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Neurosurgeon and award-winning author Dr. W. Lee Warren, MD delivers daily prescriptions from neuroscience, faith, and common sense on how to lead a healthier, better, happier life. You can’t change your life until you change your mind, and Dr. Warren will teach you the art of self brain surgery to get it done. His new book, Hope Is the First Dose, is available everywhere books are sold.
Good morning, my friend. I hope you're doing well. I am grateful to be with you today. I'm doctor Lee Warren, and this is Self Brain Surgery. This is the doctor Lee Warren podcast.
Dr. Lee Warren:We're gonna help you change your mind and change your life. We are gonna go back and talk about a couple of things from day before yesterday after I recorded the, episode from Monday, mind change Monday about Psalm 73. I showed you an example of Asaph doing self brain surgery in the Bible, and Psalm 73 was all about this time in the past when he remembered a way that he had been feeling. He'd been spending some time caught in the comparison trap and feeling and thinking about how other people seem to prosper even though they weren't doing the right things and how society seemed to reward and honor, people who were, you know, not good people. And he was frustrated.
Dr. Lee Warren:And he was remembering this in past tense, and he said, my feet almost slipped. Like, this thought process almost messed me up. And if I had said those things aloud, man, I would have dishonored God. I would let other people astray. I would have been a bad influence.
Dr. Lee Warren:I would have really wrecked my own testimony. And he remembered that that time in the past that he was thinking about was a trap that he almost fell into that would have really caused him trouble with his witness, with his spiritual journey, with his holiness, with his relationship with God, and with other people. And he was grateful that at that time in the past that he had bored himself out of that thought process by remembering who God is, by flexing the muscle of hope, the memory and movement. And today, I just wanna give you a little a quick little thought, that's gonna tie Psalm 73 and Psalm 70 7 together. If you've read my new book, Hope is the First Dose, I talk about ASAP in Psalm 77, which is one of the first times I recognized somebody doing self brain surgery in the bible.
Dr. Lee Warren:It's a great lesson for us, and I just wanna give you one little tie together of how Psalm 73 and 77 show the power over time of learning new synopsis, creating new synopsis to help you remember and move towards hope and remain faithful even when things seem hard because you can change your mind, and you can change your life. And the good news is, as Lisa's getting ready to tell us, you can start today.
Lisa Warren:Hey. Are you ready to change your life? If the answer is yes, there's only one rule. You have to change your mind first. And my friend, there's a place where the neuroscience of how your mind works smashes together with faith and everything starts to make sense.
Lisa Warren:That place is called self brain surgery. You can learn it, and it will help you become healthier, feel better, and be happier. And the good news is you can start today.
Dr. Lee Warren:Thanks, Lisa. Hey. So glad to have you listening today. I'm doctor Lee Warren, and I live in Nebraska in the United States of America with my incredible wife, Lisa, my father-in-law, Tata, and the super pups, Harvey and Lewis. I'm a neurosurgeon and an author, and I'm here to help you harness neuroscience, the power of your brain, faith, the power of your spirit, and good old common sense to help you lead a healthier, better, happier life.
Dr. Lee Warren:Listen, friend. You can't change your life until you change your mind, and I'm here to help you learn the art of self brain surgery to get it done. If you'd like the show, please subscribe so you never miss an episode, and tell your friends about it. If you tell 2 or 3 friends this podcast was helpful to you, imagine how much good we can all do around the world together. I'm doctor Lee Warren, and I'm here to help you change your mind so you can change your life.
Dr. Lee Warren:Let's get after it.
Dr. Lee Warren:Let's do get after it. So Psalm 77, one of my favorite Psalms in the whole Bible. And I'm gonna get you there in just a second over in Psalm 77. But first, I wanna go back to 73 and what we talked about just a couple of days ago. Remember how Asaph okay?
Dr. Lee Warren:Asaph was remembering this time in the past, and if you didn't listen to it, please go back to Monday. Listen to Mind Change Monday. And here's what Asaph said, verse 2. We actually let's let's talk about verse 1. He starts with this, with telling himself a truth.
