0:01

Hey, Lisa. Hey, Lee. It's good to see you today.

0:05

It's good to see you, too. Will you help me with something? Of course.

0:09

I can't remember what day it is. It's Frontal Lobe Friday.

0:12

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

0:15

one of my favorite days of the week. And I've had a rough week. Lisa was sick last week. Tata and I were kind of

0:22

puny over the weekend. But then midweek, it hit me full force.

0:26

I actually missed a day of surgery and a day of clinic. and it's been a morning

0:30

this morning with sneezing and coughing and I'm not sure I'll get through this,

0:34

but it's the first day of a new month and it's Mind Change March,

0:37

one of the most important months for the podcast.

0:40

So I have to bring you something new today and I've just got a couple of ideas

0:44

that I wanna give to you to get your mind right on the start of a new month.

0:48

I've got some incredible hope for you, okay?

0:52

There's some things that you've been taught, the things that you've heard,

0:55

things that you hear in the news and things that you see in the magazine while

0:58

you're getting your hair done, things that you read at the barbershop.

1:01

There's things that you hear that don't sound very hopeful, and I'm here today

1:06

to change your mind about that. It's Frontal Lobe Friday. We're going to get our brains engaged and get after

1:11

it. I want to remind you I'm Dr. Lee Warren. I am a neurosurgeon and an author, and I try to come here every

1:17

day to help you, to provide you with some tools to help you change your mind

1:21

and change your life to help you become healthier and feel better and be happier.

1:25

There's immense power that can be found by smashing faith and science together

1:30

to release the energy that you need for your life to get it done.

1:35

And that's what we're going to try to do today. Before we get any of that done, I have one question for you, my friend.

1:40

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

1:46

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

1:49

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

1:55

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

1:59

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

2:03

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

2:07

healthier, feel better, and be happier. This is where we leave the past behind and transform our minds.

2:13

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

2:18

place this is your time my friend let's get after it.

2:23

Music.

2:28

All right, let's get after it. Hey, Frontal Lobe Friday.

2:31

It's the day of the week where we focus on our incredible ability to switch

2:35

our attention from one thought to another, to switch what we think about, to switch how we behave.

2:40

We are not animals that are fixed on a physiological reaction and reactivity to things.

2:47

We have been given an incredible gift by our great physician to decide that

2:53

when something, thing and when a train of thought is not helpful to us,

2:56

when an emotional impulse is not helpful to us, when a feeling is not,

3:01

in fact, helpful to us, we can choose to change our minds about it.

3:05

We can think about different things. And as I'll show you in coming episodes and hopefully all throughout Mind Change March,

3:11

I will show you that changing your mind is good for your life,

3:15

that that's how you actually can pull this hat trick off of becoming healthier,

3:19

feeling better, and being happier in spite of the fact that life gets really hard.

3:23

Don't forget, we always talk about, especially over on the Spiritual Brain Surgery

3:27

Podcast, we talk about the fact that Jesus came and said two things that seem contradictory.

3:32

He said in John 16, 33, in the world you will have trouble.

3:36

He said in John 10, 10, the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy.

3:40

So the front half of both of those verses have a lot of potential mayhem, right?

3:45

We're going to have trouble. Somebody's trying to steal and kill and destroy

3:48

from us. but the back half is where the power is.

3:51

John 16, 33, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, my friend.

3:56

I've overcome the world, Jesus says. John 10, 10, the thief comes to steal and

4:00

kill and destroy, but the back half, here comes Jesus, and he says,

4:03

but I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.

4:07

So quantum physics tells us that two things can be true at the same time,

4:13

and that's where we live. We live in this place where two things can can be true at the same time.

4:18

Now, I read a book the other day by a pretty famous theologian,

4:22

one of the guys that people go to when they want to untangle something from

4:28

the Bible that's hard to figure out.

4:30

And he has written a ton of books. I'll try to get him on the podcast one of

4:33

these days. He's been kind of hard to nail down.

4:36

He's great about writing back, but he always says he's too busy or he's got

4:39

this going on or that going on. So, so far, I haven't been able to get him nailed down to the podcast.

4:44

But he said in one of his books that he is the least bereaved person that he knows.

4:50

He said he just hasn't had any tragedies in his life, hasn't had any big problems.

4:54

His parents lived to a ripe old age. All his kids are healthy.

4:57

His marriage has been solid. He just hasn't had any major tragedy.

