February 18, 2025 • 42 mins
What if the key to overcoming stress and unhealthy habits isn't just in your thoughts but in rewiring your brain? Renowned expert and bestselling author Dr. Laurel Mellin joins us to uncover the transformative power of Emotional Brain Training (EBT), a method that challenges the traditional focus on positive thinking and behavioral changes. Dr. Laurel shares fascinating insights into how emotions are deeply rooted in the brain's neurophysiology, not merely in the heart, and how this understanding can lead to lasting change in our health and well-being.
Throughout our conversation, we explore how EBT categorizes five distinct brain states influenced by stress levels and how these states drive behaviors like overeating. Dr. Laurel guides us through the science of stress circuits, particularly the role of the amygdala in activating harmful behaviors when we feel unsafe or unrewarded. By focusing on neuroplasticity, EBT offers a structured method to rewire these circuits, emphasizing the importance of compassion and group support in achieving personal transformation.
Join us as we delve into the holistic benefits of EBT, where the cultivation of joy becomes a spiritual and physiological practice. Dr. Laurel's 30-day challenge and her book "One, Two, Three, Joy" provide further resources for those eager to embark on this empowering journey. Discover how EBT is setting the stage for the future of medicine, blending science and emotional health to create profound, lasting change.
Get the book: 1-2-3 JOY!: Easy, Natural Weight Loss that is Scientific, Proven, Drug-Free & Fun https://amzn.to/40IOgGt
Join the EBT support groups https://www.ebtconnect.net/groups
Get the Spiral Up app for free https://www.spiralup.org/
Revitalize your faith and fitness with a morning routine that does not sacrifice your sleep and does start each day with God's Word and a workout. Join the community today at www.earlymorninghabit.com
☀️ Grab my FREE TRAINING on 3 Powerful Secrets to Rise Renewed Every Morning.
☀️ Join the Early Morning Habit course and community today.
➡️ Find Our Favorite Resources at the Early Morning Habit Amazon Shop
=============================
SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
=============================
➡️ YouTube
➡️ Instagram
We value your feedback! Please share your thoughts on this show here.
This episode is NOT sponsored. Some product links are affiliate links; we will receive a small commission if you buy something.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The brain actually coughs up kind of gnarly
emotions when we're in stressand if you don't unravel those
emotions with a very simpleprocess, very simple two to
three minutes, thenbiochemically you're still in
stress.
You're telling yourself youshouldn't eat that, but your
chemicals are making itimpossible for you not to eat it
.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Dr Laurel, it is so wonderful to have you here on
the Rise Renew podcast and inour live early morning habit
community for those ladies thatare here live.
We're going to chat about herbook One, two, three, joy, and
we're going to tap into the easy, natural way to lose stress and
weight and sustain it withoutthe need for drugs.
(00:45):
It is scientific, proven andfun, dr Laurel, welcome.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
What a pleasure.
Thanks so much.
I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
It's so fun to have you here.
I wish I could show you thenumber of notes that I took in
this book when I got this,because we have a very similar,
I think, underlying message,which is emotional health has
the power to unlock betterhealth in all areas of our life,
and what you do so well in thisbook which, by the way, she's a
(01:16):
best New York Times bestsellingauthor.
How many books have you written?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
13, 14, something along that I was going to say 12
.
13, 14, something along thoselines I was going to say 12.
I'm not far off.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Then I think there's about another 20 workbooks, I
mean really I'm 75, so I've beendoing this for some time.
I have lots of time.
Yeah, it's incredible, and thatcomes out.
I mean, this is just one of herdozen plus books, but your
knowledge on this area is very,very clear, and so it is an
honor to have you here.
(01:46):
I think one of the biggestmisconceptions about emotion is
how we have correlated it withthe heart, and, yes, it's a nice
picture for us, but what Ithink a lot of people miss is
that emotion is, in fact,centered in our brain.
(02:07):
It is stemming from our brainand it's a neurophysiological
process that happens.
