June 21, 2025 • 20 mins
So far, we've explored the incredible power of neuro-thoughts, neuro-feelings, and neuro-beliefs. But how do these translate into action? In this final episode of "Conversations with a Brain Surgeon", Dr. Lee Warren guides us through the fascinating realm of neuro-habits. We'll discover how your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs shape your daily actions, behaviors, and ultimately, your habits. Join us as we uncover the neural mechanisms behind habit formation and explore strategies for rewiring our brain to cultivate healthier, more empowering behaviors.
GUEST: @drleewarren
Dr. Warren's Podcast: https://wleewarrenmd.com/podcast/
Dr. Warren's Latest Book: https://wleewarrenmd.com/books/hope-is-the-first-dose/
HOST: Leanne Ellington // StresslessEating.com // @leanneellington
To learn more about re-wiring your brain to heal from the all-or-nothing diet mentality for good....but WITHOUT restricting yourself, punishing your body, (and definitely WITHOUT ever having to use words like macros, low-carb, or calorie burn) check out Leanne's FREE Stressless Eating Webinar @ www.StresslessEating.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body. I'll be out wait everything
that I'm made done. Won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning love who I am again. I'm strong, I
feel free, I know every part of me. It's beautiful
and then will always out way if you feel it
(00:24):
with your hands and be here, She'll some love to
the boy you have there. Say go one day Ana,
did you and die out way?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Happy Saturday, out Weigh.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
We are back for our fourth and final episode of
this neuro series. We are back with doctor Lee Warren. Hello,
Doctor Warren, Welcome back.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Thanks Leanne. Good to be back with you.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
If you missed the last three weeks, definitely check it out.
Three weeks ago we talked about neuro thoughts, then we
went through neuro feelings. Last week with neuro beliefs, and
this week we are going to get into neuro habits
and action and doing and the get off your butt
and do side of things, which is what people think
is the first thing, but I specifically put it last.
So that being said, when it comes to this kind
(01:09):
of trickle down effect or this cause and effect chicken egg,
of what we talked about, the thoughts, the feelings, the
beliefs and really believing your way into becoming the next
version of yourself and starting at your thoughts. What would
you say to you to really kick us off when
it comes to how our brains decide what we're doing,
the action, the habit side of things. Can you first
and foremost kind of give us a thirty thousand foot
(01:31):
overview of what actually happens in connect the dots from
the last few weeks.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
One of the things we talked about in the first episode,
I believe was this idea that sometimes we get stuck
in thought loops. Something happens and we start thinking about it,
and then we can't quit thinking about it, and then
pretty soon all we're doing is thinking about everything, and
we can't get out of our heads. And that's when
we have to have somebody, a wise professor or a friend,
a counselor somebody come alongside. Hey, it's time to stop
(01:58):
contemplating and start operating. You got to get out of
your head and start doing stuff. And then one of
the things we know from neuroscience too, is that it's
not just that you've got to somehow some of the
courage to start moving, but you can also anticipate that
movement and action actually feeds back and makes things better
for you too. You get this brain derived neurotropic factor
and need all these neurotransmitters that boost more effectively with
(02:20):
movement and physical activity than they do with medication. So
taking action is actually a compassion and a good thing
you can do for yourself too, even when it seems hard.
So I think the first thing is just to say
that there's a process in your brain of anticipating something
that you need or want to do and then thinking
about all the variables involved in that, and then the
(02:42):
feelings get involved, and you know, the last time I
did this, last time I put myself out there, this happened,
And then you can cock yourself out of taking that action,
and then you feel bad that you didn't do the thing,
and then you can start getting into that rumbination loop
of not having done it, and you get stuck. Right.
And so sometimes especially if we've been through something hard,
or if we have a shame situation with of a
habit or a pattern that we are using as a
(03:04):
numbing behavior to avoid feeling or dealing with something else,
then we can find ourselves really stuck and we don't
have to be stuck, like the hoarder in our house
that hasn't left, you know, been inside for twenty years.
But we can get stuck in inactivity or inaction in
various areas of our life where we have certain things
that we just aren't doing that we need to be doing,
stewarding relationships, you know, advancing on our professions, or whatever
(03:26):
it is that we need to be doing, and then
that starts becoming its own burden of this weight of
not having done something. So there's this risk reward thing
that I want people to recognize that sometimes it's sort
of scary to take action, to finally jump and make
the leap and do that thing. But it's not as
scary is if you look at the long failure of
(03:48):
staying put. So like, if you keep doing what you've
been doing, you're going to get better at doing what
you've been doing. And if what you've been doing is nothing, stuck, ruminating,
deprive yourself of life, then you're going to get better
at doing that. You're going to start making this synaptic
like we talked about in the Feeling and then and
then the Belief episode about synaptic c wagon trail that
(04:10):
you get stuck in these ruts. So the longer you
delay starting the action part of your thought feeling action loop,
the harder it's going to be to make that happen.
