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When life gets hard, does what we think we believe hold us up, or does it crumble under the weight of doubt? I'm your host, Dr. Lee Warren- I'm a brain surgeon, author, and a person who's seen some stuff and wondered where God is in all this mess. This is The Spiritual Brain Surgery podcast, where we'll take a hard look at what we believe, why we believe it, and the neuroscience behind how our minds and our brains can smash together with faith to help us become healthier, feel better, and be happier so we can find the hope to withstand anything life throws at us. You've got questions, and we're going to do the hard work to find the answers, but you can't change your life until you change your mind, and it's gonna take some spiritual-brain surgery to get it done. So let's get after it.
Good morning, my friend. I hope you're doing well. It is early in the morning.
And are very excited to be bringing you another dose of hope.
Today, we're going to do a quick, quiet time.
I've got a few scriptures for you around the self-brain surgery of what to do
when you have a broken heart.
We got an email from a friend who's going through just a devastating thing with her family.
There's a spouse and there's a marriage that's breaking up and there's a child
in the middle and there's some legal action. and there's some all kinds of just
trouble and it's painful and it's heartbroken.
They're heartbroken and nobody knows what to do.
So we're gonna just come alongside them and pray for them.
There's some really good biomedical research, by the way, about what happens when people pray.
And there's some outstanding, solid research that's been published that when
you pray for other people, you get better and they get better.
They're scientifically validated.
I'm gonna talk about this in a podcast one of these days. we're going to look
at that research and it's amazing what happens when people pray for each other
there's science behind it it really matters the quantum physics of the universe
God does stuff when people pray and so I'm just saying when the situation seems
impossible know that your prayers matter they do matter.
They can come alongside, they can encourage, they can lift up and sometimes
can change the outcome of situations. So don't ever give up. Just pray.
W1MD.com slash prayer is the website. You can literally have people all over
the world praying for you if you upload a prayer request or you can get on there
and help pray for people all over the world. It's important and it's powerful.
We had 114 countries in which people downloaded the podcast last week.
So when I say that there are people literally all over the world that will pray
for you, there are, even in the Isle of Man, in Trinidad and Tobago,
in Russia, in China, in Japan, in Korea, there are people everywhere all around
the world that will pray for you, and you can pray for them.
So we1md.com slash prayer is the place to go if you're dealing with something
or if you want to jump on board and pray for these other people that are struggling.
That's how we do it. It's through self-brain surgery, it's through prayer,
it's through community, and it's the treatment plan.
Today, we're going to do a little self-brain surgery around the idea of what
to do when you have a broken heart, and we'll give you two more songs on the playlist.
The first one is Song of a Broken Heart by Casting Crowns. And then the second
one is Keep on Hoping by Riley Clemons. We're going to get into all that.
And we're going to remember that when your heart is broken, you can't change
your life until you change your mind. And the good news about that,
my friend, is that you can start today.
When life gets hard, does what we think we believe hold us up or does it crumble
under the weight of doubt? I'm your host, Dr. Lee Warren.
I'm a brain surgeon, author, and a person who's seen some stuff and wondered
where God is in all this mess.
This is the Spiritual Brain Surgery Podcast, where we'll take a hard look at
what we believe, why we believe it, and the neuroscience behind how our minds
and our brains can smash together with faith to help us become healthier,
feel better, and be happier so we can find the hope to withstand anything life throws at us.
You've got questions, and we're going to do the hard work to find the answers.
But you can't change your life until you change your mind, and it's going to
take some spiritual brain surgery to get it done. So let's get after it.
I've got some scripture for you this morning, friend. And I started off in kind
of a lighthearted mood this morning for some reason.
But the song when I woke up this morning in my heart was this Casting Crown
song, Song of a Broken Heart.
And it's just a guy singing with a guitar and some harmony. It's really beautiful.
But it's basically saying that this is what you do when your heart breaks.
Here's what you ought to be thinking about. Here's some things to put in your
mind and your heart when you're hurting.
And I want to give you some of those this morning. I've got,
let's see, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 or 11 scriptures here for you.
And we're just going to talk about them, and then we're going to pray through
them. We're going to sing these songs.
Hope is the first dose, my friend. You've got to take hope before you can start
healing, before you can engage with any kind of treatment plan.
There has to be hope first.
So here's the first verse, Isaiah 26, 3. Those with sound thoughts you will keep in peace.
In peace because they trust you. The New King James Version says,
you will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are set on you.
So check this out. You have to have sound thinking in order to find peace.
And one of the things that trauma and tragedy does is it messes with our thinking.
It tells you lies. It pops thoughts into your head. This is never going to get
better. I can't get over this. I'm really done for this time.
And after you lose a child, I guarantee you'll have some of the thoughts like
we did. What did I do wrong? How could I have prevented this?
I must not be a very good dad.
I'm never going to get over this. All those thoughts happen automatically.
And the problem with automatic thoughts, as Daniel Lehman has so clearly demonstrated
with his brain imaging studies, is automatic thoughts about five to one are not true.
