"Nothing Can Help Me!": All-In August #9

Good morning, my friend. I am so excited to be with you today. I'm Dr.

Lee Warren, and I'm a neurosurgeon, and we are going to do some self-brain surgery

today because it's Frontal Lobe Friday.

It's also all in August. This is my favorite month, I think,

of the whole podcasting year because we get after it and we start saying,

hey, it's time to get there from here.

The definition of hope is the belief that you can get there from here.

And what happens to us so many times in our lives is we keep performing the

same things over and over. We keep running the same place.

We keep ending up in the same place. And we keep throwing up our hands and saying,

how did this happen again?

Nothing's changed. I can't seem to break through. Now listen.

Now look, I understand that you're listening because you've gone through something.

Most folks that listen to this podcast have been through some sort of major

trauma, massive thing, dealing with some huge problem, tragedy issue,

lost somebody, lost a child, lost a spouse, lost a parent, going through cancer,

dealing with some major adversity.

But not everybody that listens to this show is in that place.

You might be here because you're just looking to break through to a higher level.

You're interested in the neuroscience of how you can perform better.

And I'm here to motivate you that it is possible to reach a different gear,

to break through to a new level.

And we're all about using the idea that we're not just our brains.

We're not just stuck with our genetics, our past history, our family,

our upbringing, the things that traumas and tragedies and whatnot have happened

that have broken our brains in certain ways, and that's what we're dealing with and we're left with.

No, we're about the truth from neuroscience and quantum physics and scripture

smashed together other, that mind is in control of brain, that the brain is

not the boss of you, that your body and your brain feed back to your mind,

but your mind is in charge.

And if you learn how to operate that system properly, you can break through

to a level of performance and achievement and even peace and happiness in your

life, no matter what you've gone through.

You can develop a new level of resilience, no matter what you go through in the future.

You can develop a treatment plan for developing hope and finding purpose and

meaning in any situation.

That's what self-brain surgery can do for us, but only if we go all in.

Now, you understand, and you hear me talk about it all the time.

That I believe the highest level of human operating is when we connect our minds

to the Holy Spirit of God who created us, the great physician who wants to come alongside and guide us.

The book of John talks about how the Holy Spirit is a counselor, a reminder, a teacher.

He's always out there helping us to know which way to go and what to do.

And connecting your mind to that level of connection and communion with God

is how you get the whole system working in the way it's designed.

But if you're not into that, if you don't believe that, if you're not sure what

you believe, even if you're not clear on whether there is a God or isn't a God

or what you think about it, or if you don't even think about that kind of stuff at all.

I just want to tell you that there are ways that you can improve your life no matter what.

I believe that if you keep looking into the story, you keep digging into why

this works the way it does, why the way that you've been operating hasn't panned out.

And when you try this mind down control paradigm, it seems to work better.

If you get to that point where you're recognizing that this smashing together

of neuroscience and some things that I teach you that are related to spiritual

ideas works, then I think you'll start asking questions and opening doors and looking deeper.

And I think you'll find your way to the threshold of something that feels and

tastes and sounds and seems to be true and works like it's true.

And if it just keeps working like it's true, Maybe that's because it is true.

So this podcast is a safe place for doubters. It's a safe place for people who

don't know what they think or feel or believe yet.

It's a safe place for Christians who have come with doctrine and with background

and with paradigms that have left them frustrated and feeling like it's all

up to them and you haven't been able to make it and your doctrine or theology

don't seem to be working for you.

I've walked some of that ground myself. self.

So this is a safe place to get to the place where we say, how did the system

get designed in this way?

Who designed it? I think I know. But if you're not sure, just let's explore

together how the system works and we'll learn the best approaches to how to operate it.

And then maybe if you start asking different questions and deeper questions,

maybe the Spiritual Brain Surgery Podcast can help you go a little farther.

Maybe some of my books or somebody will come alongside you and you'll say hey

i've got questions i seem to see some design here,

i see something that seems more than just evolutionary accidental randomness

no matter how you got here friend no matter where you came from what your background

is today we're going to talk about what it looks like to go all in with the

new approach to our lives.

And before you can really break through to the approaches that I think produce

the most traction, we have to acknowledge that there is one approach that many

people take to their lives.

And it's approach that either comes out of apathy, of you've tried a bunch of

stuff and none of it's worked and you throw up your hands and say, nothing can help me.