Dr. Lee Warren:And in my new book, Hope is the First Dose, I tell you about a guy named Lucky Chuck. And Lucky Chuck taught me a lesson that I called prehab in the book, and the treatment plan, the 3 part treatment plan of how you can prepare yourself for the massive things that come along, and how you can navigate them so that you can find hope no matter how dark and hard things get. And you can build yourself a new system in your brain that will teach you to be ready and to engage and and get back on your feet faster when life knocks you down again. Okay? So in that prehab process that I learned from Lucky Chuck, we see it right here in Psalm 73.
Dr. Lee Warren:The first thing Asaph says, he's getting ready to tell a story about some trouble he had in the past with his brain, with the way he was thinking about his circumstances. Okay? And that's really what gets us always in trouble. We start thinking and feeling about our circumstances, and then we start feeling more than we're thinking. And then we start ruminating on the feelings, and then we make new thoughts out of the feelings that aren't usually true.
Dr. Lee Warren:And those thoughts lead us to bad reactions to the circumstances that we're having. And so ASAP starts off here with something Lucky Chuck taught me. Make some decisions, friend, about what you believe and remind yourself. Preach it to yourself all the time. Constantly remind yourself.
Dr. Lee Warren:Read good books. Listen to good music. Spend time in prayer. Talk to good account to to good people who can help you be accountable to what you're thinking about. And keep yourself in a state of mind to say, hey, I know TMT is coming.
Dr. Lee Warren:I know these massive things are gonna happen. And if you're new around here, by the way, sometimes I say TMT. That's what Lisa and I called the massive thing. These big traumas and tragedies, these big emotional events, these big losses, and sometimes failure to achieve things, the loss of a dream. All these things that happen in our lives that really hurt us, and these TMTs can knock us off our feet if we're not ready and we can become hopeless.
Dr. Lee Warren:And so having a treatment plan in place is like like carrying an EpiPen in your purse in case you have an allergic reaction, or learning CPR, or learning how to change a tire if there's a problem, It's gonna help you navigate these times when things get hard. So right here in verse 1, Asaph gives us a good example. He tells himself a truth here. Surely, God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. Surely, God is good.
Dr. Lee Warren:Remind yourself, friend. Surely, God is good. God is good. He's faithful. He's been there before when you've had trouble.
Dr. Lee Warren:He'll be there again. Remember stories from the past. He he got Anne Frank through the war. He got, the Israelites out of the desert. He's he's he's done miracles.
Dr. Lee Warren:He's made a way in the past. There's always a time to go back and see that God is good. And then he says, okay. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped. I had nearly lost my foothold for I envy the arrogant.
Dr. Lee Warren:He tells that story in Psalm 73. I want you to go back to 2 days ago, Mind Change Monday, and listen to that. And just remember that what Asaph did here is he went back in time, not because there's an old beach that he can walk down, but because he wanted to remind himself of a lesson that he had previously learned. He doesn't spend time in shame here. He spends time in gratitude that in this time in the past, he somehow managed not to let his mouth talk out of his feelings.
Dr. Lee Warren:Let me say that again. He was learning not to let his mouth talk out of his feelings. How often would that help us in our life if we learned how not to let our mouth speak out of our feelings? Okay? This is why we need to develop the practice of the bad thought biopsy.
Dr. Lee Warren:You have a thought that's based on a feeling, that's based on a circumstance, that's based on an interaction with somebody else. And what do we do? We speak out of the feeling before we think about the thought. I'm just here to tell you, friend, after looking back on my life for 54 years, some of the things I regret the most are times when I spoke out of feelings and not out of thinking about my feelings first. Because feelings aren't facts.
Dr. Lee Warren:Feelings are chemical events in your brain. Sometimes feelings point towards facts. Sometimes they point away from the truth actually though. And you gotta be careful when you start speaking out of your feelings. There's a a show that we watch sometimes on TV called Blue Bloods, and the the main characters is, played by Tom Selleck.
Dr. Lee Warren:It's Frank Reagan. He's the police commissioner of New York City. And they have a saying about Reagan that he always has an angle. Like, he always does the right thing or what he thinks is the right thing. But he's always got an angle.