So I think before we can eventalk about emotional brain
training, it's important for usto understand the different
areas of the brain and howstress moves us from these
different areas before we canunderstand how emotional brain
training helps intervene in that.
(02:30):
So I'd love to hear more aboutthat.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Well, I think you really hit it, because whenever
I hear the word emotional, Ithink, oh my God, it's
psychological.
Actually, that's psychology.
The field of psychology cameabout long after the medical
sciences.
It's actually biologicalemotions are used in the brain
to give us control over ourentire physiology.
(02:56):
Okay, you cannot think your wayout of an eating binge, and
that's why what's happeningright now with people is it's
very, very damaging to live insociety not knowing about ebt,
because what you hear is youhave to think your way out of a
binge.
I mean, for me as a, as aperson who had really strong
(03:17):
desires to overeat and wastrapped in that for about 20
years, it is miserable.
And when someone would just say,well, just do it, just go on
this diet or just change yourbehavior, change your thoughts,
the fact is, these drives thatwe have are biochemically driven
by stress level in the brain.
The way you control your stressis not by thinking.
(03:40):
I mean, you know, if you'rejust having a little bit of
stress, you can do it, you canthink a positive thought, but
once you get to moderate stressor high stress, which most of us
are in chronically, there's noway that's going to happen,
because the brain actuallycoughs up kind of gnarly
emotions when we're in stressand if you don't unravel those
emotions with a very simpleprocess, very simple two to
(04:03):
three minutes, thenbiochemically you're still in
stress.
You're telling yourself youshouldn't eat that, but your
chemicals are making itimpossible for you not to eat it
.
Eight different chemicals makeyou overeat if you're in stress.
So one thing no judgment.
Also, have a lot of patiencefor yourself because, oh my gosh
, I just read what was in thenewspaper about, you know,
(04:27):
positive thinking and changingyour behavior.
I think there's something wrongwith me.
There's nothing wrong with you.
The current methods are notdealing with giving you the
skills you need to turn offthose stress areas in the brain
I'll tell you about in a moment.
I'm going to the American, theObesity Association of America
(04:49):
major, the biggest organizationof obesity in the world, and I'm
giving a full one hour talk tothem in April and I'm just
telling them exactly what I'mtelling you right now.
It's about stress and here'swhat you want to know.
You want to know just what yousaid on it that there are five
different stress levels in thebrain.
(05:09):
We call them brain states ornumbers.
So you're not going to askyourself how you feel.
That's all psychological.
What do you do with a feeling?
Anyway, if you're in stress,you don't really know how you
feel or what you need.
So you just say am I at brainstate one, where the thinking
brain at the top of your head,basically the low stress area,
(05:30):
the thinking brain, is in charge.
The chemicals are great, youfeel rewarded and you feel safe.
And those stress chemicals theeight of them that get
dysregulated with stress arehappy as can be and you can have
one bite of an apple and enjoyit instead of having to eat the
whole piece or more of piebecause you don't have those
(05:54):
chemicals running.
And then it goes from theneocortex a little bit down
about where your eyebrow is.
Then it's halfway between yourneocortex and your limbic brain.
That's number two.
That's when you feel good butyou don't feel really rewarded.
We need to feel rewarded, weneed that joy, we need that
pleasure.
So one's okay.
(06:15):
When you get down to three, youare in the limbic brain.
That means you are emotional,your emotions are all scattered,
you feel kind of anxious.
Those circuits are starting toactivate so that those chemicals
that are making you think aboutfood right now are coming up.
Go down to four, which isdefinitely stress.
You are almost to the reptilianbrain.
(06:37):
You are almost out of control.
Your thinking brain is comingoffline and you just know that
you absolutely need to eat forlove or for connection or for
comfort.
And then at five, when thereptilian brain is in offline
and you just know that youabsolutely need to eat for love
or for connection or for comfort.
