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Good morning my friend, I hope you're doing well. Dr. Lee Warren here with you with a little self brain surgery today and I am so excited.
It is November 1st.
It's November 1st and that means it's New Thing November.
New Thing November is one of my favorite parts of the year because we've been working all
year and trying to figure stuff out and make changes and deal with our traumas and our
tragedies and our massive things and learn and grow and change and break habits and form
new ones and all this stuff and yet sometimes we get towards the end of the
year and we get this sinking feeling that we haven't really made the kind of
progress that we wanted to make or maybe we have and we recognize that we're on
the threshold of finally breaking through to wherever it is that that the
Lord is calling us to in our life or maybe if you're not a believer maybe you're at some place where you're starting to question some things maybe
you've been listening to self brain surgery maybe you've been reading some of the books we've talked about maybe you just found this podcast and somebody
He said, hey, maybe this will help you.
And maybe you're on this verge of something in your life.
And you feel like, gosh, next year, I really think maybe this could be the year, okay? Maybe this is it.
Now, I just wanna give you today a little bit of encouragement that we're in New Thing November.
And later today, I'm gonna drop the last year's New Thing November episode.
In that one, we covered all the ground from scripture, like what the idea is, what God can do.
He's gonna make a way in the desert. He's gonna part the waters,
He's gonna create an opportunity, because He says it, forget the former things,
this is Isaiah 43 by the way, forget the former things, I'm doing a new thing.
And I'm just telling you, if God has a new thing for you in your life,
or let's say you don't even believe, okay, what if it is possible that the creator of the universe
has a plan and a purpose for your life,
and this is the time that you can engage with it?
Well, obviously, if you haven't engaged with it before, it's gonna take something remarkable to happen
to get you ready and able to engage with it again.
And I would suggest to you, as your friendly internet brain surgeon,
I would suggest that the thing that's gonna have to happen,
is that you're gonna have to change your mind because what got you here, to this place
where you feel like you're on the threshold, you feel like you're on the verge,
you're finally gonna break through from that trauma, the tragedy, the massive thing, the stuck place,
the inertia that you've been in, whatever it is, or all these positive changes that you've been making,
you feel like you're just on the cusp of having it all coalesce and come together
and where you really want to be.
Maybe you've given up a long time ago, and you said you know what I really don't think I can change,
I really don't think maybe this is just how it is or maybe you're actually happy and everything's going right for you
And you're doing great,
Well, then what would be the purpose of you just cruising along for the rest of your life in this sort of this sort?
Of place where everything stays the same I would suggest to you from neuroscience
That if you are in a place where everything stays the same all the time when you're stuck in a routine
and even if that routine is good and you've battled all your demons and you've recovered from all your traumas and you and you've
Solved all your sin problems and you know all those things you're comfortable in your state of belief or disbelief,
From the neuroscience standpoint when you stop learning you start getting old.
So for Those of you listening my friend out there who is older and you're saying gosh
I wonder if there's anything left for me to do in my life. I wonder why I woke up this morning
There's something that is you're in some place where you say gosh, I'm not sure what it is. I'm supposed to be doing now,
Well, guess what?
We've learned clearly now that your brain stops growing and starts getting smaller unless you give it new challenges and new things to learn
So maybe new thing November for you is hey, I need to start doing some things with my brain again
I need to start engaging with other people. I need to start re-engaging with community
I need to start working puzzles or solving challenges or finding work to do. I need something to keep my brain growing,
Okay.
There's a link between the inactivity of elderly people and the thing that happens
in the hippocampus of depressed people.
And they've shown both of those have hippocampuses that get smaller.
They become harder to form new memories. It becomes harder to remember old memories.
Why? You have to engage your brain to keep it active.
So here on the cusp of New Thing November, I would just say that wherever you are in
your life, if you're a young person and you feel like things just don't taste quite
right in society and culture right now. Well guess what? We're gonna cover some
ground this month to give you some new ways to think about that. And if you're
in a place in your life where you're reeling from some trauma or tragedy or
massive pain, massive hurt, massive loss, something bad's happening, you're dealing
with a big illness or injury or somebody you love has died or something bad has
happened in your life and you're trying to figure out a way to recover from that,
you'll find community here and we're gonna give you some new ways to think.
About that. Okay, we have some incredible guests coming up on the show this month.
We're gonna learn about the forces that govern our universe from a famous astrophysicist Michael Gillan, a PhD that trained at Cornell with Carl Sagan. We're,
gonna hear about the amazing story of grace from Philip Yancey, a Christian
writer who's sold a hundred million books and has helped people all over the
world grapple with the big hard questions like where is God when it hurts and what's so amazing about grace. Philip's coming back on the show. We're,
We're gonna learn about prayer from Tish Harrison Warren, Anglican priest, the author of two different books of hers
have been Christian Book of the Year, and Tish is gonna help us reframe our thinking
about the power of liturgical prayer and the power available to us
and learning how to keep a calendar of events
of leading up to Jesus and what that can do for us in our life.