5:01

Well, I'm grateful that there are people like that out there,

5:05

and I hope that you're one of them. But unfortunately, many of the people listening to this podcast,

5:09

and I hope it's not you, but if it is, you're with me.

5:12

You're in the camp of you've been through trauma or tragedy or some other massive thing.

5:17

Life's been hard for you, and that's probably why you're here.

5:20

A lot of folks get to my books or get to my podcast because they're searching

5:24

for hope because something's happened and has left them with some big questions.

5:28

And it's those big questions that produce doubt and can rock our faith and can

5:33

make us wonder what's going on, what's happening here, and what What can I do to find my way back?

5:39

Where's God in all this mess, as I say, over on Spiritual Brain Surgery?

5:44

And so that's what we're going to get after this month. I want to help you change

5:47

your mind about how far you fall when things get really hard.

5:52

There's some great news. And the great news is that we, the scientists, had a lot of things wrong about

6:00

a lot of the things that we thought were sure, that we thought were true.

6:03

We had a lot of stuff wrong. And the problem is once science gets something

6:08

out there into the popular culture, the popular press, it takes decades to unwind it.

6:13

Once we understand that we weren't right about something, it takes generations

6:18

before we can convince people that we were wrong and the new way is the right way.

6:23

And so I'm going to try to give you some ideas in coming weeks about some things

6:29

that we were wrong about. In fact, I'm writing my new book, The Self-Brain Surgery Manuscript,

6:33

and we're starting with that place of a bunch of stuff that we got wrong.

6:38

Because this stuff, friend, if you're going through something hard or if you

6:42

have something hard happen, this could literally save your life.

6:45

We got an email from a woman the other day whose husband took his own life.

6:49

The most tragic thing that can happen, right? And she thinks if he had had some of this information that maybe he would have had hope.

6:56

And that's why I'm motivated. Even when I'm sick, even when I'm having to pause

7:00

the recording five times in a row to try to clear myself so you don't have to

7:05

hear me hacking and sneezing and all that.

7:07

That because I want to give you this information that could literally save your

7:11

life. It's not hyperbole. It's just a fact.

7:13

There's 20 years, 24 years now practicing neurosurgery and this information,

7:19

and I'm going to share with you, could literally save your life because it saved

7:23

mine after we lost our son.

7:25

It saved mine in figuring out how to put myself back together after the Iraq

7:29

war and all those things that I've talked to you about before.

7:33

We're going to have to learn some of the things that we were wrong about and

7:38

eat some humble pie so that you can have the hope of knowing what's true.

7:43

Because when you know what's true, you can move forward.

7:46

Okay, we have this cultural moment here. I think it's always been,

7:49

but right now there's this popular thing, you do you, I'll do me,

7:53

follow your heart, you know, live out your feelings, whatever feels right to you.

7:58

You find your truth, I'll find my truth, all that stuff.

8:01

But let me just tell you of something. If you're really hurting, a truth, your truth, my truth won't help you.

8:10

Only the truth will help you.

8:13

But we can have all these philosophical debates about how we all ought to let

8:16

each other, you know, do our own thing and follow your heart and live your truth and all that stuff.

8:21

But the fact is, if you're desperate for hope and the things you've been doing

8:25

aren't helping, and you keep wondering why it's not working.

8:29

It might be because you are operating out of a system that just isn't true,

8:35

and you can't find hope there because it's not true.

8:38

And so we're going to find the truth going forward together, okay?

8:43

And wherever that leads us, we'll be good scientists, and we'll ask good questions.

8:47

And when the experiments seem to show a different answer than we thought,

8:50

we're going to modify our hypotheses, and we're going to use the scientific

8:53

method to our own advantage, and we're going to find what's really true, okay?

8:57

Because I want to show you how your brain works, how your mind interacts with

9:00

it, and how to operate them both to radically transform your life, okay?

9:06

Now, I want to talk for just a minute about something called reductionism.

9:12

Reductionism is a philosophical idea, and it started back 600 years before Christ.

9:19

Thales of Miletus is one of my favorite philosophers. Thales is the guy that

9:22

when they came and asked him what's really hard and he said to know yourself it's really hard,

9:28

And they said, what's really easy? And he said, to teach people.

9:33

It's really easy to tell other people advice. It's really hard to know yourself.

9:37

That's Talos. But Talos got something wrong, and it led to a whole bunch of mess for centuries.

