smash together to help

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you change your mind and change your life. We're after three things.

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We want to become healthier, feel better, and be happier.

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And on the podcast today, I'm going to help you get that done.

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If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button.

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I'd love for you to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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There are links down in the box below to my website where you can learn about

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my books and all the other things that we're doing to help you change your mind and change your life.

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Today on the podcast, I'm going to give you a little information about processing grief and hardship.

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I've been really transparent and open about the fact that we lost our son, Mitch, 10 years ago.

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And because of that, started podcasting and writing.

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And that's really why I'm in front of you today, learning how to communicate

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the lessons we've learned and how to get back on our feet and find hope again

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after such a traumatic loss has really given me purpose.

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It's given me meaning, and helping other people find words to put on the things

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that they're dealing with has been incredibly helpful to me in my life.

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And so every once in a while, I get something in the mail or something in an

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email that makes me realize that this work is resonating with people,

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and it's really important. And I just want to remind you that wherever you are in your journey through this life,

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if you've been through hard things, if you haven't, if you're going to be anticipating

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that there will be some difficulties in the future because Jesus promised us,

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right, John 16, 33, then in this world, you're going to have trouble.

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But he also promised us in John 10.10 that he came here that we could have an abundant life.

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So we're going to live in this dual reality of hard things wrapped in a beautiful life.

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And I'm going to give you some information today that might help reframe your thinking.

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If you feel stuck in the trauma or tragedy or massive thing that you've been

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through, if you don't exactly know what to do with it or why it's in your life

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or what's happened, and you don't understand what can go next,

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what got you here won't get you there. You've got to change your mind about what you've been through so that can help

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you get back on your feet and find hope again. I'm going to give you two ideas that I got from books.

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I'm going to give you two things that I got in the mail recently that we'll talk about a little bit.

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And I'm going to give you one scripture to try to get your mind around maybe

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a new way to look at the hard things you've been through. And that's what we're going to do today.

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So it's time to get after it. But I have one question for you.

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

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

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neuroscience of how your mind works smashes together with faith and everything

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starts to make sense. Are you ready to change your life?

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Well, this is the place, Self-Brain Surgery School.

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

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take control of our thinking, and find real hope.

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This is where we learn to become healthier, feel better, and be happier.

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

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

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

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Music.

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I love that intro music. Hey, today we're going to talk about two things I got in the mail.

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Okay. The first one, somebody sent us a calendar.

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We opened the mail up and somebody sent us a calendar that's got pictures of

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Harvey and Lewis, our dearly recently departed super pups that you've heard

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me talk about a million times. Harvey and Lewis, of course, got into an unwinnable fight with a pack of coyotes

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Sunday before last. And I had to put them down.

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It was just devastating, and we miss them really like crazy.

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But somebody made this incredible calendar and didn't put a note in the box,

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and we don't know who it was. And so if that was you, Lisa and I greatly appreciate it. It was very touching.

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It means a lot to us, and we'd love to know who it was just so we can properly

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thank you. If it was you, please send an email, lee at drleewarren.com.

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Let us know it came from you. It looks like somebody went through our Instagram or something and found some

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nice pictures of Harvey and Lewis and created a calendar.

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So that was really kind, and we appreciate it. So sometimes when you open the

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mail, you get some kindness or some gift from somebody and it just really touches

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you. And that was the day for us. So thank you.

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Secondly, this is the focus of today's episode. I'm going to give you just a

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piece of mail that I got yesterday. I opened up the mail and there was a card in there. I don't know if you can

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see this, but it says, you're the best. And it's a thank you card. And I'm going to read part of it to you.

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I did a little research. I don't know the lady who wrote this card,

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but she lives in a really small town. And I'm sure that what she writes about

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in the card is pretty notable in that small town.

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And so to avoid any sort of violation of her privacy, because I don't know this

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person and she didn't send me an email address or anything so I could reach out to her.

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I'm not going to say her name or where she's from, and I'm not going to give

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you the exact details of what she shared.

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But I want to give you the gist of this because it's going to create the context

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for what we're going to talk about today. day, okay? So she says this, Dr. Warren, thank you for your book, Hope is the First Dose.

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It was recently recommended to me. My two children were tragically killed.

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She lost two children on the same day. I can't even imagine.