Or maybe it comes out of arrogance, where we believe that we've seen and thought

about and tested and known everything and that nobody else could possibly have

put more thought or more effort into life than we have.

And there's just no other way. And we finally see it clearly.

It's just, it just is what it is.

And there's no way to work around it and your genetics and your background and

your past history and your upbringing and all that stuff.

It just, that's how evolution made you. And that's how life made you.

And it just is what it is. And you're done and you're stuck and nobody can help you.

And maybe that's where you are. Maybe that's the approach that you're taking.

And you know what? Christians can take that approach too, by the way.

Christians can say, this is just a hard life.

God put us here in this broken world and there's evil and there's sin and there's

no point in being too worried about it.

And even though I can't really feel happy, I can just hold onto the hope that

I get to go to heaven someday.

And you know what? That's enough. Don't really have to worry about it here.

I'll just knuckle down and get through it.

And I'm just here to tell you, That approach, that nothing can help me, is unbiblical,

it's unscriptural, and it's leaving you far short of the power and purpose and

hope and even happiness that you can have in your life if you're willing to change approaches.

But let's just acknowledge that it's not just the atheist and the doubter and

the agnostic and the apathetic that come to this approach sometimes of nothing

can help me. I know a lot of bereaved parents.

I know a lot of grieving spouses. I know a lot of kids who have lost parents

who have gotten to that place where they said, I'm just broken.

Life really is just what it is. It stinks, hurts, not much I can do about it.

Maybe God will fix it someday.

That's the nothing can help me approach. And that's what we're going to talk about today.

And I'm going to give you just one idea, one sort of mind shift that you can

make if you've been stuck in the nothing can help me approach.

I'm going to give you one thought process that you can use to move forward from there.

And it came from Mark Batterson's book, All In, in a chapter that we'll talk about in a moment.

I just want to give you one idea today on Frontal Lobe Friday.

And tomorrow on Self-Brain Surgery Saturday, I'm going to give you another approach.

But today I want to give you a play you can run that will start to break you

out of the nothing can help me approach. approach and it might be amazing to

see what happens if you're willing to give it a shot.

So if you're ready to change your mind and you're ready to change your life, let's get after it.

Okay. The basis of All In August, okay, is the book All In by Mark Batterson.

And I want you to read it. Trust me. So many people have gone through,

this is the fourth year in a row we've done All In August.

And so many people have done it and never read the book. In fact,

somebody I I love and care about deeply.

I've been talking about this with them for years.

And we've done all in August together. We've talked about it.

We've committed to do it together.

And just this year, they said to me, hey, I finally read the book.

And wow, it changed my life. It's just really making a huge difference.

And I bought a bunch of copies for my friends and family. I'm telling you,

friend, go read the book.

You can't get the most out of all in August if you haven't taken the time to read the book.

And if you don't even have time to do that or you're not willing to do that,

at least go back to Mind Change Monday from week before last,

or last week rather, and listen to Mark Batterson on the podcast.

I brought him right here to you, so you don't even have to go buy the book.

You can just listen to the conversation I had with Mark Batterson.

I'm not elevating Mark Batterson. I'm just saying he's a guy who wrote a book

about the process of going all in, and that's the textbook that we're using for this month, okay?

All In by Mark Batterson. It's worth your your time, I promise you.

I'm making a strong recommendation that you read the book.

Secondly, if you want to learn more about the neuroscience of how we do self-brain

surgery and how I came to that conclusion and how it made a difference for me

and Lisa and our family after we lost our son, Mitch, read my book, Hope is the First Dose.

It's the secondary textbook to All in August.

It will make a difference in your life. I got a letter yesterday from a woman

who lost a son. and she said, no, hope is the first dose.

It's helping her navigate that process. It's giving her some legs to stand on to find hope again.

I'm telling you, hope is the first dose. We'll help you. That's why I wrote it for you, friend.

I wrote it for you because I love you and I want you to have a treatment plan

for what happens when trauma and tragedy and massive things happen in your life.

Because even if they haven't yet, they will.

But today I want to talk just for a minute about an idea that I got from Mark

Batterson in chapter nine of his book, which is called Climb the Cliff,

and it comes out of a story in 1 Samuel chapter 14 in the Old Testament of the Bible, okay?