And then at five, when thereptilian brain is in full bore,
forget it.
You're going to get whateveryou want when you want it and
you really have biologically notpsychologically biologically
(06:58):
lost control.
Now, if you, if you just haveregular human skills like being
mindful or thinking positivethoughts, you're fine at brain
state one or two.
Once you cross that line intothree, you're in the limbic
brain and then the reptilianbrain and truly, every time
you've ever overeaten, just takea moment and give yourself
(07:20):
grace, give yourself a sense ofcompassion for yourself, because
it is really just a skillinsufficiency.
You haven't been told.
The problem is stress.
You need emotional tools toclear that stress and there's
nothing wrong with you.
It's biochemically driven.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
And I think it's worth noting.
We're honing in right now onovereating, but that response
for everyone could be different.
It could be and you could speakto this probably even better
than me but it's almost likewhat sort of the place that our
brain has gone to under stress.
And are that neuroplasticitystatement, the neurons that fire
(08:04):
together, wire together.
Is that right?
Did I say that right?
And so it's that idea that youknow.
For those of you listening, itmight not be overeating, but it
could be a different behavioralpattern that is damaging to you.
But this concept that you'resharing is applying to anything.
(08:25):
Like maybe you could just lista couple that might resonate
with the women listening, likemaybe this is actually their
response.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Actually, let me give you the rationale as well as
the common presentations.
First of all, when I'm at three, four, five or any of us are,
we're in something called stressoverload.
It's called medically, it'scalled allostasis, and a circuit
that's a stress overloadcircuit in the brain, in the
amygdala, where it stores all ofour experiences, is activated
(08:55):
and that circuit has, goesquickly, you know, just gets,
just gets activated and allthese chemicals come.
It tells us what to do becauseit knows that we're neither safe
nor rewarded and our DNA is setup to make us safe and rewarded
.
So what happens is we get thismessage I get my safety or my
love or my comfort, and whateverwe've done before to get to
(09:19):
feel better, even though itdoesn't help us any and it's not
really a great idea, whateverwe did before, the brain has
over, remembered and made acircuit.
So the tail end of the circuitis whatever we do.
So, even though the americanpsychological association is
still engaged in telling peoplethings that are not
scientifically true, which is anaddiction has a certain uh,
(09:42):
depression has a certaindiagnosis.
Anxiety, um, addiction, allthese things have different
diagnoses.
Truly, all of them are the samein that there's a circuit there
that's driving us to repeatthat behavior, taking us the
thinking brain offline.
We're out of controlbiologically.
So whatever we happen to do inthe past whether it's a behavior
(10:03):
like overspending, overworking,procrastination, drinking drugs
, whatever that is we're goingto go for it as if our life
depended on it, because that'sthe message in the unconscious
mind.
But also it can be a mood.
A mood and most people have amood circuit where they all of a
(10:25):
sudden they're triggered and,let's say, they go into a panic
or into anxiety or intodepression or into hostility or
just self-judgment or whatever.
Yeah, so it can be a mood arelationship pattern, um,
overgiving and merging withpeople, or distancing and
putting up walls, so any of theor thought patterns.
So whatever happens to be onthe end of that circuit,
(10:45):
whatever we happened to do inthe past that got locked into
our brain, we're going tocontinue to do it until we
unlock that circuit and rewireit, and that's what we do with
EBT.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
And I think it's also worth noting that for some of
us, for a lot of us, we'reprobably unwiring and then
rewiring patterns that haveexisted since childhood.
Probably for some of us, for alot of us, we're probably
unwiring and then rewiringpatterns that have existed since
childhood, probably for many ofus, things that have been
taught, things that have beenprogrammed.
So it's to your point again,it's an idea of grace, patience
and work to rewire those neurons, those circuits that have been,
(11:22):
you know, traditionally andrepeatedly wired together.