So sometimes you got to rip the band aid off
and just get after it.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
So good, And I'd love to kind of dive into
the whole lessons more concept as well, because I remember
back in I think it's twenty ten, when I started
learning about the physiological nervous system just trying to heal
my own stuff. One of the things I heard was
that not all movement is good movement, because you if
you're in pain, like taking the nervous system through a
painful repetition, is you want to go for a pain
(04:44):
free repetition. And I started diving into this idea of
the nervous system kind of being a less is more, smarter,
not harder system and training it to success, not to failure,
and versus the muscular skeleton system, which you know a
lot of people look at is like this harder, faster, more,
you know, no pain, no gain kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
So can you talk to us a little bit.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
About for a beginner that doesn't have the momentum is
in that ripping off the band aid phase. Can you
talk to us about the beauty of how the brain learns?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yeah, I think you know. There's a lot of neuroscience
around the idea of your anti mid singulate gyrus. For example,
that learning to make yourself take a step in something
that's uncomfortable or hard actually turns out to have tremendous
benefit in improving willpower and increasing resilience in all areas
(05:34):
of your life. So if you learn how to just
sort of do one hard thing, like make that phone
call that you've been avoiding, make that apology, say thank
you for something that you've been avoiding, or finding a
way to send somebody a note or whatever, it might
be just a little thing, that little step might be
enough that the next time you're faced with a different
hard thing, the inertia involved in doing that is actually lower,
(05:58):
and you find yourself, hey, I'm actually becoming a person
who can do stuff when I say I need to
do it, and so little. Your nervous system is incredibly efficient,
and when you teach it a lesson in one area,
it applies that lesson in multiple areas, so you can
create that kind of synaptic fluidity and you're reduced inertia
in other areas by doing things in one area that
(06:20):
seem a little bit uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Yeah, So it's almost like your willpower, your discipline can expand,
but you've got to give it that stimulus.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
What's right.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
So one of the things I talk about with my
clients is this idea of if you absolutely hate something
and you have all these negative neuro associations alongside doing
the thing, the chances of you continuing to do the
thing aren't going to be very good, right, And it's
about who you're being while you're doing. The doing is
also just as important, because the truth is is if
you hate it, you're not going to sustain it, right.
So can you speak to us a little bit about that,
(06:50):
because a lot of people that are listening, they're coming from,
you know, doing plans and programs that they absolutely hate,
or it forces them to obsess or control or micromanage
or think about things or just do things that they
absolutely hate, and it becomes a conversation of force, persuasion,
coercion versus feeling like they're choosing it, feeling like they're
moving in the direction of something that they enjoy or
that they could see themselves doing.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
In the long haul.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
So can you help just kind of speak into that
piece of the puzzle as well.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeah, So I think one thing is to identify why
you hate something, like to figure out what the story
is that's happening. And that's not to say that if
there's something that you really just loathe, you need to
first ask yourself, do I have to do that thing?
Am I putting myself in a position of having to
do something that I could change my life in some
way and not have to do that thing? Not to
(07:38):
avoid something uncomfortable, But maybe sometimes some questioning and understanding
the situation might be helpful. But oftentimes what you're getting
at is that there's something that we really do need
to do, we need to exercise, we need to repair
this relationship, we need to balance our budget or whatever,
and we hate it. Then maybe the question comes down
to what we talked about, I think in episode two
(07:59):
about this tension density and quantum Zeno effect idea of
what you pay attention to and the way in which
you pay attention to it determines how it comes true
or doesn't come true in your life. So that means
that sometimes the idea is can I shift my perspective
somehow on this thing, and can I find a better
story to tell myself that would make me not actually
(08:21):
hate it, but to find some value in accomplishing it
or doing it well. Right. I always say perception, I
mobilizes in perception and power. So if you have this perspective,
empowers perception to mobilize. This perspective empower. So if you
have this idea that, oh, I hate this, My perception
of this is always miserable. I hate it, It's just horrible,
then what's going to happen is that's going to become
(08:42):
true in your life that when you finally have to
do the thing, it is terrible, and you prove to
yourself that you were right because you focus your attention
in a particular way on that thing and you wired
that into your brain, that that's always going to be
an uncomfortable and miserable experience. But if you shift your
perspective and say, wait, what if I could a coomplish
this in a way that benefited somebody else, or that
(09:03):
I could find some way to be grateful about the
outcome of this, even if I don't like the process
that takes me through to get to it. If I
can change that perspective, then I can look at it
from a different way. And all of a sudden, I'm
using different parts of my brain, I'm wiring different things in,
I'm paying attention to the problem in another way, and
I'm finding, hey, wait a minute, you know that wasn't
(09:23):
so bad and I kind of enjoyed it. Then they
were grateful when I did it, and they said thank you,
and now made a new relationship, or I've repaired something,
And so maybe the issue is not that you should
just suffer through things and improve to yourself. That that
really wasn't miserable, but I'm at least glad it's over.