We're gonna walk through a massive thing that happened to country music singer Granger Smith
when he lost his little boy River through a tragic drowning accident.
We're gonna hear from Granger about how he managed to navigate that with his wife Amber and their other kids and their family and what
Their life looks like going forward and the power of faith and recovering from trauma and tragedy,
And we're gonna look at the evidence from God from Lee Strobel the guy who wrote the case for Christ
He's got a new book coming out. He's gonna be on the show this month We're gonna learn about a man who has an interviewed over a thousand people who had near-death,
experiences and that came away almost to a person saying God loves me and he loves you and he sent me back here for a
purpose and a plan. John Burke is going to be on the show this month. We've got
some incredible guests, I'm telling you. We are gonna change our minds in November, friend. This is the month that's going to change your minds. 30 days to a,
new thing. And if you're all about it, I'm telling you, this is the month. Today I
just have three scriptures for you, three ideas from science, two songs, and we're,
gonna get after it. But before we do that, I got one question for you.
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. Are you ready to change your life? Well, this is
the place. Self Brain Surgery School. I'm Dr. Lee Warren and this is where we go
deep into how we're wired. Take control of our thinking and find real hope. This.
This is where we learn to become healthier, feel better, and be happier.
This is where we leave the past behind and transform our minds.
This is where we start today. Are you ready?
This is your podcast. This is your place. This is your time, my friend. Let's get after it.
Music.
All right, you ready to get after it? I am. It's a new thing, November. Hey,
I'm gonna give you two scriptures real quick just to kind of set the scene. Isaiah 61,
the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to
the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the,
captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's
favor in the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn and provide for
those who grieve and Zion to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes
the oil of joy instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of
despair there will be called oaks of righteousness a planting of the Lord for
the display of his splendor listen friend if that stuff sounds good to you,
If it sounds good, like you need a year of favor, your life has looked like a long string
of traumas and tragedies and massive things, or maybe you've just been in this rut, and
you're stuck in some place, and you feel like there's more, like God's calling you to more.
You feel like you're just so frustrated that every day feels the same, and you're always
tired of being so tired, and everything feels so hard. Well, maybe it sounds pretty good when somebody says.
Came here to comfort those who mourn and provide for those who grieve and bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes
And the oil of joy instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair,
Maybe I'm tired of being blown around by all these events in my life blown around by other people.
Blown around by cultural shifts, and I'm ready to be called an oak of righteousness remember. I referenced that
that concept that I heard from Granger Smith where he said tree roots in and of themselves
aren't really any stronger than a branch,
but the same thing, they're just branches, but they grow down into the soil and they go deep
and they intertwine with other branches from other trees and they create this incredible, resilient, powerful strength
that can resist all kinds of trouble.
And that's why the oaks are so mighty and so strong.
A planting of the Lord. Maybe that sounds good to you.
Jesus between 700 and 740 years after Isaiah prophesied that.
Nobody's exactly sure of the time, but most scholars think it was around 700 or so years,
a little over 700 years between the life of Isaiah the prophet and the life of Jesus.
And here Jesus shows up in Luke chapter four, 700 years later, and he says,
when he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath
and stood up to read the scriptures.
The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him.
He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written, the spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free,
and that the time of the Lord's favor, the year of the Lord's favor has come.
He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down.
All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently, then he began to speak to them.
The scripture you have just heard has been fulfilled this very day.
Listen friend if you feel like you're in that place where your life is stuck. You're in a rut
You're on the superhighway You you can't break out of what trauma and tragedy and massive things or maybe just the inertia of sameness
Or maybe just you've been performing pretty well but you know
There's more in your life or maybe you just you're just tired of the oil of mourning you you're tired,
of the ashes of your life.
And maybe it's time to do what happened here all eyes Jesus to look intently at the guy who came along 700 years of this wallowing
in misery that the people had been having and Jesus said today's the day the year of the Lord's favor is here I have fulfilled this and guess what we
know Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever and when Jesus talked
he said when I show up that's the year of the favor beginning in your life,
Notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say, I'm going to remove all the things
that happened that made you mourn. I'm not going to time travel back in the
past and unwind all those years of captivity and unwind all that trauma you've been through. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to go back and
make it not have happened. Okay? I'm going to set you free from the response to it.
I'm going to give you a new way to see it. I'm going to teach you how to have
of joy in the midst of your suffering. He says in John 10, 10, the thief has come,
he's gonna steal and kill and destroy.
I came here that you can have an abundant life. He didn't say I'm gonna zap you out of this life.
And into a new one, that's coming later.
We know what's gonna happen, okay?
He says, I'm gonna teach you the secret to living in this life and finding joy and abundance
and meaning and purpose despite the pain.