So that's hard, but teach uswhat you are doing to, in a
proven way, help people rewire.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Well, we know for sure that if it's not fun, it's
not EBT, and the reason for thatis the brain will only do
things that feel rewarding andmeaningful and even fun, because
you're getting to know who youreally are.
You're finding out why am Idoing that anyway?
And you'll find out with EBTand then change the circuit.
So we know that emotional braintraining started at the
(11:59):
University of California, sanFrancisco.
I was a young professor, didn'tknow quite what I was doing,
and I happened to get into aposition where I could explore
the root causes of obesity.
And because I was not apsychologist at the time, I was
a nutritionist and I was kind oflike necessary, they kind of
needed somebody for the grantwho was a nutritionist.
(12:20):
I went back after that tobecome a health psychologist,
but they didn't really, you know, give me too much trouble
because they didn't expect muchof me.
So what I did is I spent yearsgoing to the root cause and what
we found was that, essentiallyscientifically if you have
anyone who's listening to thisor watching this the process of
(12:42):
rewiring a circuit is extremelysimple.
It is scientific.
It doesn't matter whether youweigh 110 pounds more than you
want to, or five pounds, oryou're anorexic and you're
underweight, or you're normalweight and you just every night
struggle with feeling out ofcontrol of your food.
It doesn't matter.
The process you learn ofrewiring is exactly the same.
(13:05):
It is scientific.
Even though we're verydifferent in what we think about
in our neocortex, in ouremotional brain, in the
primitive emotional spiritualstress brain, we're exactly the
same.
So what we've done is codifythe resiliency pathways in the
brain so you can actually use anapp and you can rewire your
(13:27):
circuits, except for one caveatthese circuits are in the
emotional brain.
This is again the seat of thesoul, the center of all
tenderness, attachment,spirituality.
Everything that's reallyimportant is there, and this is
the brain.
That requires love.
It requires having a loving,wonderful, prideful, exciting
(13:50):
time, and so we don't give thisapp out because it won't work
unless you're in a small groupwith maybe five or six other
people on the telephone,privately, with a certified EBT
provider who guides your way,and everyone is rewiring
circuits because everyone hasthem.
(14:10):
So you're in a support group andyou come in and you start
warming up.
For maybe about a month youhave the app and you're with
other people.
You're connecting with themthrough the app.
You can spend five minutes andyou can listen to each other and
be a warm presence, no adviceto each other, and all of a
sudden you learn how to spiralup in the moment.
So you start spiraling up outof stress, out of three, four
(14:34):
and five, back to that state ofemotional and spiritual
connection where those chemicalsare making us overeat or judge
ourselves and gain weight.
They're bye-bye at that point.
And what happens?
You start by actually doing itbefore you eat and what happens
is you notice that you're, youdon't have the interest in food
(14:55):
anymore.
We're not trying to changebehavior, because the problem is
not behavior, it's a circuit.
We're trying to change thecircuit so we get lasting change
.
And then after about four weeksyou say, okay, I'm going to use
the same tools and I'm actuallygoing to erase these circuits
so I get lasting effects.
So you're in your same groupNow.
(15:15):
You're comfortable with the sixother people.
Everybody's helping each otherand inspiring each other and
learning from each other.
And you go there once a weekfor a half an hour and then you
check in with each other duringthe week.
So you say I'm ready to do the30 day challenge and you go in
for the 30 day challenge and youchange your life.
You actually reset your brain.
(15:35):
So you don't have that drive toovereat, you don't have that
biological tendency to gainweight and you have a different
relationship with your emotions.
And typically in relationshipsyou're not either distancing and
you know getting not gettingthat oxytocin that we need in
order to um to is an appetitesuppressant, or merging and
(15:56):
giving too much.
So in in 30 days you changeyour life and you essentially
get from whatever habit yourbrain's in.
Maybe it's used to being atthree, four or five, because
there's a set point of three,four or five and it bumps up to
about a two and all of a suddenyou say, wow, this is a whole
(16:17):
different world.
I really like this.