That's where it came from, but that's the background. I'll get there in a second.

But here's the deal. There's times in your life when you've been so bruised

and battered and bloodied and beaten down by all the things that have gone on

that you just throw up your hands and say, this is how it's going to be.

It just is what it is. Nothing can help me.

And I'm just telling you that the nothing can help me approach to life leads to futility.

It leads to frustration. frustration, it leads to just a lack of fulfillment,

and it does not lead to flourishing.

And so if you're here with me and hearing my voice wherever you are in the country

or in the world, by the way, our podcast was number one in Kazakhstan last week for a couple of days.

So if you're listening in Kazakhstan, thank you for listening.

I've never met anybody from Kazakhstan. I haven't ever heard from any of you

by email or voicemail, but know that we're praying for you, we're excited and

grateful that you're listening, and I hope this is helpful to you.

And thank you so much for listening and sharing the podcast,

whoever you are out there in Kazakhstan, that wherever you are in the world,

okay, friend, I just want you to understand that you are operating your life using an approach.

And what's an approach, you might ask? We talk a lot about, on this podcast,

we talk a lot about something called worldview, okay?

Worldview is this set of lenses and filters that we all have,

whether you agree or think that you have or not, We all have a set of filters

through which we view the world.

Those filters are installed before we even have language by our culture,

our heritage, our family of origin, our religious upbringing,

our training and teaching, and the kinds of things we go through,

all sort of put filters in front of our eyes, and we view the world through a particular lens.

We see this play out in politics. There's one politician...

People have been conditioned to

everything they say, everything they do is going to be filtered through.

This is terrible. This is awful. That person's a liar. This is evil.

They're racist. They're X, Y, Z, they're whatever. That no matter what,

the person could do the kindest act of mercy for somebody and do something that

anybody else would get a Nobel Prize for.

And everybody would say, oh, that's horrible. What's the angle?

Why are they doing that? That person's evil. Because they have a worldview,

a filter in front of them.

They've been trained by media, by culture, by their friends,

by whatever, to look at that person negatively no matter what happens, okay?

Then there's another person out there. I'm just making this up,

by the way. You apply it however you want.

Apply it wherever you want. But let's say there's another person that no matter

what they do, the media gives them a complete pass.

They spin it positively that everybody says, oh, that happened,

but it's because, or yeah, Yeah, that's okay in this context.

We normally wouldn't agree with that, but because they did it,

here's the reason why that's okay.

And everything they do is spun positively and given a positive pass, right?

That's a worldview. It means that you have a worldview in which one political

party is always bad and the other one's always good, regardless of what they do, okay? Okay.

And you can have a worldview around religion. You can have a worldview around

interpersonal relations.

You can have a worldview around marriage. You can have a worldview around anything.

And all of us do. And so the key then to operating life, especially if we're

going to be Christians, and we say that there is a standard of truth,

God expects certain things of us, if we want to have that, then we need to recognize

where we have those filters and those worldviews.

And we need to start thinking around them so that we can view things objectively

and more in tune with reality than what we see through our filters, okay?

The old rose-colored glasses idea, if your glasses are tinted,

then everything you look at seems to be a certain color.

But that's not the truth. It's not reality. It's just our filter,

our lens, our worldview. So that's worldview.

Approach is related, but a little bit different than that.

Approach is something we talk about in surgery where we have not just the techniques

that we learn in medical school, not how to suture, not how to take a tumor

out, not how to use a cautery or not how to do a particular thing,

deliver a baby or use forceps or whatever.

Those are techniques and they're portable between different operations.

Approach is how am I going to approach this particular problem?

How am I going to put the patient on the table?

Where do Do I position their head? How many degrees of angle do I need on the body or the head?

What kind of device am I going to use to secure the patient to the table?

How much hair am I going to shave?

Where am I going to make the incision? All those kinds of things are called approach.

And approach is then the sum total of all the things that go into the particular

way in which we perform an operation with a particular goal.

Okay, we have an approach.

And so if you think then metaphorically and actually about the self-brain surgery practice.

We have a set of techniques that I'm always teaching you on Cell Brain Surgery

Saturday. Here's what you do when you have anxiety.

Here's what you do when you're depressed. Here's what you do when you have a

lousy attitude. Here's how you biopsy your thoughts. Those are techniques, okay?