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My two children, teenage children

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were tragically killed and I am desperately trying to find my way.

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I have, this is hard, I have such a fear of being stuck in the hopelessness, like you mentioned.

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Books and reading are my refuge or my numbing agent of choice.

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Depends on the day and my perspective. And if I had the energy to do the work to continue living.

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I'm not sure if I will find my way or ever have peace, but your journey helps me think maybe.

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And I suppose some might call that hope.

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Thank you again for sharing a part of your journey. I am very sorry for the

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loss of your son, Mitch. May your peace continue. Listen, it was devastating to me because I remember being in those early days after we lost Mitch.

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And I can't imagine, I don't know what the multiplier is if you lose more than

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one child, if it's double or infinitely worse.

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I don't know how that math works.

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I've been around a lot of bereaved parents, and nobody can tell me.

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I mean, I don't think there's a way you can put a number on how much pain a

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human can have. But I just can't imagine.

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We lost one child. I just can't imagine losing more than one.

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But this person did, and she writes about very beautifully how you're using

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reading and books as a way to numb yourself sometimes, as a way to find hope,

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to claw out some way to find meaning and purpose again. And she's really honest

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about it, which is important. We need to be honest about how these massive things affect us.

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She's super honest about the fact that I'm not sure if I'm going to land on hope.

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I'm not sure if I'm going to find faith or peace again. I'm not sure.

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And you know what? That's okay. It's okay to feel that. I felt that and still do some days, 10 years later.

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But I just want to share a couple of things with you today for that person and

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for you, friend, whatever you're going through, especially if you're in relatively

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early days of your journey after these massive things have happened in your

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life or if you're still in the midst of it. Early on, it can be really hard to find your way. And that grief process can

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feel just so murky and so unnavigable.

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It just doesn't feel like you can make it sometimes. And it's okay.

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In fact, I think it's healthy to express that, to say it out loud,

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to talk about the fact that your life has given you a blow.

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And you're not even sure that God's there with you anymore or that he even exists anymore sometimes.

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And so I want to give you some ideas from a book by a friend of mine named Gordon Livingston.

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Gordon died a few years ago, but he was a psychiatrist who lived in Baltimore.

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He wrote a number of books. One of them was called Too Soon Old,

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Too Late Smart, 30 True Things You Need to Know Now.

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And Gordon's book was based out of his experience of losing his two sons.

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And it sounds horrible to say you lost two sons, and it is horrible,

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But Gordon's particular story was incredibly difficult and horrible.

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His first son committed suicide, his older son.

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And his younger son, who was eight, I think, died 13 months later of complications from leukemia.

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And the story even gets worse because the reason the boy died wasn't necessarily

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directly related to the leukemia, but he had to have a bone marrow transplant,

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and Gordon was the donor. And his son had an allergic reaction to the bone marrow transplant and died

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as a result of the allergy to the bone marrow that his father,

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my friend Gordon, had donated. That's just. I don't even know how you survive that. Imagine the guilt and the difficulty.

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It's just overwhelming. But Gordon wrote in his book of his older son who died, I received a phone call

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telling me that my precious son Andrew, age 22, had ended his three-year struggle

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with bipolar illness by killing himself.

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Even now, years later, words cannot contain the grief that has been my companion

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since that awful day, Gordon writes. It is an offense to the natural order of

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life for parents to bury their children.

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In a just world, it would never happen. In this world, it does.

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I'm going to pause there for a second. Friend, the lady who wrote this card,

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and you maybe, I've been there, and you say things like that.

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God, how can this happen? How can there be justice? How can this be happening?

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And it just can't. It's not just. It's not right. It's not fair.

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And all those things are true. And so how can you then hold on to anything that looks like faith in the midst

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of all these really hard things happening? Listen to what Gordon said. Now, Gordon was an atheist, okay?

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He was an atheist, morphed into an agnostic. And then later in his life,

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when I got to know him, he was on my podcast years ago.

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When I got to know him, he would almost say that he had faith.

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He was searching for something to let him believe that he would get to see his

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sons again. And here's what he wrote. I imagine that his final desperate moments were eased with some anticipation

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of release from the anguish he had endured.

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I pray, notice he uses the word pray.

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I pray that he found at last the peace that he sought.