Dr. Lee Warren:Like, he's always thinking 3 or 4 moves ahead. Like, he's he's playing chess when everybody else is playing checkers. And I want you to think about that for just a second about this idea of having an angle. And what that means really is not that he's manipulative. It means that he thinks ahead.
Dr. Lee Warren:He looks at every situation and does what we call game theory on it. If you if you think like a chess player, you're not gonna think about the thing that's right in front of you right now. You're gonna think about, well, if I do this, they're gonna do that, and then I'm gonna have to do this, and then they're gonna do that. And then I'm gonna do this. And you start thinking ahead.
Dr. Lee Warren:How do I win the game? How do I get to a better place? How do I accomplish my task being a good person or serving God well or stewarding my family or navigating this massive thing? How do I do that? And and in order to succeed there, we can't just be in react mode all the time.
Dr. Lee Warren:We've gotta get into proactive thinking ahead mode. And that's what ASAP does here. He's he's using the fact that in this past time, he nearly messed up. And he's recognizing in retrospect that, boy, he had a close call there, that by being all caught up in his feelings, he nearly slipped. He almost led the people astray that he was responsible for.
Dr. Lee Warren:And he really almost messed up. He didn't game it out. He he managed at that time. But now down in Psalm 77, he's thinking again. He's telling us more in real time about another situation that's happened.
Dr. Lee Warren:And I would just submit to you that the reason he handles Psalm 77 as well as he does is because of Psalm 73 and the chapters in between and the fact that he is practicing the art of self brain surgery. Okay? There's a book that I'm reading. Jeffrey Schwartz wrote that incredible book called The Mind and the Brain. I'm reading one of his older books now, You Are Not Your Brain.
Dr. Lee Warren:It's learning how to understand that you're not stuck with the brain that you have. Just because you got something from your parents, just because you think a certain way at baseline, doesn't mean you can't change it. And he said something about habits and patterns of behavior that I think we need to hear. We we tend to revert to past patterns when we're trying to make a change. We we say we're gonna stop drinking and we find ourselves the next morning with a headache again.
Dr. Lee Warren:We say we're not gonna eat that bag of Cheetos. And by the way, after I mentioned my, struggle with Cheetos in my new book, lots of people have mailed me bags of Cheetos. I appreciate it. I think people are saying, hey. I read the book.
Dr. Lee Warren:Here's some bag of Cheetos. Just so you know, I'm thinking about it. And it's amazing. But, please, I've got enough Cheetos for the rest of my life. I I don't need to eat them.
Dr. Lee Warren:Okay? I really appreciate it. But reverting to past patterns, Schwartz says, when you're trying to make a change is this. Here's something you need to hear about this. The more often you act in these unhealthy ways, and that can be thinking, it can be behavior, it can
Dr. Lee Warren:be addictions, it
Dr. Lee Warren:can anything. The more often you act in these unhealthy ways, the more you teach your brain that what is simply a habit is essential to your survival. Hear that again. The more you react in a certain way, the more you're teaching your brain. And what that means is you're making synapses that are going to automate this behavior and make it more likely to occur next time without you having to think about it.
Dr. Lee Warren:The more often you act in an unhealthy way, the more you're teaching your brain that what is simply a habit is actually essential to your survival. That's why you start thinking that you have to have that drink in order to get a good night's sleep. That's why you start thinking that you've got to have this particular person text you or you can't go to you can't clear your brain. This is why you think that you gotta buy that thing on Amazon or you can't relax. This is why you think that you need that bag of Cheetos.
Dr. Lee Warren:It's because you've taught your brain that that habit is actually necessary for your survival when it in fact is not. Because here's the punchline. Schwartz says it well. Your brain can't distinguish between whether the action is beneficial or destructive. It just responds to how you behave, and then it generates strong impulses, thoughts, desires, cravings, and urges that compel you to perpetuate that behavior.