9:44

And even still now, Talos had this idea that the entire universe was made of

9:49

water, that everything would be broken down to water, that water was the basic

9:52

component of everything in the universe. That turned out to be wrong.

9:55

But he reduced the universe to one thing.

9:58

A thousand years later, Descartes, who you know from the famous I think therefore I am philosophy,

10:04

Descartes suggested that we could understand everything in the world by taking

10:08

it apart like a clock, looking at the pieces, and basically everything,

10:12

including you, is just the sum of its parts, that we can reduce everything to

10:16

the list of parts, and therefore we can understand how it works,

10:20

and how to put it back together, and how to operate it more effectively.

10:23

This idea of reductionism worked its way into medicine.

10:27

And throughout the 20th century, we practice in this strongly reductionist mindset.

10:32

Bodies are just machines. They're made up of a bunch of parts.

10:35

If we understand how the parts work, then we can understand how the machine works.

10:39

When something isn't working, we can swap it out or just get rid of it.

10:42

And that's had some great successes, right?

10:45

If part of your body is hurting you, the appendix is inflamed and infected,

10:48

go cut it out and get rid of it. You don't really need it. the infection is worse than keeping whatever the

10:53

appendix does and we just get rid of it right if

10:56

your colon isn't working we can cut it out

10:59

and give you a colostomy make it work some other way we can reroute the

11:02

parts that's great it does work right if your

11:05

kidney's not working we can swap it out literally give you somebody

11:08

else's kidney just like trading a new set of tires off your car and that reductionist

11:13

philosophy does have some benefits okay but it's led to this laser focus focus

11:19

on defeating disease that sometimes leaves a person disabled and devastated

11:23

by side effects and sacrificing quality of life for survival.

11:27

Look at oncology. The reductionist approach says this.

11:30

Yes, chemotherapy and radiation kill skin cells and hair cells,

11:34

but you got a lot more of those than you do tumor cells.

11:36

So if we just go scorched earth and we give you this chemo and radiation,

11:40

we blow that tumor up and burn it and cook it until it's all gone.

11:44

Then as long as you have have some skin and hair and bone and joint and you've

11:47

got a heart beating and you're left and you're left alive then the treatment

11:51

is worth it right that's the idea.

11:55

And so that works. I mean, cancer treatment does work, but the concept is reduce

12:00

it down to its component part, find the thing that's wrong and get rid of it,

12:04

fix it, and whatever the cost is, it's worth it. That's the reductionist idea, okay?

12:09

Now, closely linked to reductionism is the doctrine of determinism.

12:15

Once we reduce something to its parts and understand what those parts do,

12:19

then we know how the system functions. Now, here's the problem. Watson and Crick in 1953 1953 figured out the chemical

12:25

structure of DNA molecule. And shortly thereafter, biologists established the relationship between DNA

12:31

and the inherited characteristics that old Gregor Mendel,

12:35

the monk, was talking about back in 1865 when he showed us the famous model

12:40

of how genes seem to be passed or characteristics seem to be passed from one generation to another.

12:45

How you can combine two plants and get the one that you want can make one stronger

12:50

or taller, more green or more yellow or flower more often or reproduce more quickly.

12:55

Genes were Mendel's idea that basically the beginning basics of genetics.

13:02

But once Watson and Crick came along and taught us about DNA,

13:06

then the molecular biologists pretty soon understood exactly what the nature

13:11

of inherited characteristics were and its genes encoded for by DNA.

13:17

And the science of molecular genetics went crazy. And for the rest of the 20th

13:21

century and the first two decades of this century, the media and popular imagination were enamored with the idea that our genes

13:29

determine most of who we are and what happens to us in our lives.

13:34

Headlines told us about genes that seem to make diseases like Alzheimer's and

13:38

dyslexia and breast cancer inevitable. And they even hinted, you'd see it in the news, hinted that perhaps things like

13:43

criminal behavior and sexual orientation and religious belief and athletic performance

13:47

are encoded in our genes. We can't do much about it. We just inherited it. We all love a simple explanation, right?

13:55

And essentially everybody from the press to the medical schools and the guy

13:58

at the corner store agreed, hey, it's not your fault. You were just born that way.

14:01

She's beautiful because she won the genetic lottery.

14:04

I'm never going to be able to accomplish that because my parents weren't tall

14:07

enough. I didn't have the right genes.