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Only this hope has allowed me to bear my own pain and go on.

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What allows you to bear pain and go on? Hope.

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Hope does. It's the only way. Hope is the first dose of the thing that will

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get you moving towards a treatment plan that will help you find your way again.

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It's hope. It starts with hope. And Gordon wrote it exactly beautifully.

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His illness, he's talking about his younger son now, his illness proved a cold

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wind that none of us could shield him from, his little boy. In the end, it swept him away.

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So he's lost one son 13 months before. Now he's writing of his younger son.

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When you think about it, it's remarkable that instead of being hopelessly discouraged.

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By such a state of affairs, we persist in trying to extract happiness from our brief time on earth.

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Gordon is aware of this notion that all of us, no matter how much trouble we're

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going through, no matter how much hardship, we have something inside us that

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tells us that we're supposed to be able to be hopeful and happy.

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Something is inside us. And I'm here to tell you, friend, that thing that's

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inside you is your spirit that was created for you to live in abundance,

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constantly telling you that it's possible to have both the hard and the beautiful.

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The and is what gets us there. there. Gordon's writing about it from the perspective

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of somebody that doesn't believe, and he's clawing, trying to find something

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he can believe in because he's identified the thing that would really give him

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hope, and that's to be able to see his sons again. He says this, all of us, and of all the ways we pursue it, as Genesis suggests,

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by cleaving to each other, that we come the closest.

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What he's saying is you find hope mostly through cleaving to other people,

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To Jesus, to your family, to people who are still here with you,

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holding on tightly to them, holding on to community.

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That's the rehab part of the treatment plan that I give you and hope is the first dose.

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Now, listen to what Gordon says. This is devastating. With time, the nature of these thoughts changes from the

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lacerating images of illness and dying to softer memories of all that their lives contained.

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That's true. Your memory evolves over time.

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I go from thinking about Mitch being stabbed to death and thinking of all the

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things we lost and him not growing older and getting married and having children

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and all the things we would have done together.

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It softens over time into things

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of remembering who he was and moments that we

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had together and and the hope for the future it softens that's a beautiful way

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that gordon wrote that indeed it was the subject grief he says is a subject

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i have come to know indeed it was the subject of my life for a long time that's

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what this lady that wrote the card is saying grief is still the the subject of her life.

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And Gordon says, I wrote a book about it, trying to find my way around it.

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I've done that now three times, written books that grapple with these hard things.

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Just trying to find your way through. Philip Yancey says when he has something

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that's hard for him to understand, he starts writing a book to hack his way

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through it until he finally comes out on the other side with some understanding

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of what he's going through. And that's why his books have been powerful for me and maybe you and millions of other people.

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Because we help each other through through by processing what we're going through

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and trying to put words around it so gordon says trying to find my way around

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it what i learned is that there is no way around it you just have to go through

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it in that journey i experienced hopelessness,

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contemplated suicide and learned that i was not alone so.

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Okay, full disclosure. It's been several hours since I recorded the first part of this episode.

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It was this morning. It's Wednesday. And I also realized that when I launched the Michael Gillen podcast this morning,

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I said it was throwback Thursday and it was Wednesday, friend.

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I somehow got my days confused. The Michael Gillen episode is up today,

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which is Wednesday, September 20th.

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And you're going to hear this episode on Thursday.

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And it's not throwback Thursday, because this is a brand new episode.

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So several hours have gone by. This morning I started recording that,

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and then I ran out of time.

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I had to do an interview with Addison Bevere for his podcast,

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and we talked a lot about this theology of suffering and grief and all of that

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on his show this morning. And it got me thinking, and I came home, and my head was full of this note,

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this incredible note that this woman wrote me who had lost her two children,

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and Gordon Livingston's words that you just heard me read that we're going to go back to in a moment.

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And I decided to go out for a run. Sometimes that's good to clear my head and help me think.

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And so I went for a run, and I was listening to an audio book, The Confessions of St.

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Augustine. And right before that, I finished the book by James K.A. Smith.

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On the Road with St. Augustine, which is where we started this month,

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the episode about the road life.

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Is the road life, really? Is that all there is? The road is life?

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And James K.A. Smith's book and Augustine's Confessions got me thinking about

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Kurt Thompson's book, The Deepest Place.