Okay, that's what happens when Jesus shows up. If that sounds pretty good to you if you're saying yeah, I need me a year like that
I need a year of that favor Well, guess what what got you to this place friend one of our tenants of self brain surgery one of our rules.
Is that what got you here to this place where you're you're just you know, something's got to give,
Something's got to change what got you here to this place isn't gonna get you to the next place
So we need a new thing, right? We need a new thing. Well, that's what new thing November's about. Okay, it's about that
Now I want to give you a concept of all places of all people,
I was scrolling through Instagram the other day, and there's this you know the guy the rock the actor used to be a WWF,
Guy the rock Dwayne Johnson big massive human being.
He was on somebody's podcast and he said a sentence that's just stuck with me ever since I heard it. He said hey,
They were talking about training and fitness and stuff and he was talking about getting into a routine and getting stronger and all that stuff
So the context is different, but he said hey every day the secret Here's the secret to making something happen to making some change in your life. Here's the secret,
Every day is either one day Or it's day one. It's one day or it's day one and i'm just going to suggest to you friend
And I've been thinking about that a lot. Our problem is we keep having day one. We keep saying I'm gonna make this happen
I'm shake this out. I'm gonna change this thing I'm gonna get after it and with New Year's Day is the time when everybody starts this day one idea
We all get these New Year's resolutions, right?
And 85% of them are abandoned within two weeks one Because we have a hard time shaking off the inertia of the past and really making change and it's easy,
You get it back to you get a big dopamine hit you get some big neurotransmitter release when you just think about it
Or talk about doing something new and so everybody's great with day one. Let's get after it,
But day two and day three and day four is when it gets hard and the problem is once you once you try.
To make some change to learn something new engage with something new change a habit break a habit,
Once you try and you fail it seems like it's harder to have another day one, isn't it?
Because there's there's there's guilt and there's shame layered on top of it now, and I didn't make it last time
It's gonna be harder Well, I'm gonna tell you the neuroscience of that in a minute and the fact that actually is harder to start over
It actually is harder to learn something after you've tried to learn it before it's harder
I'll tell you why and the good news about why it actually works But first I want to just give you a song from Matthew West is a song called day one
This is a special song to me and Lisa because when we were moving from Alabama to Wyoming to start this grand adventure that resulted
In us ending up in Nebraska later on talking to you today,
sitting out here by the river.
We turned on the radio literally as we backed out of the driveway turned on the radio,
It's one of those satellite Christian radio stations And the first song that came on is was I was literally putting my car from neutral from reverse into forward to drive,
Out of our driveway and the life we had in Auburn where we raised our children
To move off to Wyoming for this grand adventure. The song was Matthew West song day one,
And so I want to I want to just give you this idea. There's nothing wrong with a day one,
Okay, but I want you to start having a bunch of one days in there. So yeah, I can do this just one more day
We're gonna keep going. We're gonna keep getting after it and I want you just for a second
Take a journal or if you're driving just think about it write it down If you can make a note in your phone
What would it look like if you had 30 days in new thing November to get we're getting ready for this year of the Lord's
Favor we're gonna get everything out of our way that might keep us from fully engaging with the year of the Lord's favor,
Okay, we're going to talk about that in a minute, but what would it look like if you
had stacked up 30 good days instead of 30 day ones?
What would that look like? So think about some areas of your life where you want to make that happen.
Listen to this song.
Let's just think about it for a minute because it's either day one or it's just one day.
Which one's it gonna be for you?
Music.
♪ Wish the only thing my eyes could see was the future ♪ ♪ Burning bright right in front of me ♪
♪ But I can't stop looking back ♪ ♪ Yeah I wish I was a perfect picture of somebody ♪
♪ Who's never not good enough ♪ ♪ Well I try to measure up but I mess it up ♪
♪ And I wish I wasn't like that ♪.
Music.
All right, so there's a good thing about day ones, okay, and I want you to think about that because we're if you if you're,
Resonating with what Isaiah and Jesus said about I want to give you a year of favor
It doesn't mean you're gonna have a year with no problems. That's not what he's saying
He's saying he can teach you the science and the the actual on the ground reality,
That you can live in a hard world friend, but not live in suffering You can learn to find joy and peace and purpose and maybe even hope and happiness and definitely even hope and happiness again,
if you learn this concept of one day and here's that here's the way you do it our,
Scripture our main theme for the month new thing. November is Isaiah 43 and later today,
I'm gonna re-release last year's new thing. November. We go deep into the scripture. I'm just gonna touch on it here
Isaiah 43 18 and 19 forget the former things do not dwell on the past,
See I am doing a new thing now. It springs up. Do you not perceive it?
I'm making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland So if your life has felt like a wilderness in which you have been wandering around.
If your life has felt like a wasteland if you can't shake yourself out Of grief or pain or loss or the massive thing or the trauma or whatever it's been or you just feel stuck,
Okay, God says I've got a plan and a purpose for you forget the former things
You don't have to say I've been stuck like this for a long time. It's just how I am. My parents were this way
I can't get out of this habit. I can't change my reality. I can't overcome this adversity.