But if you're using a good technique through a bad approach or through the wrong

approach for that particular situation, you won't get very good results.

Does that make sense to you?

Okay, so when we talk about approaches then, we just need to understand that

we all have a worldview and we are all using an approach all the time,

regardless of whether we recognize that we're using an approach or not.

We are using an approach.

And so I want you to be aware then that there are more than one approach,

that there are more than one type of approaches available to use to operate

your life. That makes sense when you think about it that way.

And so the fact is, if you have ignorance about that, if you think this is the

only approach there is, then you're missing out on the truth that there are

other approaches out there.

If you have arrogance about it, this is the only approach that anybody ought to use.

And if you're not getting the right kind of results, then if you're arrogant,

you can't see that other people are actually using other approaches and getting good results from them.

Or then if you have apathy and you say, I don't care what you do.

I don't care what approach you use. This is what I'm doing.

I don't care. Doesn't seem to be working. Who cares? nothing can help me.

If you have that sort of attitude, so either arrogance, ignorance, or apathy,

then you're basically filtering out any possibility of making real progress

in your life because you've shut down the opportunity to recognize that there

are more than one type of approach available.

There's more than one type of approach. Other people are using other approaches

and some of them are having better outcomes than you are.

As a surgeon, it is my job to always seek the best treatment plan for my patient.

And if I see another surgeon that's publishing a paper that says they're doing

things in half as much time with half as much blood loss, their patients are

getting out of the hospital twice as fast, they're having fewer complications,

they're reporting better pain scores, they're taking less medicine,

they're having fewer recurrences of tumor, then I'm going to be obligated as

a good surgeon to say, I need to think about changing that approach.

I need to be willing to change to a different approach if my approach isn't

working properly. Does that make sense?

Okay. So I just want to point out to you that a lot of us are operating, friend, hear my voice.

A lot of us are operating our lives with the shrugged shoulders and hands thrown

up saying, nothing can help me.

And that That is an approach, but it's not the truth.

In 1 Samuel 14, Mark Batterson writes about this.

There's this story of Saul the king and his son Jonathan and their army,

and they're fighting those Philistines again, and they're having a problem,

and it seems insurmountable, but Jonathan, the king's son.

Decides to make a daring move to climb a cliff and to take a chance to gain

victory. It seems like it's impossible.

They seem they're in a situation where nothing can help them.

But Jonathan says this curious thing. He comes up with this crazy plan to climb

the cliff and fight the battle.

You should read about it either in Mark Batterson's book or in 1 Samuel 14.

But the punchline is this.

Jonathan said he's been in this situation where it's like nothing can help.

We're stuck. We're hosed. We can't win.

But Jonathan says, hey, perhaps the Lord will act on our behalf.

He just throws an idea out there. He decides to change positions and say,

hey, maybe God will honor this.

If we take action here, maybe the Lord will do something. Maybe the Lord will take action.

And then a few verses later, this curious little statement says,

so on that day, the Lord saved Israel.

On that day, the Lord saved Israel.

So here's the punchline. They were in a situation up against a big army that

was more powerful than them. All hope seemed lost.

They didn't think that they could make it out.

They thought, nothing can help me. That was their approach.

And all it took was one person making one statement, Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf.

And he took action. He decided to stop contemplating the situation and start operating.

And lo and behold, so on that day, the Lord saved Israel.

What if we got to all in August, and you've been running up against the same

barrier, and you've been encountering the same problem, and you've been opening

the bottle again over and over.

You've been failing to move forward. You've been unable to make progress in

your relationship. You've been frustrated at this situation at work.

Your finances have been holding you back.

You just haven't been able to break through. And over and over you try it,

and over and over you get the same result.

And finally you throw up your hands and you say, nothing can help me.

This is just how it's going to be for me.

And what if all that God is waiting for is for you to say, you know what? I'm going to go all in.

I'm going to change my approach. Maybe God will act on my behalf.

And maybe that's the day. Maybe it's this day.

Maybe it's the day you're hearing this podcast.

And so on that day, the Lord saved whatever your name is.

Maybe he's just waiting for you to say, perhaps the Lord will act on our behalf.

And the path to that is to stop contemplating and start operating,

to decide to play offense in your own life instead of defense.

I love trauma surgery. Trauma surgery is exciting to me. It's always everybody's

going crazy and rushing around.