You have thinking that's disordered when you're hurting.
You have thinking that's not valid and the veracity of it is not accurate.
And you're just going to make a mistake with your heart and with your life if
you don't understand that when you're hurting, you are likely to have feelings
and thoughts that aren't accurate.
And that's why I teach the self-brain surgery of the biopsy, the thought biopsy.
Learn how, even when you're hurting. So you make a prehab decision before the
massive thing that you are going to develop a habit and a discipline of not
reacting to every thought that you have before you think about it.
Okay? Okay, so Isaiah 26.3, this
is self-brain surgery. Those with sound thoughts, you will keep in peace.
In peace because they trust in you. Remember, hope is a verb. It's memory.
It's your memory. Yeah, it feels like all is lost right now,
but God's gotten me through situations before when I felt that way.
God throughout history has rescued people and helped people in hard situations.
And we're in the middle of a long story where this is not just one moment and
everything is all pass or fail right now. Now, this is a long story that he's
telling that ends with him redeeming me.
And I had to take, I had to grab onto that and believe that Mitch was in a better place. He really was.
And it's not a good thing to say to somebody when they first lose a child,
hey, he's in a better place now.
It doesn't really help, but it comes to be true and it comes to help you.
And if you get your thinking right, you'll find peace.
So Isaiah 26, three is self-brain surgery. Those with sound thoughts,
you will keep in peace because they trust in you. That's the bottom line.
That's the self-brain surgery. Learn how to think about your thinking when you're hurting.
Psalm 5110 in the NIV, creating me a pure heart, renew a steadfast spirit within me.
What we need is resilience. I love Kristen Smedley and Mary Fran Bontempo's podcast.
I'm going to be on there. We're recording this afternoon, actually.
Their podcast is called Brilliantly Resilient, and I've had both of them on the show before.
And they talk about resilience as this character of being able to take a punch
and take a blow and keep on going with this grit and grace idea.
This is just keep on pushing through and don't give up to take the body blow
and renew a steadfast spirit.
You're asking God to just keep me steadfast, keep me strong, renew my heart.
And in the Old Testament, heart and mind are really the same thing.
So renew my mind and give me that resilience.
Psalm 1914, may these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing
in your sight, Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Okay? So the idea is you want to tell God that even when you're hurting,
you want to be thinking the right thoughts, the meditation of your heart,
the things that you're pondering.
You want him to help you strengthen those up, assure them up so that that trust
in you that Isaiah talked about is how you get your way back to peace.
So you want to tell God, create in me this heart that can handle the blows,
the massive things that come along, and still be thinking the right thoughts about you.
Because that's where I'm going to find peace, right? The goal is to find peace.
Psalm 139.23, search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Search me, know me, test me, know my anxious thoughts. See, the idea,
you're going to have anxious thoughts when massive things happen.
You're going to. That's not wrong.
But the way back to peace, the way back to hope, the way back to happiness is
to learn how to say, okay, I'm suffering this blow.
It's making me think all these disordered thoughts. I need to figure out which
ones are true and calm my anxiety and find the way forward by finding that peace
again, that resilience and purpose and peace.
Peace because I know once I biopsy the thinking and find what's right,
God will lead me back to the ground
I need to stand on in spite of the circumstances that I'm going through.
Proverbs 3.5, trust in the Lord with all your heart and don't lean on your own understanding.
Your neuroscience is going to trick you and deceive you and tell you all kinds
of lies after the trauma that you're going through.
Our friend that I mentioned a while ago is probably feeling right now that her
situation with her child and grandchild and in-law is never going to get better.
It's impossible, it's hopeless.
Those are all lies. There is a path forward here.
Regardless of the outcome of the legal situation, there's a path forward.
God has a plan for each of those people, friend.
And so search me, you tell him, know me, test me, help me understand my thinking
and help me figure out how to clear it up so I can grab onto what's true and
then deal with the truth and move forward.
Proverbs 17, 27 has been our theme verse for self-brain surgery the whole time.
Can you bridle your tongue when your heart is under pressure?
And I say, can you bridle your brain? Because your tongue acts on your brain,
on your brain's impulses. You say what you think.
So if you can learn how to bridle your thinking, get it under control,
even when your heart's under pressure, that's how you show that you're wise.
And understanding heart slash
mind keeps you cool, calm, and collected no matter what you're facing.
That's Proverbs 17, 27 in the Passion Translation.
Philippians 4, 6, 3, 8 is the self-brain surgery of the New Testament.
It's Whatever you're thinking about needs to be better.
Think on these things. Think on things that are good and noble and trustworthy
and true and all that stuff.
And then the payoff is that the peace will come on you. You'll reduce your anxiety.
You're going to find your way
back to clarity and hope if you learn how to think about your thinking.
That's what Lamentations 3 is about. It's like losing hope, and I choose to
take hope by remembering that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end. And that's what John 16, 33 and John 10, 10 are both about.