God says hey, I'm doing a new thing Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? I'm making a way in the wilderness and,
Streams in the wasteland one of the secrets to doing this just to forget the former things,
Is to remember the neuroscience of memories?
I thought we talked about this recently the neurobiology of old memories And the truth is you don't just recall a memory and re-experience it,
Every time you interact with the memory, you modify it.
It's been clearly shown now. You activate the DNA to trigger the event that brings that memory back to mind.
And you interact with it, and it gets changed.
The chemical structure of the expressed gene that creates the triggered memory in your brain
gets modified and stored again.
And so what happens is you bring a memory from the past, and you think you're just remembering it.
It. What you're actually doing it is interpreting it in the context of who you are now, with the insights and knowledge and understanding and wisdom
that you've gained from all these years you've been dealing with that thing.
And you're judging...
Events that led to that memory happening based on the person that you are today, and it's not a fair fight,
And then you recode that memory and store it again And the next time you call it another day or two or five or ten years from now,
You now have an even bigger thing because now it looks like boy that mistake
I made was really stupid because I remember now and I should have known better
But the problem is what the next time you activate the memory,
It really does look dramatically different because you're comparing it to the context of somebody who already
understood and learned all the lessons from the thing that you did or that happened to you and,
Now you're judging that event having happened as if you knew all that stuff when it happened.
I know I'm speaking to somebody right now. I know somebody's going. Yeah, I'm pretty I'm bad about,
Making myself really really guilty about something that when it actually occurred
I didn't have the insight to know that it shouldn't have occurred so that I'm gonna leave that land there
We talked about it in a new thing November, but here's the secret from a scriptural standpoint is Psalm 37 fret not yourself.
Because of evildoers be not envious of wrongdoers for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb
She's don't worry about other people. Don't fret yourself. Don't stress yourself out about what other people are doing,
Verse three, trust in the Lord and do good.
Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. You wanna stop worrying so much?
Get good at being faithful. Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Does that mean he'll give you every dollar, every super lotto, every promotion,
every person that you think you want?
No, it means if you line yourself up with him and his wishes and his will for your life,
He's going to give them to you and His things will be better than anything you could have
imagined for yourself.
Verse 5, commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and He will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.
Remember Psalm 46, cease striving and know that I am God. Here he's saying it again, Psalm 37, be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.
This is the second time he said it.
Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way.
Then verse 8, refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not yourself.
This is three times in eight verses he said this. Fret not yourself.
It tends only to evil. Stop worrying about yourself so much, friend.
You want to do something new? You got to shake out of what's old.
It's a good thing about day ones is you can say today's the day I'm gonna start but it's really sad when you every day
You say I gotta start over now. It's day one again We tried this thing Lisa was much more successful at it than I am. I was.
This thing called 75 hard were like for 75 days you're supposed to do two 45-minute workouts a day and drink a gallon of water and,
Follow a specific diet and not drink any alcohol and read a paper book for a certain number of minutes and all this stuff that
that you have to check these boxes every single day for 75 days.
And the thing about the app is, if you don't get it done, it pops up the next day and says,
you didn't check the boxes yesterday. Did you fail or did you just forget to check the boxes?
And if you're honest, you have to say, I failed. And if you click that button that says I failed,
the calendar resets back to day one.
And you go, oh man, I was 34 days into that. I never got that far.
I was 17 days or something.
And at least I got way farther. But every day it would be like some emergency happened
at the hospital or I got called in or I was up all night or something.
I just didn't get it done.
And the app doesn't give you any mercy.
It's like, it's either one more day, you click off that box and you did it,
or it's day one all over again.
And I'm just telling you that even on a simple level, it is disheartening to have to know
that you're gonna have to do day one all over again.
And so that's why I think New Thing November is so important.
We are making some decisions this month.
We're gonna stop fretting ourselves. We're gonna forget the former things.
We're gonna embrace this idea that God wants to give us a year of favor.
He wants to teach us the way in which we can get our brains working on our behalf,
and get our mind and our body and our spirit finally working so we can do what Hebrews 12 says.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us, there's two things here, throw off everything that hinders.
And the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance,
the race marked out for us. Listen to what he's saying.
He's saying there's some stuff that's hindering you, friend,
and it's not sin, okay?
And you need to throw it off anyway. If it's slowing you down in this pursuit
of what God is calling you to, if there's something in your life that is slowing you down,
he says it's time to throw it off.
And there's witnesses waiting for you to succeed. There are people begging you to get it done.
And you know who they are, okay?
Throw off everything that hinders, it's day one.
And the sin that's so easily entangled, sometimes it is sin.
Some of you, somebody listening today, is engaged in some behavior that is keeping you
from running the race that you're being called to run.