At that point, if you just leave, what happens is the brain says
, ha ha, that was good, you didit well for a month, but I'm
gonna backlash because the brainis now comfortable being in
chronic stress.
Before it was comfortable, it'dbe three, four or five, and so
(16:38):
you just stay in your group andyou do more work to clear out
the clutter from the past andclear out some of the things
that have happened that may havestressed you, you basically
raise the set point of yourbrain.
So your brain naturally comesto that loving state of
connection.
With less work, it's moreautomatic and that's how you get
lasting weight loss and freedomfrom not only overeating and
(16:59):
overweight but from all thesubstitute excesses.
So many people go and say, oh,oh, I'm going to really diet.
And then what happens is theyend up with with anorexia.
They're so rigid around foodthey can't even enjoy it, or
essentially they stop, you know,overeating and start
overspending.
Or start because essentiallythe spiritual elements of life,
from a christian perspective,from a perspective of the
(17:24):
soul-based and biologic, wantsyou to be at set point one,
because in that state ofconnection what happens is you
have more to give back to theworld, and that's what we're
here for right To give back, youknow, to enjoy our talents and
make the world a better place,and we can do that when we're
healthier.
And so, essentially, you raiseyour set point for lasting
(17:45):
results and a life of joy andspirituality and purpose.
That's easy.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah, I mean, I hear.
What I hear you saying isyou're resetting your stress
baseline.
It's like we've almost entereda state where we live the new
rested is stressed.
We think we're rested, butwe're actually living in a place
of stress and elevated cortisollevels, and it's almost like we
(18:12):
literally need to rewire ourown thinking of what it even is
to be rested.
It's like we don't evenactually know what it is and I'm
speaking for myself, too totruly experience joy in a rested
state, because we're living inlike these emotional survival
modes, and some in a much moresignificant way than others.
Some are truly in survival modethey're not even sure where
(18:34):
their next meal is going to comefrom but many of us are living
in like an emotional state ofsurvival.
So I'm wanting to reiterateagain what you pointed out you
have accountability set up inplace for people who really want
to take this to the next levelwith your group.
(18:57):
That meets Changing your Lifein 30 Days, with the
accountability on the app.
We're going to make sure thatall of those resources are
linked.
But what I would love to hearyou highlight is what is the
actual scientific process?
What are people doing to whatyou call spiraling up and moving
out of these states.
(19:17):
Talk to us about whatpractically feet on the ground,
or in your brain, if you will,you're doing.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I can even demonstrate it if you want,
because it is very simple.
And it's so simple you thinkwell, that's not a problem.
Yeah, the brain doesn't want todo it and that's why we have to
train the brain to do it.
Unless you're having fun, youhave other people to do it with,
you get inspired, you're notgoing to give the intensity
that's necessary.
(19:45):
The reason we love the 30 30day challenge, you know, in
other words, 30 days to changeyour life, is when people are in
those 30 days they can preparefor them as long as they want
and then do it.
What happens is they say theseskills are magical because to
change the brain takes thatintensity.
So they get a big bump up andfrom then on on, they stay with
(20:06):
EBC for a long time.
But here's what you do.
You essentially wake up in themorning and you're Christian,
you probably pray in the morning.
Right, you say a prayer in themorning and you start your day
and really all through the Bible.
It talks about joy, and joy isa spiritual state.
It's also the best state forphysiology when all of those
(20:28):
eight chemicals that make ushungry, lethargic, depressed,
anxious and pack on pounds areturned off.
So you say to yourself I amcreating joy in my life, in
addition to whatever prayerfulthing you want to say and that
relationship with Jesus.
So the idea is you then startgoing upon your day, but you do
(20:50):
exactly what you just referredto, anna, is that we are in a
culture now that the norm isincredibly unhealthy.
It is to be stressed out, andso you get really a good
consumer of life, and wheneveryou're not in that connected
state, you reach for your appand you go through it.