Maybe rather find a way to say, you know what,
I learned something about myself that I can do hard things,
(09:45):
and that when I do them, they turn out not
to have been so hard in the first place. And
then maybe I actually sort of enjoyed that. Maybe you
can just change perspective and that might be the answer.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
It just so trickles into everything that we've talked about.
You know, a lot of times it's not the thing itself.
It's like the story te is the problem, so to speak,
the story that we're telling, And again, coming back to
what you're saying, feelings.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Are not facts.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
You know, how we feel about something might be painting
the picture in a way. And then also just being
aware of when we're using those always never kind of
statements or like I hate doing this or I'll never
be good at that. It's such a good thought process
because a lot of people get stuck in the rut
of thinking that the thing is the problem, right, But
oftentimes you're right, it is our perspective.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So the question that I feel, I'm guessing you've been
asked this a thousand times.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
I feel like if you ask ten different people, they'll
give you ten different answers about you know, it takes
twenty one days to start a new habit, it takes
thirty days to start a habit. Obviously, the attention density,
the fire and wired heads law that we talked about,
there's all those different things that come into play. But
what would you say to somebody who's like, Okay, I'm
drawing a lie in the sand. There's this whole new
way of thinking and being and feeling and beliefs that
(10:55):
I want to step into. In terms of it becoming
my new way of being and my new brain what
does that look like on a timeline level, on an
intensity level, on a density level.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
From your perspective, Well.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
I think it's different for everybody, and I think it's
different in every situation for everybody too, because there's some
habits that need to be broken and new ones to
be replace. The length and depth to which you will
have to go to break those depends on a number
of things. Some of them are just how long you've
been doing it that way, right, Like if you've been
using a pair of scissors in a certain way with
(11:30):
your right hand your whole life, and all of a
sudden somebody says, oh, you have to use those with
your left hand. Now, it's going to take you a
long time to figure out how to do that job
with your left hand because you're not left handed. There's
some physiology involved in that. You haven't ever done it
that way, so there's some novelty involved in that, and
it's awkward because the scissors are right handed scissors and
you're trying to use them with the wrong way. So
there's some mechanics and logistics involved in that. Right. So
(11:52):
there's a lot of different things that come into play
when you talk about breaking a habit or changing a habit.
Another level of it, though, is that some things breaking
a habit related to certain medications or substances. There's also
a physiological and psychological involvement and an addiction component to that,
and so the answer is different depending on what the
situation is. But the truth of it is this that
(12:14):
what you're doing, you're getting better at. And the way
to get better at something is to tell yourself, I
don't have to do it all today. In fact, they
talk about this in the addiction Recovery lingo a lot.
It's like, you don't have to quit drinking for the
rest of your life. You just have to decide I'm
not going to drink for the next hour. You just
have to decide, Okay, I'm not sure when the next
(12:35):
time I take a drink is, but it's not going
to be to day, right, So make a habit that
will get you through. If it's a day and you
can do that, do that, If it's an hour and
you can do that, do that. But get better at
being better at doing something for the specified period of time, right.
And then what you'll find is that as you start
to incorporate that sort of will and that sort of
(12:56):
sort of carefully stewarded thought and effort and drive into
the process. You'll find that the process itself becomes easier
to attack and more successful in short increments. And so
I think habits that don't require physiological addictions to be
broken are probably quicker. That's probably where that twenty one
day thing comes in. That people say it's actually probably
(13:16):
more like thirty days for a lot of hard things.
But I think when you're talking about something that changes
your physiology like substances, or changes your psychology significantly, like
pornography or something like that, it may take a very
long time, but it won't take you long to master
the art of doing it in short bursts and being
proud of yourself, giving yourself that dopamine reward of having
(13:37):
accomplished that thing for a short period of time. And
you know, for me, it might be I don't wake
up tomorrow with cheto dust all over my fingers. I
did it for tonight. I don't have to worry about tomorrow.
Each day has enough trouble of its own, but I
can do it for today.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
And I mean, even just stacking on everything that you've
just said is in alignment with making sure that you're
addressing the thoughts, the feelings, the beliefs, the habits.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
It's not just the thing itself, Like the thing is
never the thing, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
So before we kind of end this, bring us home,
bring us full circle. So if you were to just
kind of paint a picture of how our thoughts, our feelings,
and our beliefs all coexist, all chicken egg each other
which is a technical term of course, and the cause
and effect of all of them, could you just kind
of speak into that, just because I really, I really
want people to get that whatever they're struggling with is
(14:23):
not about the food, and it's not about their body.
It is what's going on in their brain, their thoughts,
their beliefs, their behaviors. It's not any one thing. It's
all of it. It is a three dimensional thing. But
that's a beautiful opportunity and possibility, you know, and there's
a lot of hope that lives in that. So can
you just kind of speak it to all of that
three dimensionally?