I probably don't need to say more about that. There's a contact in your phone that you need to delete.
There's a friend on Facebook that you need to unfriend and block.
There is somebody at work that you need to stop interacting with.
Okay? There's something. There's a habit that you're engaging in that you need to get out of your house and
stop blaming the devil for something in your cabinet, right?
If it's Cheetos, if it's wine, if it's whatever that's hindering you,
that you're paying these tomorrow taxes over and over again, it's time to stop.
Maybe you know that if there's a sin that you're doing that there's something in your life
That's holding you up and don't make it over complicated James says if you know what you're supposed to do and you don't do it
That's sin for you. If you know, you're not supposed to do something and you do it anyway, that's sin for you
So that's sin. Okay, maybe there's some sin in your life that you need to get rid of
Maybe there's just some bad habits or maybe there's just some things that you know
You're not spending your time in a way that is helping you move the needle. Maybe Instagram isn't your friend right now,
Maybe it's time to make some changes. Okay.
So what he's saying here is there's some stuff that's in your way and there's a problem called cognitive dissonance
I had Annie Grace on the podcast a while back. She wrote a book called this naked mind about alcohol,
She's helped a million probably millions certainly hundreds of thousands of people around the world
change their relationship with alcohol.
We talked the other day about it. Is alcohol inherently sinful?
No. Does it help you physiologically in any meaningful way? No.
Does it have any health benefits? No. Does it directly kill neurons in your brain? Yes.
Does it disengage your prefrontal cortex and make it harder for you to make good decisions?
Yes. There are some good scientifically validated reasons not to drink alcohol.
And there are some scriptural imperatives not to be an overuser of alcohol.
But what do we have? We have this problem called cognitive dissonance.
This is why rehab programs often fail.
This is why bootstrapping often fails when it comes to changing habits
or giving up things to which we are addicted,
whatever they might be, alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, gambling, whatever, okay?
One of the things is because of a cognitive dissonance problem, and that is this idea that you say one thing,
I really want to quit doing this. I really want to stop eating Cheetos.
I really want to quit, you know, stopping at Sonic and getting a large cherry slush
and a large cheese tater tot. Not that anybody in their right mind would do that, okay?
You want to stop it, but at the same time, in your heart or in your mind,
you've got this, but I deserve it.
It helps me. I can't sleep without it. I can't stop thinking about this thing
if I don't have a cigarette.
You have this cognitive dissonance. So on one hand, you say out loud
the goal that you have, or the thing that you want, and on the other hand you say in
your spirit, but I really need it.
And I'm just telling you, you can't successfully stop anything, at least not in an abundant way.
Without getting rid of the cognitive dissonance. And that's something you need to do, like,
for example, with alcohol. If you look at it and say, hey, it's a carcinogen, it's directly linked
to seven human cancers, it makes me stupid, it makes me gain weight, it doesn't help me
with relationships, it causes me headaches and trouble at work the next day. If you can list
Stop all those things and really believe them and you say what's the value to my life? How is this thing helping me?
Then you can take the scissors and cut the synapse of the cognitive dissonance to where you you,
think about the thing and all the thing that all the things that you've used it for and that triggers this emotional and
Neurotransmitter release to where you say I'm gonna get some benefit from this thing until you get to where you know
There is no benefit to you,
to doing the thing Or using the thing or taking the thing or calling the person until you convince yourself that there is no benefit,
You you will continue to slide into that behavior. That's sure there are some addicts,
My friend Caroline Bidler listening right now. I'm sure if you hear this you probably nodding your head
There are some addicts who actually do quit drinking alcohol and they spend the rest of their life and they go to a meeting every day
and they keep the chip in their pocket and they fumble it around between their fingers and they,
Rigorously avoid people they used to drink with and they just gut it out and they live their whole life and they never drink again
But their entire life becomes defined by not drinking alcohol. They don't have joy. They don't have peace
They don't have purpose. They can't make progress because they're consumed with the process of not drinking alcohol
alcohol. Okay? And those people, for the most part, still have a cognitive dissonance issue
and they're just disciplining themselves to not give into it. Okay?
The people who are really set free and remember we're about this we're about this isaiah 43 thing where we want to be set free
Where i'm, i'm, sorry that the isaiah.
Passage I quoted earlier where he says this is the years the year of the lord's favor.
Okay, this is isaiah 61 the spirit of the sovereign lord is on me because the lord has anointed me to proclaim good news
On the poor to bind up the brokenhearted proclaim freedom for the captives if you want to be free,
of this thing you have to get your brain to cut out those areas of cognitive
dissonance and you have to know it is not going to help you so once you know
that once you know and you've made this decision that the things that you need
to cast off and then not necessarily simple things but anything that's hindering you anything that's holding you back then you can cut that chain of,
cognitive dissonance and you can really commit to new change now here's some
Neuroscience for you. Why is it so hard? We all know this you try something you try to learn something new
you try to start something new you try to stop something you try to change something and,
You you start it and then you convince yourself You need to do it again, or you need to quit doing it or whatever and you stop
So you've had day one and then you have stopped and now you got to do day one again,
Why is it so hard to do it again? Why does it get harder and harder and harder?