Dr. Lee Warren:Read it one more time. Your brain doesn't distinguish whether the action is beneficial or destructive. It just responds to how you behave, and then it generates strong impulses, thoughts, desires, cravings, and urges that compel you to perpetuate your habit, whatever it may be. Unfortunately, more often than not, these behaviors are not ones that improve your life. Friend, the bad news is your brain, your life is a comp compilation of the thoughts, feelings, experiences, and decisions that you've made up to this point in your life.
Dr. Lee Warren:That's the bad news. But the good news is your brain is the compendium of the thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and experiences you've made this far in your life, and you can change it. Remember the other day we said, you can't what got you here won't get you there. It's all in August. Okay?
Dr. Lee Warren:And you're at this place in your life when you decided that you need to make some changes and you're not gonna get to the new place if you stay in the old place. If you're not gonna get to the new habit if you keep the old habit. And ASAP teaches us the way here. Boy, I nearly messed up that time. I was thinking about how bad it made me feel when other people succeed and bad people will succeed and and people who aren't living a godly life do well.
Dr. Lee Warren:And the politician that I don't like won. And this thing happened and that thing happened, and those guys seem to always have the sunshine on them, and I've always got the rain. And I almost said it out loud, and I almost led people astray, and I almost dishonored God. But thank God that I didn't. And he went to the sanctuary, and he worshiped, and he and he preached his way out of that thought process.
Dr. Lee Warren:He talked to himself with true thoughts and not just feelings. Right? Now look at Psalm 77. This is real time again, and we're gonna see a guy who is a seasoned self brain surgeon now. I cried out to God for help.
Dr. Lee Warren:I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, I sought the Lord. At night, I stretched out untiring hands, and I would not be comforted. I would not be comforted. He can't sleep.
Dr. Lee Warren:He's focused on his thoughts. He can't stop hearing them, and he's focused on his thoughts so much that he can't sleep, and he's begging God, cried out to God for help. I remembered you, God, and I groaned. I meditated, and my spirit grew faint. You kept my eyes from closing.
Dr. Lee Warren:I was too troubled to speak. I thought about the former days, and I remembered my songs in the night. My heart meditated, and my spirit asked, will the Lord reject us forever? Will he never show his favor again? You see what he's doing?
Dr. Lee Warren:He can't sleep. He's worried about something, and he starts laying it off on God. Is God just never gonna come and help me with this? Is he just gonna reject me forever? Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Dr. Lee Warren:That's what happens in your brain. When you start focusing on your feelings and your emotions, you start blaming God for the way that you feel. You start laying the blame at other people's feet and sometimes even at God's. Has God forgotten to be merciful? He says in in verse 9, has he in anger withheld his compassion?
Dr. Lee Warren:Now here's the switch. Okay? He starts to go on down this rabbit hole. And then he remembers, wait a minute. I've I've done self brain surgery before.
Dr. Lee Warren:Wait a minute. I know who my god is. Verse 10. Then I thought, to this I will appeal. The years when the most high stretched out his right hand, I will remember the deeds of the Lord.
Dr. Lee Warren:I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deed mighty deeds. He's remembering, and now he's gonna move. He's gonna preach first to himself. Your ways God are holy.
Dr. Lee Warren:What God is as great as your God as our God. You're the God who performs miracles. You display your power among the people. With your mighty arm, you redeemed your people. The descendants of Jacob and Joseph, the waters saw you.
Dr. Lee Warren:He he goes on and on and on. He remembers good things that God has done in the past, and he works himself out of the hole. Why? Because he's learned self reinterpret. He recognizes in times past that his feelings almost got him in trouble, and the way to get out of them was to go to the sanctuary and do prehab and do self brain surgery and get around better people, get around people who are saying better things, who aren't focused on their feelings all the time, and find a way to change his mind.
Dr. Lee Warren:And that's what he's done. Doctor Phil, famously, that psychiatrist that used to be on TV, I don't know what he's doing these days. But he always had this thing. He would listen to somebody recount the way that they're handling their problems and the way that they're going through their stuff, and he would say, how's that working for you? How's it working for you?