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Absolutely, And it might even be more than three dimensions,
you know, so you a fourth dimension involved in it.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
But the thing is, so you're not a collection of
your failures and you are not a collection of the
things that you've not been able to overcome. What you
are is a whole person with a story and a
history and a heritage, and a set of genetics and
epigenetics which is that created the starting point from where
you are, and a set of traumas and tragedies and
(15:11):
dramas and maybe massive things that you've been So what
you are is not just a person who has repeatedly
failed to accomplish this one thing or repeatedly falls into
this particular behavior. Give yourself a little bit of self
care and say, hey, wait a minute, I need to
have a kind of trauma informed view off and stop
saying what's the matter with me, and rather say, kind
of what happened to me? Where have I been? What
(15:33):
have I been through? Where did I get from my parents?
What was my starting point? And all of that stuff.
To just acknowledge to yourself that if you looked at
another person in the same situation, you would have compassion
and empathy for them. So give yourself the same perspective. Right,
have some compassion and empathy for yourself and then say, okay, wait,
now I've got a set of emotions, feelings and a
(15:54):
set of thoughts that are all mixed and mingled together
in a way that I can't possibly say. And I
know that the baseline generation of feelings is that there
are neurochemical events and not necessarily facts. And if I
can learn to discern that, then I can begin to
apply some reasons in frontal low brain power to what
I'm feeling before I act on it. And then if
(16:15):
I can recognize that I have a lot of automatic
thoughts that aren't necessarily true, and I can learn to
biapse to them and decide if they're true before I
take action on them, then I can start to have
some power in the process of say, wait a minute,
I know that I don't have to respond every thought
and feeling, and I know that I can use the
directed power of my mind to make structural changes in
(16:37):
my brain and make myself better at being better at
my own life. Then I've got some power. Now, I've
got some skin in the game because I'm not a
victim anymore of the way I've always been. I'm not
a victim of the way my parents raised me. I'm
not a victim of the genes that I inherited. Because
I know that my thoughts can turn them on and
off and make them better in the future. And I'm
(16:57):
not even a victim of what I might pass on
to my kids, because I can make that better too
by changing the way I think in the way I
live now, they'll inherit a better set of switched on
or off jeans than I did. So all of that
to say, Leanne that if you add the fourth dimension,
which I think is spiritual, then you say, okay, wait,
I'm a whole person with the whole vast story that's happening.
(17:19):
And I'm not just a left brain kind of thing
that's a two dimensional object that says I am a
failure or I'm a success. I'm a right hemisphere too,
which is the whole world around me and all the
experiences and feelings and nuance and thoughts and all of
that stuff jumbled up into this entire person that, from
my perspective, is fearfully and wonderfully made and worthy of
(17:39):
value and love and honor, that has a purpose and
a meaning to your life. And if you believe that
about yourself and that you can change the things that
you feel like you've been stuck with, there's no limit
to what you can do.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Oh my goodness, this is why we love you, doctor Warren.
That was I mean, that was such a beautiful summation.
And ladies and the couple of gentlemen that are listening.
You know, no, really, in all of that, there wasn't
much said about food or your weight, or there wasn't
anything said about it. It really comes back to you
as an entire being, the essence of who you are,
(18:12):
the worthiness that lives inside of you.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
That has nothing to do with any of those things.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
But if you do want to change those things, start
in this four dimensional conversation, right, multidimensional conversation. Thank you
so much for being here. Thank you so much for
sharing your wisdom. I mean, we could go on and on,
and there's so much to share. You have so much wisdom,
even beyond the scope of the neuroscience side of it.
So if people want to find your podcast, and by
the way, everything that doctor Warren just kind of summed
(18:40):
up of the cause and effect of the thoughts, the feelings,
the beliefs, and the habits his self brain surgery thought process.
He goes on a deep dive, so you definitely want
to check out his podcast, The Doctor Lee Warren podcast
is where you go deep into that. The Spiritual Brain
Surgery is where you intersect the faith and the science
piece of it. But tell us a bit about your
where to find your podcast, your books, where to Google's
(19:00):
talk you all the things.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
Well, you're already listening to a podcast somewhere, so right now,
wherever you are, you can go to the search bar
and type in doctor Lee Warren and you'll find my
two podcasts, the Doctor Lee Warren Podcast and Spiritual Brain Surgery.
As Lean so kindly mentioned. You can also go to
Amazon or Barnes and Noble and type in my name
and you'll see all my books. And the most recent
one is called Hope is the First Dose, and it's
a treatment plan for recovering from trauma and tragedy and
(19:24):
massive things that happen. And we talk about all the
kind of stuff that we've been talking about today. And
I have a website too, Doctor Lee Warren dot substack
dot com, or write a newsletter every week, so easy
to find me. Lots of good content out there, and
I hope that people will benefit from it.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah, and guy subscribe to his newsletter because he sends
out an email every Sunday with just jam packed full
of not just the content that he puts on his website,
but also you get an inner working of his brain
and his life, and it's just a beautiful way to
wake up on a Sunday morning. So definitely add yourself
in there. We will add all of that to the
show notes. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
You're also going to be on Amy's podcast. We're gonna
link you to our What's God Got to Do with It? Podcast?