There's a couple of things one is you build up this belief that because you failed in the past that you'll fail again,
But you build up this belief this inertia that the way it is and has been is the way it's always going to be and,
Then you can you develop a cognitive dissonance around the idea that yes, I want to change but I know that I can't,
Okay, so that's part of it. But here's the other part.
Inside your brain What you're doing you're getting better at I said that before what you're doing you're getting better at let me tell you why Eric Kandel,
Won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2000. Here's something he says I'm quoting from Dawson Church's book genie in your genes,
changes in gene expression alter the strength of synaptic connections and structural changes that alter the
anatomical pattern of Interconnections between nerve cells of the brain. It's a big sentence. Let me break it down for you,
When you experience something, think something, or feel something, you alter gene expression.
We've been talking about that a lot lately.
That's the basis of neurobiology. It's the basis of epigenetics.
It's this whole idea that the genes that you have, you're not stuck with.
You can turn them on and off by changing how you think about things. Okay?
And those changes in gene expression, when we think differently...
Change how strongly Neurons connect with one another how strongly synapses are formed and here's an experiment that he did this guy won the Nobel Prize
Okay, this is not pseudoscience. This is for real,
Candel discovered that when new memories are established when you first start trying to think of something or do something or engage in something,
The number of synaptic connections in the sensory neurons that he stimulated,
jumps from a baseline of about 1,300, so connections between neurons about 1,300, to about 2,600 within minutes.
So your brain is looking for a job to do with all these new cells and this ability to create
connections between them. Your brain is always looking to automate something and make it easier for you so you don't have
to work as hard at it.
So within minutes of trying something new, you double the synaptic connections between
and the neurons around the idea that you're trying to establish.
But, here's the but, unless that initial experience is reinforced,
the number of connections quickly drops back down, within about three weeks,
drops back down to the baseline of 1,300.
So, in other words, your brain is just ready to jump in and connect a bunch of cells together
and wire something for you that will make it easier.
So, today's day one, and you wanna try something new, you wanna stop something, change something,
quit something, add something, your brain is ready to go.
What you're doing, you're getting better at, okay? But if you stop again, then within a month,
so you form these new synapses within a minute.
You remove them within a month, and within two or three months, this is what's fascinating,
the baseline number of connections around the thing that you tried to do
drops from the baseline of around 1,300 synapses,
down to about 800, which means, let's say you're gonna add on a room to your house, okay?
Our electrician Tyler's gonna come over and add some wiring for us because we're gonna we've framed out a room
I'm just making this up Let's say we frame out a room on the side of my office and we're gonna make my office bigger and while we're framing it
Out so Alex the carpenters framing it out and our friend Tyler the electrician comes over,
And he lays a bunch of wire in this new room that we're gonna build so that we're ready,
Right, we're ready for all the extra electrical stuff that we're gonna add all the stuff that we're gonna need to plug in over there
Right, so then we make a decision we change our minds and we decide we're not gonna build that room and Alex comes over and removes
the framing then then
Tyler's gonna come over and he's gonna take those wires that he put out there and he's gonna roll them back up,
So that we can use them somewhere else if we decide to move that room to a different place,
Or add some stuff on the inside of the house. He's gonna move those wires because we don't need them, right?
We're not gonna just leave them out in the yard Or we're gonna move them your brain does the same thing except much more efficiently your brain says, okay
I've expended all this energy to lay this pipe all these new synapses these interneurons have grown out there and now you're not using them
So I'm gonna prune them back and I'm gonna take all that DNA and all those nucleotides and all those.
Amino acids and all those microtubules. I'm gonna take that structural stuff and I'm gonna use it somewhere else
I'm gonna break those cells down and go over here and add it to
memories and events and thought processes and habits and patterns that you're that you actually are using and then on top of that your brain says I'm,
gonna take some of the the parasynaptic stuff around those things that you're
actually not using now and I'm gonna get rid of them too because clearly you're
not gonna need them and so what happens then is the next time you try to start
that thing again friend you are less well equipped to do it than you were the
first time. Your brain is less agile in that area of thought than it was the
first time. Why? Because your brain is efficient and if you don't form your
brain purposefully, your brain will form itself. Life will form it for you because,
what you're doing you're getting better at. So if you continue and the things
that have gotten you here, the patterns, the thought processes, the behaviors, the
things that are hindering you and holding you back, these things that you say out loud that you want to change, but you don't change them, or you try and you
quit and you keep having day one over and over, it gets harder and harder and harder
structurally to make those changes because your brain is using those same building blocks
of cells to keep you the way that you are.
Let that hit you. It gets harder and harder to make these changes the more times you try.