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So I listened to that for a little bit. And it's about suffering.

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And so I've spent this whole day thinking about grief and suffering.

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And I just can't get this woman's note out of my head. So I hope you're hearing this, friend.

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I hope you found the podcast. And if you haven't, I'm going to find a way to get this to you.

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But whatever you're going through, my friend who's hearing this,

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wherever you are, Luxembourg or Canada or any of the other hundred and twenty

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six countries where people are hearing this. Here's what I want you to get out of the rest of this episode today.

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OK, Isaiah 48, 10 says, see, I have refined you not in the way silver is refined.

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I have refined you in the furnace of suffering.

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What Gordon's talking about, Gordon Livingston, in this passage that I just

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read, I'm going to finish in a second. He's talking about the fact that losing his two sons in 13 months put him in a furnace.

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And he started realizing that he was going to burn up. He said,

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I experienced hopelessness, contemplated suicide, learned that I was not alone.

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Certain that there would be no comfort in words, I came to realize that words,

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my own and those of others, were all that I had to frame my experience.

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First my despair and finally a fragile belief that my life still had meaning.

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13 years later, my sons, though frozen in time, remain a living presence for me.

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I have largely forgiven myself for not being able to save them.

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I have reconciled myself to growing old without them.

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They will not, as I once confidently assumed, bury me.

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I have forsaken any belief in an orderly universe and a just God, Gordon says.

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But I have not relinquished my love for them, nor my longing that against all

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reason I will see them again. This is where he starts believing.

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He starts believing that he's going to see his sons again somehow.

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And he finishes with this. This is what passes for hope.

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This is what passes for hope. Hope, Gordon Livingston writes,

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those we have lost evoked in us feelings of love that we didn't know we were capable of.

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These permanent changes are their legacies, their gifts to us.

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It is our task to transfer that love to those who still need us.

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In this way, we remain faithful to their memories. Gordon found some truth here.

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He was searching desperately for something. He didn't have faith.

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He was trying to find it, but he found his way to say this is what passes for hope.

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I get to see my sons again, and my job now is to take their legacy and redeem

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it and make it worth something by passing some love on to somebody else.

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I'm going to share 2 Corinthians 1 here with you in a moment as the scripture for today.

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But I want to just spend a second in Isaiah 48, 10, when he said,

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See, I have refined you, not like silver is refined.

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Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering. And I'm just going to

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tell you, friend, this is the hard truth that I've learned after 10 years as a bereaved father.

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You only have two choices. choices you didn't

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choose to have life pull that yellow handle and eject

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you into the furnace of suffering you didn't choose that

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okay you didn't choose to lose your son or find

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out your husband has glioblastoma or find out you have malignant metastatic

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melanoma you didn't choose to get that phone call and find out your son's dead

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you didn't choose that but it happened and now you're launched out into that

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pit and you're in the furnace of suffering and there are two choices there's only There's only two,

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and you have to make one of them. And it's not fair.

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It's not good. It's not right. But there you are, and you have two choices.

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You can be refined in the furnace of suffering, or you can be consumed by the furnace of suffering.

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I came to that choice. I was saying, God, I see this scripture.

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I don't know how it's refining me. I'm getting burned up here.

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Gordon got to that place. He became suicidal. He experienced hopelessness.

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He learned finally, though, that he wasn't alone.

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And he figured out that he had a job to do if he wanted to live again.

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And that was to learn how to take that love that was so crushed and so hurt

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and so bruised and learn to transfer it to someone else.

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This is a key, my friend. I want to read you this note again that this dear

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lady who I've never met and don't know wrote about losing her two children.

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Like you mentioned, books and reading are my refuge or my numbing agent of choice.

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Depends on the day, the perspective, and if I have the energy to do the work to continue living.

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That is, it's beautiful. It's powerful. It's devastating.

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She goes on to say, I'm not even sure if I will find my way or ever have peace.

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But your journey helps me think maybe, and I suppose some might call that hope.

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Gordon Livingston said, this is what passes for hope.

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You just wrote, this lady just wrote, some might call that hope.

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I remember another email I got last year. I did a podcast episode about it at

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a quiet time where a woman lost her husband and her son, who died in a boating

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accident, with the whole family drowned right in front of them.