14:10

It's not my fault. I was born that way. Now, eventually, in my new book,

14:15

especially, I'm going to try to get to the problems, the whole host of problems

14:19

that reductionism and determinism create.

14:22

But I also want to point out, it's not just the molecular biologists that got

14:26

it wrong, it's also the neuroscientists. I was taught in high school, college, medical school, and residency,

14:32

and I taught patients and students in residence all the way up to about 2004.

14:37

That you're born with all the brain cells you're ever going to have. We really believe this.

14:42

We thought we didn't, that human neurons did not reproduce, that you couldn't

14:45

make new neurons. You were stuck with the brain that you had.

14:49

And our ability, you know, this idea, you've got all these neurons that you're

14:53

born with, and every time you injure one of them, or every time you drink alcohol

14:56

and kill a bunch of them, or every time you develop a disease like Alzheimer's,

15:00

or have a stroke, or get a head injury, you lose neurons.

15:03

And it's basically a race to how many neurons you have left as to how well you're going to age.

15:08

And our ability to be highly functional old people someday would purely depend

15:12

on how lucky we were genetically, how careful we were with our brains, and if we lose too many neurons to accidents

15:19

or alcohol or atrophy or drawing a bad handful of genes from mom and dad,

15:23

then you're destined to be demented at a young age.

15:26

You have a stroke or too many concussions and you're just hosed.

15:29

You're going to have a, if you got a brain injury, we were told that it's mostly

15:33

permanent. Strokes are mostly permanent. You better load up on that ounce of prevention.

15:38

Because the pound of cure isn't going to help you if you have a broken brain.

15:42

That's what neuroscience got wrong.

15:44

Because the problem is, my friend, between genetic determinism and the idea

15:49

that you're just stuck with the genes that you have, and the problem with the

15:52

fact that the brain doesn't reproduce, is that it's just wrong.

15:56

Science has shown now, conclusively, that we do, in fact, make new neurons.

16:01

And much more importantly, we make new connections with new neurons,

16:05

and we make new connections with old neurons every second of every day,

16:09

either passively or actively. And our genes don't turn out to be the thing that tells the whole story about

16:15

our lives. In fact, genes don't determine very much of anything.

16:19

There are some things that genes definitely strictly encode for.

16:23

You can't change your eye color, the quality of your hair, you're going to have

16:26

curly hair or straight hair, certain things about your bones and how tall you could potentially be,

16:32

and certain things about about inherited genetic disposition to certain diseases

16:36

are coded, sure, they are. In fact, most scientists now think it's about 35% of stuff in your life that's

16:43

just out of your control. But that means 65% is not, and guess what it turns out?

16:47

It turns out that the ultimate power over your health and well-being is not

16:54

in the mystical and unchangeable realm of molecular structure.

16:58

But it's in your control through lifestyle, thought, emotion,

17:03

faith, decisions, nutrition, things you can influence and control.

17:07

And unfortunately, for those that want a simple answer and for those that were

17:12

comfortable with the idea that it's not my fault, I was just born that way,

17:16

or it's not my fault that person did that thing to me when I was eight.

17:20

It's not my fault this trauma happened. It's not my fault I was abused. It's not my fault I come from a family of alcoholics.

17:26

Well, if you're comfortable living as a person who's been inalterably hurt,

17:35

by something that happened in the past, if you're comfortable living in the

17:39

fact that you don't feel any hope around potential change, then I've got some

17:44

bad news for you. That model isn't true.

17:47

The truth is, my friend, you do actually have the power to change most of the

17:52

things that you you experience in your life, the tools of your consciousness,

17:58

your beliefs, your thoughts, your intentions, your faith,

18:01

your prayers have been shown in numerous studies now to have more high correlation

18:07

with your health, longevity, and happiness than your genes do,

18:11

than your experiences do.

18:14

The decisions you make about how you want to think have more power than your

18:19

genes do or anything that's happened to you in your past life in many areas.

18:24

In fact, there's been some studies that show that how you think about your health

18:29

is actually more important in predicting how long you live than your actual

18:33

health. That sounds really weird. But it's been shown conclusively. People that generally feel positive about

18:40

their health and they make decisions based on that and they decide what they're

18:43

going to do based on that, they live longer and they feel happier than people who feel like they don't

18:49

have a good body or feel like they can't change anything.

18:52

They don't live as long and they're not as happy. So what you think about your

18:57

health is an accurate predictor of how healthy you turn out to be.