So we've got a lot.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
We love doctor Lee Warren over here on the Amy
Brown Network, here on iHeart, So we're just so grateful to.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Have you here. Thanks for listening out Weigh and we
will catch you next week. Bye.
I won't let my body. I'll be out wait everything
that I'm made done. Won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning love who I am again. I'm strong, I
feel free, I know every part of me. It's beautiful
and then will always out way if you feel it
(00:24):
with your hands and be here, She'll some love to
the boy you have there. Say go one day Ana,
did you and die out way?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Happy Saturday, out Weigh.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
We are back for our fourth and final episode of
this neuro series. We are back with doctor Lee Warren. Hello,
Doctor Warren, Welcome back.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Thanks Leanne. Good to be back with you.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
If you missed the last three weeks, definitely check it out.
Three weeks ago we talked about neuro thoughts, then we
went through neuro feelings. Last week with neuro beliefs, and
this week we are going to get into neuro habits
and action and doing and the get off your butt
and do side of things, which is what people think
is the first thing, but I specifically put it last.
So that being said, when it comes to this kind
(01:09):
of trickle down effect or this cause and effect chicken egg,
of what we talked about, the thoughts, the feelings, the
beliefs and really believing your way into becoming the next
version of yourself and starting at your thoughts. What would
you say to you to really kick us off when
it comes to how our brains decide what we're doing,
the action, the habit side of things. Can you first
and foremost kind of give us a thirty thousand foot
(01:31):
overview of what actually happens in connect the dots from
the last few weeks.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
One of the things we talked about in the first episode,
I believe was this idea that sometimes we get stuck
in thought loops. Something happens and we start thinking about it,
and then we can't quit thinking about it, and then
pretty soon all we're doing is thinking about everything, and
we can't get out of our heads. And that's when
we have to have somebody, a wise professor or a friend,
a counselor somebody come alongside. Hey, it's time to stop
(01:58):
contemplating and start operating. You got to get out of
your head and start doing stuff. And then one of
the things we know from neuroscience too, is that it's
not just that you've got to somehow some of the
courage to start moving, but you can also anticipate that
movement and action actually feeds back and makes things better
for you too. You get this brain derived neurotropic factor
and need all these neurotransmitters that boost more effectively with
(02:20):
movement and physical activity than they do with medication. So
taking action is actually a compassion and a good thing
you can do for yourself too, even when it seems hard.
So I think the first thing is just to say
that there's a process in your brain of anticipating something
that you need or want to do and then thinking
about all the variables involved in that, and then the
(02:42):
feelings get involved, and you know, the last time I
did this, last time I put myself out there, this happened,
And then you can cock yourself out of taking that action,
and then you feel bad that you didn't do the thing,
and then you can start getting into that rumbination loop
of not having done it, and you get stuck. Right.
And so sometimes especially if we've been through something hard,
or if we have a shame situation with of a
habit or a pattern that we are using as a
(03:04):
numbing behavior to avoid feeling or dealing with something else,
then we can find ourselves really stuck and we don't
have to be stuck, like the hoarder in our house
that hasn't left, you know, been inside for twenty years.
But we can get stuck in inactivity or inaction in
various areas of our life where we have certain things
that we just aren't doing that we need to be doing,
stewarding relationships, you know, advancing on our professions, or whatever
(03:26):
it is that we need to be doing, and then
that starts becoming its own burden of this weight of
not having done something. So there's this risk reward thing
that I want people to recognize that sometimes it's sort
of scary to take action, to finally jump and make
the leap and do that thing. But it's not as
scary is if you look at the long failure of
(03:48):
staying put. So like, if you keep doing what you've
been doing, you're going to get better at doing what
you've been doing. And if what you've been doing is nothing, stuck, ruminating,
deprive yourself of life, then you're going to get better
at doing that. You're going to start making this synaptic
like we talked about in the Feeling and then and
then the Belief episode about synaptic c wagon trail that
(04:10):
you get stuck in these ruts. So the longer you
delay starting the action part of your thought feeling action loop,
the harder it's going to be to make that happen.