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It was devastating. And she said, so here we are with broken hearts we never expected.

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Here we are with broken hearts we never expected.

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That's the tone, that's the feeling that you have when you're in the furnace

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of suffering. I've got this broken heart. Somebody pulled this yellow handle. This thing happened. That person died.

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I've lost my two children. I didn't want that.

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I've got a broken heart and I don't want it.

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But my friend, I'm just here to tell you, there's a path forward and it's called

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hope. And that hope is how you're going to find a way someday to be refined

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by the furnace and not defined by it or consumed by it.

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Only two choices. It's going to consume you or it's going to refine you.

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And if it consumes you, then that turns out to be the thing that defined your

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life, that your life was about having been consumed in the furnace.

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And I would just submit to you that's not what your children would want.

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Now, this person is only a year into it. And I'm at one year,

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wasn't ready for this. So it's not time yet, maybe.

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But I'm just putting this out there. The beautiful thing about podcasting and

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writing books and all of that is this content goes out and it stays out.

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When God says, I'll send my word out and it doesn't come back to me empty,

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it's going to do some work. There's somebody somewhere that's at the point in time in their journey of whatever

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their massive thing was, that today's the day that this landed on you and you

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need to hear Dr. Warren. You need to hear your friend here.

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Say, it's time to decide, are you going to be refined or are you going to be consumed?

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It's time. Now, Lisa and I were watching TV the other night,

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and there was a show about firefighters, and there was a landslide,

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and there was a bunch of rocks that fell up against the entrance to this mine

23:24

shaft or something, and there were some kids strapped in there.

23:26

And they basically had to, the first firefighter on the scene,

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had to go start picking those heavy rocks up, leaning down on the ground and

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lifting those heavy rocks and carrying them up the hill to get them to a place

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where they would be safe and wouldn't fall back down. And the firefighter did that over.

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And then all of a sudden, a second firefighter showed up.

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And now the first one only had to go half as far, and he could hand the rock

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to the other firefighter, and that firefighter would carry the load,

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and he could go back and pick up another rock.

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And then before long, a third and a fourth and a fifth, and finally the whole

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crew came, and they had a long line of these firefighters that were passing

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the rock from one to the other.

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And it dawned on me that's a pretty good metaphor for what happens when you're bereaved.

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At first, you're just dealing with this pile of rocks that you didn't want and

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you don't know what to do with, but you know that you're just going to be crushed by them if you don't pick

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them up and start trying to move them to some other place in your life.

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This metaphor is not perfect, okay, but just feel me for a second. second.

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You've got this massive thing that's got to be moved somehow for you to continue living.

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It's got to be dealt with. It has to be handled. And you start moving it.

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And before long, something really crazy happens. You don't think you have the

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strength to do it that day. Like she said, there's days I don't even know if I'm ready to keep living or not.

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And all of a sudden, somebody shows up. Somebody rings the doorbell.

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Your wife comes in. Your husband shows up. the phone rings and it's an old friend

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and somebody says hey let me help you carry that,

25:03

a little bit let me help you with that load and you

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start sharing the load and then two or

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three more people and all of a sudden it's not quite as heavy somehow it's still

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the same rock but you're able to pass it with a little bit more energy because

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you're doing it not alone and then here's the thing that's really crazy after

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some period of time after some period of time something really really strange happens.

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You turn around and all of a sudden you're not the one closest to the mine anymore.

25:35

There's somebody behind you that's having to lean all the way down to the ground

25:39

and pick that rock up and they turn around and they're completely surprised

25:43

to see you there. And you say, Hey, let me help you with that.

25:47

And you don't think you can, but somehow you have the juice,

25:51

the energy to help them pick that rock of theirs up and move it a little bit

25:56

to the next person in line and you realize somehow you're equipped for this

26:00

task of helping somebody else who's hurting like you are.

26:05

It doesn't seem to make sense. It's some sort of quantum physics,

26:08

mathematical conundrum that's over my head.

26:11

But somehow you do. You have the ability to turn around and help that person

26:16

offload some of the pain that they're feeling.

26:19

It just happens that way. Six months after Mitch died, my glioblastoma patient,

26:24

Eli Bailey, said, hey, he was doing great post-op.