Now, don't give up. Don't let that be an excuse.
It's just saying that if you switch your attention and really try this new thing that God wants
you to do, guess what will happen? Your brain will say, oh, wait a minute, now we are using these neurons.
Now I need to reinforce. And quickly, quickly, quickly, you'll build.
You'll fire those experience-dependent genes. You'll start making new synapses.
You'll start building up. You continue to reinforce those every day, so you have one day and one day and one day
and you keep going.
Then you're going to make robust synaptic connections and make that new thing the thing
that will then define your life.
This is important. We're talking about structurally changing our brains for healing and hope and how it
works and why you need to be doing it.
Does that make sense? It's day one, friend.
It's day one of a brand new day, of a brand new life, of the year of the Lord's favor.
He's got something for you. He wants you to stop fretting yourself.
He wants you to forget the former things. He wants you to know, okay, that he can make a way in the wilderness where there is no
way. You might be on the road to the Red Sea, but he's going to part it, and you're going to
cross that thing on dry ground.
He's going to come alongside you in your suffering. He's going to wipe away your tears.
He says, this is the year of the Lord's favor. I am coming to get in your story, not to beam you out of it.
I'm coming to get down in the middle of it with you, friend.
And I'm going to help you learn to find abundance in the midst of the painful things you're going through.
You've been through trauma and you've been through tragedy and you've been through massive things and you're hurting.
And you're saying, I've got to this place, but I know that what got me here
won't get me there. And it's new. It's a new thing, November.
And I'm ready to change my mind and change my life so I can start today.
I'm ready to get after it.
That's what this is all about, my friend.
I'm gonna give you one more thought, okay? One more thought.
We've been sick. I've tried to record this episode six times now over several days.
Today, I canceled clinic. Damon and I both are sick.
Lisa's sick, Tata's sick.
Damon, my PA, is sick, and we actually canceled clinic. And if you're one of those patients that got canceled,
I'm really sorry, but this is only the third clinic day in 22 years that I've had to cancel because I was sick.
I'm just running a fever and not feeling good and it's been over a week now and we're just not doing great,
But but today is the day I'm just telling you we've been trying over and over and there's a reason why I've had such a
hard time recording this episode and it's because I finally realized I needed to tell you this one thing and if I hadn't if I,
Hadn't had all those starts and stops. I wouldn't have gotten to tell you this one thing, but here it is,
I've been training Up until the last two weeks been training for this half marathon that my brother-in-law Ronnie wants to run
I've never run a half marathon before.
Didn't even think I was a runner until Lisa convinced me I could do it years ago,
But here's the thing. I've been training for this half marathon and I learned something about my own body,
And I learned something about your body too in the course of training for this and it's important and at the same time
We've been experimenting with this intermittent fasting idea My cousin will wants me to do an episode about the neuroscience of intermittent fasting and I'm going to at some point but to do
I needed to learn about it more and exactly what happens in your brain and in your body when you fast.
And I've discovered a corollary that I think it's applicable in running It's certainly applicable in fasting and I think it's applicable the new thing November in anything that you're wanting to try
And here's what I've learned now,
Obviously, there's some limits to this what I'm about to say forgive me if if it doesn't seem very sensitive if you got certain,
orthopedic or medical problems or if your BMI is really super high or if you are
or infirm in some way, and you can't run a mile
or you can't walk a mile, then this doesn't apply in exactly the same way.
But you'll find some area of your life that it does. So forgive me, I'm not saying everybody should be able
to get off the couch and go run a mile today. That's obviously not possible for everybody, okay?
It's not.
And there are some people with certain medical conditions that ought not to fast, okay?
They can't fast for very long, it's not good for them. So talk to your doctor before you consider
intermittent fasting as a spiritual or dietary practice, okay?
So just with those two caveats, let me say this. What I learned about my body is the first 24 hours
of a fast is not about being hungry.
It's not about my biochemistry. It's not about my metabolism. It's about my brain.
If I want to be successful in a 24 or 36 or 48 hour fast, it is not at all because I'm too hungry to go on.
I don't quit and give up because I'm too hungry.
My body has plenty of reserve fuel and you gotta give it enough hours of not putting something in your mouth
to turn those biochemical equations around and activate the Krebs cycle and start burning fat
that you stored in organs and start mobilizing carbohydrates that you stored in your liver.
You've got the biochemical tools to do a prolonged fast. You do.
What's hard is your brain. Your fingers start itching to open that bag of Cheetos.
You walk through the kitchen and the jar of M&M's is sitting there, or whatever, and your
brain says you need something.