19:01

That sounds like the quantum Zeno effect that we talked about the other day, doesn't it?

19:05

The more you observe something from a particular point of view,

19:08

the more true that becomes in your life.

19:11

So this idea of a genetic disposition went from the laboratory to the press

19:14

to the public knowledge, and it's entrenched in our public culture,

19:18

but it turns out not to be true.

19:21

So I just want to give you one idea today. I want to give you one little thought, and it's this.

19:28

Don't worship your genetic genetic makeup. Don't put it up as an idol in front of you.

19:34

Don't put your trauma or your tragedy or your massive thing and the way that

19:37

it broke you or you feel like it irreparably harmed you.

19:42

Don't put that up as the biggest thing, the most powerful thing in your life,

19:47

because you have the tools inside you to change your response to those things.

19:53

You don't have to live in the shadow shadow of

19:57

your parents genetics or the things that happened to your mom and dad

19:59

the generational issues that came from them you don't

20:02

have to live in the shadow of the trauma because trauma is not what

20:05

happened to you that would be hopeless trauma is your response to what happened

20:09

to you and even at the level of the transcription of the genes in your body

20:14

you can turn those things on and off with learning how to think differently

20:17

about them okay don't put that don't put your genes don't Don't put your experiences,

20:24

don't put your past, don't put your parents up as something bigger than God.

20:29

Romans 1.25 says, don't exchange the truth for a lie. Don't worship the created

20:34

thing rather than the creator. Genes are a created thing. Your genetics are not bigger than your God.

20:41

You can turn them on and off. It's just absolutely true.

20:46

Another important scripture I want to give you is 2 Peter 1.3.

20:50

His divine power has given us everything we need.

20:55

Pertaining to life and godliness, his divine power. We always talk about science

21:00

and faith smashing together. And the other day I told you about super colliders, these machines that they

21:06

build that shoot electrons towards each other and these particles fly towards

21:09

each other nearly the speed of light. And when they smash together, they release incredible energy and the fundamental

21:15

particles from which they're made. And that type of experimentation is what led to atomic bombs and nuclear power

21:22

plants and computers and cell phones and microwave ovens and all that stuff

21:26

that's been learned from quantum physics and particle accelerators are a big part of that.

21:30

But if you take science and faith and you smash them together,

21:34

when they release that energy, you can learn the truth about how your brain and your spirit are wired and how

21:41

your creator and your great physician want to communicate with you,

21:44

and you can learn the truth about how your body works and how your mind is really

21:48

the captain of the ship in terms of what your body does.

21:51

And how your body and your mind and your brain respond to your mind,

21:56

and how your genetics passed on to your next generations respond to your mind

22:00

and your decisions about how you respond to your circumstances,

22:04

then all of a sudden you go from this reductionist, deterministic,

22:09

sort of hopeless state where it's not your fault, you can't do anything about

22:13

it, it just happened and now I can't change it, it's just the way I am. That's hopeless.

22:18

But it's also not true. Because what's true is His divine power has given you

22:24

everything you need for life and godliness.

22:28

And may I say it, He's given you everything you need to perform self-brain surgery,

22:32

to change your mind and change your life and become healthier and feel better

22:37

and be happier. He keeps His promises.

22:39

And when the great physician says, I've got an operation for you that you can

22:43

use to change your mind and change your life, He's telling the truth.

22:47

Don't worship the created thing. Don't put that genetic makeup.

22:51

Don't put that experience. Don't put that trauma. Don't put that massive thing

22:55

up as being something that's inalterable and bigger than God is.

22:59

Because the fact is, you can change it. You can control it. You've got the power

23:04

because he's given it to you.

23:07

And he's right there holding the knife, waiting for you to give him consent

23:10

to perform the self-brain surgery that you need. And he's just waiting for you,

23:14

my friend, here on Frontal Lobe Friday on the first day of MindChange March to start today. day.

23:20

Music.

23:26

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

23:30

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

23:34

from trauma, tragedy, and other massive things.

23:37

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

23:41

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

23:45

available for free at TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

23:48

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

23:55

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

23:59

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

24:04

WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer, and go to my website and sign up for the newsletter,

24:10

Self-Brain Surgery, every Sunday since 2014, helping people in all 50 states

24:15

and 60-plus countries around the world. I'm Dr.

24:18

Lee Warren, and I'll talk to you soon. Remember, friend, you can't change your

24:21

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