So sometimes you got to rip the band aid off
and just get after it.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
So good, And I'd love to kind of dive into
the whole lessons more concept as well, because I remember
back in I think it's twenty ten, when I started
learning about the physiological nervous system just trying to heal
my own stuff. One of the things I heard was
that not all movement is good movement, because you if
you're in pain, like taking the nervous system through a
painful repetition, is you want to go for a pain
(04:44):
free repetition. And I started diving into this idea of
the nervous system kind of being a less is more, smarter,
not harder system and training it to success, not to failure,
and versus the muscular skeleton system, which you know a
lot of people look at is like this harder, faster, more,
you know, no pain, no gain kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
So can you talk to us a little bit.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
About for a beginner that doesn't have the momentum is
in that ripping off the band aid phase. Can you
talk to us about the beauty of how the brain learns?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yeah, I think you know. There's a lot of neuroscience
around the idea of your anti mid singulate gyrus. For example,
that learning to make yourself take a step in something
that's uncomfortable or hard actually turns out to have tremendous
benefit in improving willpower and increasing resilience in all areas
(05:34):
of your life. So if you learn how to just
sort of do one hard thing, like make that phone
call that you've been avoiding, make that apology, say thank
you for something that you've been avoiding, or finding a
way to send somebody a note or whatever, it might
be just a little thing, that little step might be
enough that the next time you're faced with a different
hard thing, the inertia involved in doing that is actually lower,
(05:58):
and you find yourself, hey, I'm actually becoming a person
who can do stuff when I say I need to
do it, and so little. Your nervous system is incredibly efficient,
and when you teach it a lesson in one area,
it applies that lesson in multiple areas, so you can
create that kind of synaptic fluidity and you're reduced inertia
in other areas by doing things in one area that
(06:20):
seem a little bit uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Yeah, So it's almost like your willpower, your discipline can expand,
but you've got to give it that stimulus.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
What's right.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
So one of the things I talk about with my
clients is this idea of if you absolutely hate something
and you have all these negative neuro associations alongside doing
the thing, the chances of you continuing to do the
thing aren't going to be very good, right, And it's
about who you're being while you're doing. The doing is
also just as important, because the truth is is if
you hate it, you're not going to sustain it, right.
So can you speak to us a little bit about that,
(06:50):
because a lot of people that are listening, they're coming from,
you know, doing plans and programs that they absolutely hate,
or it forces them to obsess or control or micromanage
or think about things or just do things that they
absolutely hate, and it becomes a conversation of force, persuasion,
coercion versus feeling like they're choosing it, feeling like they're
moving in the direction of something that they enjoy or
that they could see themselves doing.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
In the long haul.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
So can you help just kind of speak into that
piece of the puzzle as well.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeah, So I think one thing is to identify why
you hate something, like to figure out what the story
is that's happening. And that's not to say that if
there's something that you really just loathe, you need to
first ask yourself, do I have to do that thing?
Am I putting myself in a position of having to
do something that I could change my life in some
way and not have to do that thing? Not to
(07:38):
avoid something uncomfortable, But maybe sometimes some questioning and understanding
the situation might be helpful. But oftentimes what you're getting
at is that there's something that we really do need
to do, we need to exercise, we need to repair
this relationship, we need to balance our budget or whatever,
and we hate it. Then maybe the question comes down
to what we talked about, I think in episode two
(07:59):
about this tension density and quantum Zeno effect idea of
what you pay attention to and the way in which
you pay attention to it determines how it comes true
or doesn't come true in your life. So that means
that sometimes the idea is can I shift my perspective
somehow on this thing, and can I find a better
story to tell myself that would make me not actually
(08:21):
hate it, but to find some value in accomplishing it
or doing it well. Right. I always say perception, I
mobilizes in perception and power. So if you have this perspective,
empowers perception to mobilize. This perspective empower. So if you
have this idea that, oh, I hate this, My perception
of this is always miserable. I hate it, It's just horrible,
then what's going to happen is that's going to become
(08:42):
true in your life that when you finally have to
do the thing, it is terrible, and you prove to
yourself that you were right because you focus your attention
in a particular way on that thing and you wired
that into your brain, that that's always going to be
an uncomfortable and miserable experience. But if you shift your
perspective and say, wait, what if I could a coomplish
this in a way that benefited somebody else, or that
(09:03):
I could find some way to be grateful about the
outcome of this, even if I don't like the process
that takes me through to get to it. If I
can change that perspective, then I can look at it
from a different way. And all of a sudden, I'm
using different parts of my brain, I'm wiring different things in,
I'm paying attention to the problem in another way, and
I'm finding, hey, wait a minute, you know that wasn't
(09:23):
so bad and I kind of enjoyed it. Then they
were grateful when I did it, and they said thank you,
and now made a new relationship, or I've repaired something,
And so maybe the issue is not that you should
just suffer through things and improve to yourself. That that
really wasn't miserable, but I'm at least glad it's over.
Maybe rather find a way to say, you know what,
I learned something about myself that I can do hard things,
(09:45):
and that when I do them, they turn out not
to have been so hard in the first place. And
then maybe I actually sort of enjoyed that. Maybe you
can just change perspective and that might be the answer.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
It just so trickles into everything that we've talked about.
You know, a lot of times it's not the thing itself.