26:29

And he said, hey, I wrote about this, and I've seen the interview,

26:31

and I wrote about it, and hope it's the first dose. He turned around and said,

26:35

hey, can you help my brother-in-law? He just lost his son.

26:37

My brother-in-law, Jack, just lost his son. And I literally said,

26:41

how can I help another bereaved father?

26:44

Like, I'm only six months into this. I have no idea how I can help somebody else.

26:48

And he said, you're wearing pants and you're at work and you didn't kill yourself and you're making it.

26:54

And maybe that's all he needs to hear. Maybe just put your pants on and eventually

26:59

go back to work and don't kill yourself. Maybe that's enough. And somehow, and I met with Jack, I didn't know if I could

27:03

help him or not, but somehow I had some words.

27:07

Somehow I had some empathy. Somehow I was able to convey to him something that

27:14

he found helpful enough that he called me another time down the road that I

27:17

told the story and hope is the first dose. And so the point is this.

27:22

There is some magic, some grace that God gives us that says you won't get over this.

27:31

It won't stop hurting. Whatever this massive thing is in your life, friend, it won't stop.

27:35

It's not going to go away. Trauma isn't what happened to you, as Gabor Montes says.

27:41

Trauma is how you process it. It's what happens inside you.

27:45

You will always have had the massive thing. It's not going away.

27:49

But somehow, God has created this system where you can be in this furnace,

27:56

and it is burning you, but it's also making you better. is giving you some tools

28:01

and some skills that you didn't think you had. You didn't want them.

28:04

I started writing, and I started podcasting after we lost Mitch,

28:09

after that conversation with Jack. And it was literally because I figured out that I had some words that I wanted to say.

28:19

I had been able to articulate some of the experiences that we were going through,

28:24

and there were other people who were going through similar things that didn't

28:27

have the ability to articulate that, and they needed it.

28:31

And it was the guy behind me in the line that didn't know what to do with that

28:34

big rock he was holding, and I was able to help him by talking about it and writing about it.

28:40

And the whole point of this entire episode is if you're in that place where

28:43

you're not sure you can find hope again, you can.

28:46

If you're in that place where you feel so broken and so beat up by the massive

28:51

thing and whatever's happened that you're not sure that you're going to make it through, you can.

28:56

But you have to make a decision. Is this going to consume me or is it going to refine me?

29:03

Is it going to become the thing of my life or a thing, a terrible thing,

29:08

a devastating thing, a hellish, nightmarish thing, but a thing and not the thing?

29:14

Let me take you to 2 Corinthians 1, starting in verse 3.

29:18

This will be the one place we're going to smash all this science of what our

29:22

brains are doing with trauma into some faith, okay?

29:26

2 Corinthians 1, verse 3. Praise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

29:31

the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all

29:36

our troubles, so that...

29:40

Why does he comfort us in all our troubles? so that we can comfort those in

29:45

any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

29:51

He goes on down in verse 8 to say, We were under great pressure,

29:55

far beyond our ability to endure, so much that we despaired of life itself.

30:00

He was in the furnace, and he was like, God, just take me, burn me up.

30:04

I've been there. That's what this lady who wrote this incredible note is saying.

30:08

I'm despairing of life itself. It's burning me up. It's too much pressure.

30:12

And Paul says, God gave you comfort so that you can comfort other people.

30:20

And here's what happens. You start carrying that load for somebody else a little

30:23

bit. You start finding ways to be helpful to other people.

30:28

And all of a sudden, your burdens become a little bit lighter.

30:33

They become a little bit easier to bear. They become a little bit more tolerable.

30:39

And somehow, you start making it through.

30:42

It's and. It's not either or. It's both and.

30:46

You have the terrible thing that you're having to carry. and somehow it becomes

30:50

lighter when you start helping somebody else carry it, when you give it meaning and purpose.

30:54

Like Viktor Frankl said, suffering ceases to be suffering when it has purpose

30:59

behind it. It's a paraphrase of something he said.

31:02

Okay? What's the brain science have to do with it?

31:05

We talked yesterday, or the day before yesterday, Microtubule Tuesday,

31:09

about the fact that directed mental energy causes areas of your brain to get bigger.