Dr. Lee Warren:This thing that you're telling me that you're doing, how's it working for you? And if it's not working, you need to change it. I had a a great conversation on the Theology and The Rob Podcast recently with Preston Sprinkle, And at the end of that conversation, you should go listen to it. I'll put a link in the show notes. At the end of the conversation, I said, you need to evaluate and grief response.
Dr. Lee Warren:Everybody has a way that we respond to feelings and circumstances. Everybody has a way we respond when we get a text message from somebody that sets us off. We all has a way. So it's important though if the if you don't feel like your life is working the way you want it to work, evaluate your own response and decide if it's serving you well. How's it working for you?
Dr. Lee Warren:Sometimes we choose comfort measures, but we never choose the the one we never actually look at those comfort measures and see if they're serving us well. We never choose comfort measures with the aim of actually making ourselves better. Okay? When we have a patient that's on, end of life, kind of the the right at the end of their life and they're suffering, we sometimes decide to put them on a status that we call comfort measures or hospice, where what we're doing is is just covering up the pain. We're we're covering up the feelings that the the the body systems that are shutting down.
Dr. Lee Warren:We're just giving them medication so they don't hurt anymore. But we don't choose comfort measures to try to make them well. We choose comfort measures to try to make them not feel what their body actually is feeling. This is a crucial point, friend. If your life if you're giving yourself comfort measures, alcohol, gambling, sex, addiction, shopping, television, numbing behaviors, whatever it is, if you're doing that instead of actually digging in and solving the real problem, doing the brain surgery, identifying the problem by seeing the thought, doing what ASAP did, recognizing, thinking about times in the past when you nearly messed up or you did mess up, and how you can learn from that.
Dr. Lee Warren:And what got you here won't get you there, and you're doing all that stuff. If you're choosing comfort measures instead, you will not get better. You might feel better in the moment, but you won't get better. You need to love tomorrow more. You need to love the idea of actually getting well, becoming healthier, and feeling better, and being happier because what got you here won't get you there.
Dr. Lee Warren:Is your system a response to your thoughts, feelings, circumstances, and behaviors? Is it serving you well? The good news is no matter how desperate or lost or hurt you feel, you can see and take heart. And the fact that other people in similar situations have gotten better, So you can get there from here. And that's the definition of hope.
Dr. Lee Warren:Hope is the belief you can get there from here. That's why, like Asaph, like David, like the Lamenter, like your friend Lee Warren, you can find hope. Hope is always achievable. But you've gotta ask the question, is it serving me well? Is the way that I've been handling this serving me well?
Dr. Lee Warren:You need to have an angle. You need to game it out. If I respond this way, what's it gonna do to me tomorrow? Because I've done it before, and what got me here won't get me there. And if I wanna be in a different place, I gotta change the things that I did that got me to this place.
Dr. Lee Warren:Right? Game it up. Have an angle. Ask yourself. Is it serving you well?
Dr. Lee Warren:Biopsy the thought. Remember the past. Analyze the situation. Interrupt the thought process. Switch feelings for thinking, stop feeling, and start thinking, my friend, and you will have a transformed brand new mind.
Dr. Lee Warren:And you can change your mind and you can change your life. And the really really super good news is you can start today.
Speaker 3:Hey, thanks for listening. Please subscribe to the show so you automatically get every episode. And if you like the show, you'll love my weekly letter. Check out my writing at doctorleewarren.substackdot com. Doctorleewarren.substack.com.
Speaker 3:Get the free newsletter every week for my best prescriptions for becoming healthier, feeling better, and being happier through the power of faith and neuroscience smashing together via self brain surgery, doctor lee warren.substack.com. And if you need prayer, go to the prayer wall
Dr. Lee Warren:atwlewarrenb.com/prayer. The theme music for
Speaker 3:the show is Make Us 1 by Tommy Walker, graciously provided for free by the great folks over at tommywalkerministries.org. Check it out and consider supporting them. Tommywalkerministries.org. Remember, you can't change your life until you change your mind, and the good news is you can start today. I'm doctor Lee Warren.
Speaker 3:I'll talk to you soon. God bless you, friend. Have a great day.