It's like the story te is the problem, so to speak,
the story that we're telling, And again, coming back to
what you're saying, feelings.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Are not facts.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
You know, how we feel about something might be painting
the picture in a way. And then also just being
aware of when we're using those always never kind of
statements or like I hate doing this or I'll never
be good at that. It's such a good thought process
because a lot of people get stuck in the rut
of thinking that the thing is the problem, right, But
oftentimes you're right, it is our perspective.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So the question that I feel, I'm guessing you've been
asked this a thousand times.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
I feel like if you ask ten different people, they'll
give you ten different answers about you know, it takes
twenty one days to start a new habit, it takes
thirty days to start a habit. Obviously, the attention density,
the fire and wired heads law that we talked about,
there's all those different things that come into play. But
what would you say to somebody who's like, Okay, I'm
drawing a lie in the sand. There's this whole new
way of thinking and being and feeling and beliefs that
(10:55):
I want to step into. In terms of it becoming
my new way of being and my new brain what
does that look like on a timeline level, on an
intensity level, on a density level.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
From your perspective, Well.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
I think it's different for everybody, and I think it's
different in every situation for everybody too, because there's some
habits that need to be broken and new ones to
be replace. The length and depth to which you will
have to go to break those depends on a number
of things. Some of them are just how long you've
been doing it that way, right, Like if you've been
using a pair of scissors in a certain way with
(11:30):
your right hand your whole life, and all of a
sudden somebody says, oh, you have to use those with
your left hand. Now, it's going to take you a
long time to figure out how to do that job
with your left hand because you're not left handed. There's
some physiology involved in that. You haven't ever done it
that way, so there's some novelty involved in that, and
it's awkward because the scissors are right handed scissors and
you're trying to use them with the wrong way. So
there's some mechanics and logistics involved in that. Right. So
(11:52):
there's a lot of different things that come into play
when you talk about breaking a habit or changing a habit.
Another level of it, though, is that some things breaking
a habit related to certain medications or substances. There's also
a physiological and psychological involvement and an addiction component to that,
and so the answer is different depending on what the
situation is. But the truth of it is this that
(12:14):
what you're doing, you're getting better at. And the way
to get better at something is to tell yourself, I
don't have to do it all today. In fact, they
talk about this in the addiction Recovery lingo a lot.
It's like, you don't have to quit drinking for the
rest of your life. You just have to decide I'm
not going to drink for the next hour. You just
have to decide, Okay, I'm not sure when the next
(12:35):
time I take a drink is, but it's not going
to be to day, right, So make a habit that
will get you through. If it's a day and you
can do that, do that, If it's an hour and
you can do that, do that. But get better at
being better at doing something for the specified period of time, right.
And then what you'll find is that as you start
to incorporate that sort of will and that sort of
(12:56):
sort of carefully stewarded thought and effort and drive into
the process. You'll find that the process itself becomes easier
to attack and more successful in short increments. And so
I think habits that don't require physiological addictions to be
broken are probably quicker. That's probably where that twenty one
day thing comes in. That people say it's actually probably
(13:16):
more like thirty days for a lot of hard things.
But I think when you're talking about something that changes
your physiology like substances, or changes your psychology significantly, like
pornography or something like that, it may take a very
long time, but it won't take you long to master
the art of doing it in short bursts and being
proud of yourself, giving yourself that dopamine reward of having
(13:37):
accomplished that thing for a short period of time. And
you know, for me, it might be I don't wake
up tomorrow with cheto dust all over my fingers. I
did it for tonight. I don't have to worry about tomorrow.
Each day has enough trouble of its own, but I
can do it for today.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
And I mean, even just stacking on everything that you've
just said is in alignment with making sure that you're
addressing the thoughts, the feelings, the beliefs, the habits.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
It's not just the thing itself, Like the thing is
never the thing, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
So before we kind of end this, bring us home,
bring us full circle. So if you were to just
kind of paint a picture of how our thoughts, our feelings,
and our beliefs all coexist, all chicken egg each other
which is a technical term of course, and the cause
and effect of all of them, could you just kind
of speak into that, just because I really, I really
want people to get that whatever they're struggling with is
(14:23):
not about the food, and it's not about their body.
It is what's going on in their brain, their thoughts,
their beliefs, their behaviors. It's not any one thing. It's
all of it. It is a three dimensional thing. But
that's a beautiful opportunity and possibility, you know, and there's
a lot of hope that lives in that. So can
you just kind of speak it to all of that
three dimensionally?
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Absolutely, And it might even be more than three dimensions,
you know, so you a fourth dimension involved in it.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
But the thing is, so you're not a collection of
your failures and you are not a collection of the
things that you've not been able to overcome. What you
are is a whole person with a story and a
history and a heritage, and a set of genetics and
epigenetics which is that created the starting point from where
you are, and a set of traumas and tragedies and
(15:11):
dramas and maybe massive things that you've been So what
you are is not just a person who has repeatedly
failed to accomplish this one thing or repeatedly falls into
this particular behavior. Give yourself a little bit of self
care and say, hey, wait a minute, I need to
have a kind of trauma informed view off and stop
saying what's the matter with me, and rather say, kind
of what happened to me? Where have I been? What
(15:33):
have I been through? Where did I get from my parents?