31:14

When you focus, you do mindfulness meditation, Meditation, the areas of your

31:18

brain involved in emotional resilience and grief processing and all those things

31:22

get stronger and bigger and better. And when you don't direct that mental energy, harmful areas of your brain, damaging,

31:30

hard synapses form that make it easier for you to ruminate and stay in it and

31:37

suffer over and over the same things.

31:40

So the bottom line is, friend, you're either building a brain that is helping

31:44

you suffer continually or you are directing your brain to become more resilient

31:49

and help you carry those rocks a little bit more efficiently.

31:54

OK, you have a choice. You can direct your brain to make you better at the suffering

31:59

that you don't want, but you've got and you're having to deal with.

32:02

Or your brain will take a default stance that will wire in the fact that you're

32:08

just here to suffer and it's never gonna feel better than that.

32:12

And so in a choice where you can take refuge in it or you can numb yourself

32:17

to it versus you can start letting it refine you and you can choose to press

32:23

in to this horrible situation and let God keep his word that he will comfort

32:28

you even when you despair of life itself.

32:32

That, my friend, is how you change your mind, no matter how hard it is.

32:36

And it's devastating. city. It's interesting to me that all these people who aren't necessarily people of

32:42

faith have come to the same conclusion that there's a path forward when you're

32:46

really hurting and it involves learning somehow to take that pain and love other people with it.

32:53

Mary Frances O'Connor, I'm going to interview her on Friday for an upcoming

32:57

episode of the podcast. I think I'll play it on Saturday.

32:59

It's the second book I want to talk to you about. Her book, The Grieving Brain,

33:03

The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss. She finishes the

33:07

book. This is the last paragraph.

33:10

Here's what she said. I cannot tell anyone how their values and their beliefs

33:14

feed into what they should do with their life. You are already in the newly restored life full of love and grief and suffering and wisdom.

33:23

Love and grief and suffering and wisdom all jumbled up together.

33:26

I can only encourage you to stay in the present.

33:31

And try to learn from what happens day to day and to learn what works for you.

33:36

I believe in your ability to solve your problems and live a meaningful life

33:40

after having experienced devastating loss.

33:43

And I do too, friend. I believe in you because God believes in you.

33:47

Here's the last paragraph of her book. The last paragraph, Mary Frances O'Connor. It's just perfect.

33:54

Once you have experienced deep grieving, you walk through a doorway.

33:58

That's what I call the yellow handle. you get ejected, you walk through a doorway

34:02

to a whole community of people that you would otherwise never have understood and empathized with.

34:09

You probably would not choose this door. You certainly wouldn't choose it,

34:13

would you, friend? You probably, she says, would not choose this door if the choice were yours.

34:18

And yet here you are on the other side.

34:22

Here we are with broken Broken hearts we never expected, right?

34:27

Here you are on the other side with knowledge about yourself and a marvelous

34:32

brain that you can utilize to build and navigate a new world.

34:37

Friend, you have a marvelous, fearfully, and wonderfully created brain.

34:42

And you didn't want this. You didn't want to go through that door.

34:45

You didn't want that yellow handle to get pulled.

34:47

You didn't want to find yourself in the furnace of suffering.

34:50

But here you are. with a broken heart you never expected, and you're looking

34:54

for what passes for hope.

34:56

You're looking for what some might call hope.

34:59

And I'm just telling you, hope can be found, and it is an intentional process of memory and movement.

35:06

And that's why there's a treatment plan, okay? There's a plan.

35:09

There's a path. And my friend, here's the bottom line.

35:14

That's how you change your life. That's how you become healthier and feel better and be happier.

35:19

I'm just saying this not as an expert, as a father who's been living it for 10 years.

35:24

That's how you change your mind, and that's how you change your life.

35:27

But you have to start today. Here we go.

35:30

Music.

35:36

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

35:40

brand new book, Hope is the First Dose.

35:43

It's a treatment plan for recovering from trauma, tragedy, and other massive things.

35:47

It's available everywhere books are sold. And I narrated the audio books.

35:51

Hey, the theme music for the show is Get Up by my friend Tommy Walker,

35:55

available for free at TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

35:59

They are supplying worship resources for worshipers all over the world to worship

36:04

the Most High God. And if you're interested in learning more,

36:07

check out TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

36:09

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

36:13

WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer.

36:16

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

36:21

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

36:27

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

36:31

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