There's an emergency and somebody's dying and we've got to run in and deal with

it. But trauma surgery is not my favorite.

Because it's somewhat chaotic, and it's somewhat out of my control.

And I'm always coming to trauma surgery in a reactive posture,

okay? The brain's already bleeding. The brain's already swelling.

The patient's already in trouble. The skull's already fractured.

The scalp's already ripped open.

And I don't get to plan a clean incision. And there's dirt, and there's debris,

and there's trouble in particulate matter in there. There's shrapnel if I'm in the war.

There's trouble. And trauma surgery then is necessary, and I've got to jump

in and take immediate action. but it's not highly controllable.

And I'm dealing with it. I'm reacting to it. Okay.

So I don't prefer that. I prefer elective surgery.

I prefer elective surgery when I can plan and contemplate and really study and

prepare and make sure I'm ready for that surgery.

Make sure I've chosen the approach wisely. Make sure I position the patient properly.

Make sure I've done everything I can do to mitigate any type of risk. That's my favorite.

Sometimes you don't get that choice, okay? Sometimes you're already in the middle

of the massive thing and you've got to respond.

And the difference is our life is constantly throwing up signals to us.

Your brain is constantly throwing you signals that sound like your own voice,

that feel like your own thoughts, but they're really just deceptive brain messaging,

as Jeffrey Schwartz calls it.

They're really just programs that your brain is running and you have been conditioned

over the course of your life to react to those as if they're your own thoughts

and if you are obligated to react to them.

And I'm just telling you, we're going to talk about it tomorrow on Self-Brain

Surgery Saturday. I'm going to give you three approaches. We're going to talk

about them again. We've talked about them before.

I'm going to give you three alternatives to this nothing can help me approach.

But today I want to get you in the mindset where you say, I'm tired of being

in react mode all the time.

I'm tired of having to perform trauma surgery on my own life because I woke

up with a hangover again, because I spent the money again, because I slept with

that person again, because I did the thing again, because I found myself in

this situation again because X, Y, or Z,

that I found myself having to react to something to pay a tomorrow tax.

I didn't love tomorrow more. I believed the feeling was a fact.

I believed the thought was true.

And now I'm in this position where I'm doing trauma surgery and trying to repair

something and just get my life back on some sort of even keel again.

And I want us to switch to a different kind of posture where instead of reacting,

we're responding, where we're playing offense again. We're not playing defense.

We're not reacting. We're not trying to prevent something. We're trying to prepare

and go forward with a solid plan for our own life. We're going to change our worldview.

We're going to change our approach. We're going to realize that we can actually

change our minds and we can actually change our lives because we have the incredible

gift of selective attention.

We can have a positive bias towards our thinking. We can filter our reticular

activating of aiding systems to start looking for those places where we say,

hey, perhaps God will work on our behalf.

Perhaps if I take this step and take this action that God will come in and save

the day, that my brain will respond the way it's designed to.

Maybe that's what you need, friend, today. Stop contemplating and start operating

and decide that it's time to stop believing that nothing can help because there

are people out there who have gone through the same thing you've gone through.

It sounds a little insensitive to say this, but it's true.

I'm not the only one that's ever lost a son and you're not either.

You're not the only one that's ever lost a spouse.

You're not the only one that's going through glioblastoma. You're not the only

one who's been through a bankruptcy,

But some people have gone through that and managed to hold on to their hope

and managed to make something out of their lives and managed to help other people

with it and managed to still have purpose and meaning and maybe even hope and

maybe even happiness again.

And if they can, there is a path for you to do the same, no matter how broken

and hard and hurt you might feel.

There is a path forward, friend, but it requires a change in approach.

It requires a change in worldview. It requires us to stop saying,

nothing can help me, and to start saying, perhaps, perhaps something can be done.

Perhaps God will come alongside and help us. Perhaps my brain will respond when I tell it to.

Maybe if I change my mind, I will be able to change my life.

You can do it, my friend. We're going to change approaches.

We're going to learn about that tomorrow. But the good news is, you can start today.

Hey, if that was helpful to you, please share it with a friend. Send it to 10 people.

Say, hey, download this. Listen, go through all in August with us.

We're going to do this. Let's get after it. Let's change our mind and let's change our life.

Let's be self-brain surgeons together. Share it with your friend,

my friend, and let's start today. God bless you. We'll see you tomorrow.