In this world, you're going to have trouble. The thief comes to steal and kill
and destroy, but I've come that you might have abundant life.
Those are mind change verses that you can use when your heart's under pressure.
And then Colossians 3.15, let the peace that Christ gives control your thinking.
It's for peace that you were chosen to be together and always be thankful.
So listen, if you let his peace and his hope and his happiness and his plan
control your thinking, then nothing that happens can threaten your security,
your peace of mind, your path forward, your ability to put your life back together. other.
Because after the massive thing happens, you do still have a life that has to
be managed. You've got other people that care about you. You've got a purpose and a plan.
And as Viktor Frankl has said, your life ceases to feel like suffering when
you understand that there's purpose.
And no matter what you're going through, no matter what you're facing,
if you can find purpose and meaning again, you can find a path forward.
I keep saying that, but that's how you feel when you're hurting,
when you're struggling, when you're desperate, when the massive thing has has
occurred, it feels like life is going to stop right then.
But unless you died too, your life hasn't stopped.
And if you're a Christian, even if you do die from the thing that's happening,
from the tumor, the trauma, whatever, you still have a purpose and a life beyond that.
So learning how to keep the thinking clear is how you manage your life.
Let's do this song of a broken heart by Casting Crowns for a Minute.
Just kind of meditate on these scriptures and these ideas for a few minutes
and we'll sing this song.
Music.
It's beautiful, beautiful song of a broken heart by casting crowns.
It's on the playlist you get if you preorder the book.
And I just want to give you that for a few minutes so you could kind of spend some time today.
Go back to it. Listen to it again and again and put these scriptures,
Isaiah 26, three, those with sound thoughts, you will keep in peace and peace
because they trust in you.
Get your thinking right. Learn how to biopsy your thinking. Learn how to do
that self-branch or do the transplant, the negative, harmful,
false thoughts that aren't true for better ones.
And if they are true, if there are some things about your situation that you're
thinking is harmful, it's painful and negative, but it is true.
Sometimes some of the things that we think are true. Then what we need to do
is just learn how to not despair over them, but to take those true things and
find the way forward in dealing with them properly.
Properly. So we stop catastrophizing around them and just react to them properly.
Sometimes I do a biopsy and there is a cancer and I need to treat it.
I don't need to just throw up my hands and freak out and run away because it's bad news.
I need to get after treating it. And that's what you need too,
my friend. That's what the treatment plan is for. Okay.
So the final verse I want to give you today is Psalm 71 14.
And it's our theme verse for hope is the first dose. If I sign a copy of that
book for you. I'm going to sign Psalm 71 14.
As for me, I will always have hope. As for me, I will always have hope.
This is that doom, spiro, sparrow that while I breathe, I hope idea.
And this, if you look at 71 14 from Psalm 71 14 in the old Testament,
and you look at the Hebrew, guess what word shows up?
As for me, I will always have hope. It's your call.
This, I will always wait.
It's this waiting idea. Okay. Some people have this ability to take a punch
and say, all right, I'm going to just wait.
I'm going to wait for God to show up here. I'm going to fight through this.
I am not going to give up. Okay. The diagnosis is bad.
I'm going to wait. I'm going to hope. I'm going to pray. I'm going to hang in
there. You can't take away my hope.
I lost my child. That's going to devastate me, but I'm going to hang on.
I know God's going to show up.
He's coming alongside me when I'm brokenhearted. I'm going to wait.
I'm going to get a call. As for me, I will always have hope.
I am going to hang on to that rope.
Other places, the word is similar.
The word is kavah, this idea of holding on to the tightly bound cord that's
holding the tension between what's happening now and what he's going to do next.
And it's true. And the more you do that, the more you engage and flex those
muscles of hope and hold on tight, he comes through.
He'll show up. He'll help you. And so we're going to keep on hoping.
We're going to sing that with Riley Clemons as we go out.
Keep on hoping is the song that she's singing. and it's exactly right because
that's what Psalm 71 14 is. As for me, I will always recall.
I will always hold on. I will never stop holding on. I will always have hope.
I will doom, spear, or sparrow. As long as I'm breathing, I will be hoping. I will keep on hoping.
I will change my life and I will change my mind and I will start today.
Music.
Hey, thanks for listening. The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is brought to you by my
brand new book, Hope is the First Dose. It's a treatment plan for recovering
from trauma, tragedy, and other massive things.
It's available everywhere books are sold, and I narrated the audio books.
Hey, the theme music for the show is Get Up by my friend Tommy Walker,
available for free at TommyWalkerMinistries.org.
They are supplying worship resources for worshipers all over the world to worship
the Most High God. And if you're interested in learning more,
check out TommyWalkerMinistries.org.
If you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer,
WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer.
And go to my website and sign up for the newsletter, Self-Brain Surgery,
every Sunday since 2014, helping people in all 50 states and 60-plus countries
around the world. I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and I'll talk to you soon.
Remember, friend, you can't change your life until you change your mind.
And the good news is you can start today.
Music.