Your brain says that you need to eat this thing or feel this thing or do that thing or call that person your brain is
What's hard to get under control and that is why Paul said I buff it my body
I make my body my slave I tell my brain what's gonna happen I don't let my brain tell me that I need to eat or do this thing or do that thing
Okay, and the same thing is true with running. I've learned that the first mile is not about my body,
It's not about how hard it is. It's not that I don't have the energy It's not that my muscles won't do it the first mile. It's about my brain. I don't feel like this. My knees bugging me,
Gosh, it's cold outside. I'm I really I don't have time for this I need to be doing this the first mile or two of a run is not about my body,
It's about my brain and I've got to learn how to get my brain under control
So that I can tell it to tell my body what to do.
And I'm just telling you Find the way that's applicable to you may not be running may not be fasting. It might be about how you spend your money,
It might be about whether you choose to invest a dollar or spend a dollar. It might be about a relationship
It might be about something else, but there's a part a good part
Maybe the most part of whatever you're trying to change That's not so much about the thing is it is about your brain in your mind and how you think about the thing,
So here on New Things November, I think Psalm 37 is the secret sauce.
Fret not yourself. Quit worrying about yourself. And sometimes quit enabling yourself.
Get rid of the cognitive dissonance and say, really, if I want to change this thing, what
got me here to this day is because what I've been doing, I've been getting better at.
And I've been staying the same because I've been staying the same.
It's a fascinating research, by the way. Tony Robbins and the sort of self-help guys
are always saying, if you want to feel better, do better, which is a great saying, but the neuroscience is this.
They did some interesting research on Botox. So plastic surgeons noticed that when they did Botox,
their patients came back and said, not only do I look better, but I feel better.
And so somebody decided to study that, and they found, this is interesting,
people that got Botox in one study, or a couple of studies actually,
reported statistically significant decreases and symptoms related to major depression, okay?
To depression.
Why? Because they looked in the mirror and they saw a person that didn't look like
they were sleepy and tired and stressed and frustrated. They looked in the mirror and they saw a person
that looked more relaxed and more at peace.
And then they felt more relaxed and more at peace because they looked more at rest and more at peace.
And what the research showed is that your brain has this incredible feedback loop.
So not only can you tell your brain what to do and it'll do it and it'll turn your body and your life into that reality.
You can also see something happen with your life and you can then feed back on your brain
and decide that that thing is really true.
Okay, and this is why if you want to feel better do better. I'm not telling you to go get Botox. Okay, I'm saying,
Your brain is this incredibly sensitive,
Feedback organism, okay, and it receives input from your environment including what you see,
And what you hear and what you feel in order to decide what's real and what needs to be reinforced,
And when you make yourself do that hard thing go to the gym Don't spend the money invest the money instead make the phone call. You've been avoiding do the thing
We learned already that the hippocampus gets stronger the medial cingulate cortex.
Gets stronger and you get more resilient and more willpower when you do the thing you didn't want to do,
It also turns out to be true that when you work out a little better You get Botox or you do something that makes you look better
And this is the same principle behind the dress for success idea,
You're gonna get on a zoom call go ahead and put a suit on and you feel more successful
So you present yourself more successful. You look better. You feel better you act better
It feeds on itself and you become better why it's not a magic trick,
It's because your brain responds to sensory cues Okay, so if you want to be successful in new thing November, I'm not telling you to go get Botox or go buy a suit
I'm telling you put yourself in a position to win do some things that tomorrow you'll say hey
I'm really proud of myself that I did that thing,
I want to feel that again and before long you're gonna be doubling and tripling and quadrupling the synapses around that thing and you're gonna
Find you're getting some traction,
Moving forward and you're gonna have a stack of one days on top of one another and before you know it
That'll be 30 days and then you'll get through December and it'll be 60 days and you'll hit January 1st
and you'll say, you know what? I feel it.
I believe it. I know the Lord is gonna do something. This is the year of the Lord's favor on my life. He said it, why?
Because Jesus showed up and all eyes were on him.
And he sat down and handed that scroll back and he said, this prophecy has been fulfilled.
And so friend, I just wanna ask you.
Are you tired of the way it's been? Are you ready for the year of the Lord's favor?
Would you love it if he said, the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me?
He's anointing me to proclaim good news to the poor and to bind up the brokenhearted
and proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.
He's ready for me to comfort those who mourn and provide for those who grieve
and bestow on me a crown of beauty instead of ashes, an oil of joy instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
I'm ready to be called an oak of righteousness instead of getting blown around,
By all this trouble friend. Are you ready for that?
Are you ready for the year of the Lord's favor? Well, if you are it's time to get after it,
It's time to make some changes. It's time to change our mind and change our life
I'm gonna give you a song my friend Tommy Walker and his daughter I lane highest praises this song is a great way for you to spend three or four minutes and it says these words
He's stronger than depression. He's stronger than
addiction. He sets the captives free. He's the guy who can help you change your
mind and change your life. We're gonna play highest praises and then we're gonna get after a new thing November. This is gonna be an incredible month on
the podcast because we are casting off the chains my friend. We are going to
make it stick and we're gonna embrace the next year of our lives as the year
of the Lord's favor and the good news is we're gonna 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.
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