What was my starting point? And all of that stuff.
To just acknowledge to yourself that if you looked at
another person in the same situation, you would have compassion
and empathy for them. So give yourself the same perspective. Right,
have some compassion and empathy for yourself and then say, okay, wait,
now I've got a set of emotions, feelings and a
(15:54):
set of thoughts that are all mixed and mingled together
in a way that I can't possibly say. And I
know that the baseline generation of feelings is that there
are neurochemical events and not necessarily facts. And if I
can learn to discern that, then I can begin to
apply some reasons in frontal low brain power to what
I'm feeling before I act on it. And then if
(16:15):
I can recognize that I have a lot of automatic
thoughts that aren't necessarily true, and I can learn to
biapse to them and decide if they're true before I
take action on them, then I can start to have
some power in the process of say, wait a minute,
I know that I don't have to respond every thought
and feeling, and I know that I can use the
directed power of my mind to make structural changes in
(16:37):
my brain and make myself better at being better at
my own life. Then I've got some power. Now, I've
got some skin in the game because I'm not a
victim anymore of the way I've always been. I'm not
a victim of the way my parents raised me. I'm
not a victim of the genes that I inherited. Because
I know that my thoughts can turn them on and
off and make them better in the future. And I'm
(16:57):
not even a victim of what I might pass on
to my kids, because I can make that better too
by changing the way I think in the way I
live now, they'll inherit a better set of switched on
or off jeans than I did. So all of that
to say, Leanne that if you add the fourth dimension,
which I think is spiritual, then you say, okay, wait,
I'm a whole person with the whole vast story that's happening.
(17:19):
And I'm not just a left brain kind of thing
that's a two dimensional object that says I am a
failure or I'm a success. I'm a right hemisphere too,
which is the whole world around me and all the
experiences and feelings and nuance and thoughts and all of
that stuff jumbled up into this entire person that, from
my perspective, is fearfully and wonderfully made and worthy of
(17:39):
value and love and honor, that has a purpose and
a meaning to your life. And if you believe that
about yourself and that you can change the things that
you feel like you've been stuck with, there's no limit
to what you can do.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Oh my goodness, this is why we love you, doctor Warren.
That was I mean, that was such a beautiful summation.
And ladies and the couple of gentlemen that are listening.
You know, no, really, in all of that, there wasn't
much said about food or your weight, or there wasn't
anything said about it. It really comes back to you
as an entire being, the essence of who you are,
(18:12):
the worthiness that lives inside of you.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
That has nothing to do with any of those things.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
But if you do want to change those things, start
in this four dimensional conversation, right, multidimensional conversation. Thank you
so much for being here. Thank you so much for
sharing your wisdom. I mean, we could go on and on,
and there's so much to share. You have so much wisdom,
even beyond the scope of the neuroscience side of it.
So if people want to find your podcast, and by
the way, everything that doctor Warren just kind of summed
(18:40):
up of the cause and effect of the thoughts, the feelings,
the beliefs, and the habits his self brain surgery thought process.
He goes on a deep dive, so you definitely want
to check out his podcast, The Doctor Lee Warren podcast
is where you go deep into that. The Spiritual Brain
Surgery is where you intersect the faith and the science
piece of it. But tell us a bit about your
where to find your podcast, your books, where to Google's
(19:00):
talk you all the things.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
Well, you're already listening to a podcast somewhere, so right now,
wherever you are, you can go to the search bar
and type in doctor Lee Warren and you'll find my
two podcasts, the Doctor Lee Warren Podcast and Spiritual Brain Surgery.
As Lean so kindly mentioned. You can also go to
Amazon or Barnes and Noble and type in my name
and you'll see all my books. And the most recent
one is called Hope is the First Dose, and it's
a treatment plan for recovering from trauma and tragedy and
(19:24):
massive things that happen. And we talk about all the
kind of stuff that we've been talking about today. And
I have a website too, Doctor Lee Warren dot substack
dot com, or write a newsletter every week, so easy
to find me. Lots of good content out there, and
I hope that people will benefit from it.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah, and guy subscribe to his newsletter because he sends
out an email every Sunday with just jam packed full
of not just the content that he puts on his website,
but also you get an inner working of his brain
and his life, and it's just a beautiful way to
wake up on a Sunday morning. So definitely add yourself
in there. We will add all of that to the
show notes. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
You're also going to be on Amy's podcast. We're gonna
link you to our What's God Got to Do with It? Podcast?
So we've got a lot.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
We love doctor Lee Warren over here on the Amy
Brown Network, here on iHeart, So we're just so grateful to.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Have you here. Thanks for listening out Weigh and we
will catch you next week. Bye.
Hosts And Creators
Amy Brown
Leanne Ellington
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