You don't have to think.
You go through the app and I'mgoing to show you.
(21:11):
What you do is you essentiallybreak down the circuit with
emotions that is causing youproblems and you replace it with
a circuit that's making youhealthy and happy, and we call
that spiral up.
So you switch from the damagingcircuits to the healthy
circuits in two to three minutesand then you stay in that glow.
(21:31):
You can feel the glow in yourbody, and then the next time it
happens, you do it again.
And also you learn a lot ofdifferent tricks.
There's a lot of reallyadvanced skills and there's ways
to get joy directly when youdon't feel like feeling your
emotions.
There's a lot of variety.
But let me tell you the basicskill and anyone that is
(21:56):
watching or listening pleaseappreciate that you need to get
really picky, that if you're notin that state of connection joy
, that you make sure that youset boundaries in your life so
that you can be in that state ofjoy.
Because when you're in thatstate of brain, state, one in
joy, that's when spirituallyyou're connected, that's when
you are able to give back andalso take care of your health.
If you don't take care of yourhealth, you're not going to be
(22:17):
here to give back.
So you get to be pretty pickyabout it.
And this is how you do it.
You first do everything thatyour mother told you not to do.
The first thing is you complain.
You say in five sentences whatis bothering you and you don't
say a sophisticated complaint.
You don't say well, thesituation is, it's been really
(22:38):
hard for me lately and so Ithink there's something wrong
with me.
I'm not sure I've been thinkingthis is too much in your head,
because this is the brain ofbeing a child.
You know we're children of theuniverse and so you keep it
really simple and you soundfrustrated because in fact you
don't want to feel bad.
Right, you want to be back tothat state of connection.
(23:00):
So you say something like thesituation is I'm overeating and
uh, it's, it's gotten out ofcontrol.
And I tell myself not toovereat and then I just I think
I'm not going to be able to doit.
I kind of want to do it, andthen that by that night I'm
overeating, that's it.
No more talking, no morethinking.
(23:21):
Just state it like it is.
And then you say you wait,because you're using the skills
in your thinking brain, behindyour forehead, to control the
uncontrollable, which is theemotional brain.
And you have to turn yourattention to your body, because
we experience our emotions inour body, not in our.
(23:43):
They're activated by our brain.
We experience them in our body.
So you let go of control, youlet Christ in you, let that
moment of tolerating,irresolution and trusting occur
and you go into your body andyou wait until some words from
your body appear in your mindand the next lead-in it's a
(24:05):
series of lead-ins or promptsand then you just trust your
body and say something.
And so I'm going to say whatI'm most stressed about, because
we want to find what you'remost stressed about.
Right, because that's going todo the best good is to take that
circuit and erase it or atleast switch it off.
So we say what I'm moststressed about is I'm out of
control.
Does that ring true?
(24:26):
Yeah, because you're alwayssaying does it ring true?
Because when the words actuallymatch what's in your emotional
brain, you get this relaxationresponse.
You say, oh yes, that ringstrue.
And then you do something elsethat your mother probably told
you never to do you expresssomething called the anger
procedure.
(24:47):
It takes about 15-20 secondsand a brief burst of safe,
healthy anger stops the emotionsfor getting stuck.
The reason we don't talk aboutour feelings or feel our
feelings when we're stressed isbecause they're scattered,
they're stuck or they're toxic.
In other words, it's smart notto feel your feelings because
(25:10):
you don't have that EBT process.
You're going to feel worse andit's not going to go anywhere
good.
A brief expression of angerabout being stressed actually
changes the whole game and whenyou go into the feelings that
follow, you have one expressionof sadness instead of being
depressed, one expression offear instead of being you know,
(25:34):
panicked or anxious, yeah, oneguilt which is hey, what could I
do differently?
And by that time the circuitreveals itself to you and you
can change it.
And by that time the circuitreveals itself to you and you
can change it.
The message you have to have,the message, the exact message
in your brain that tells you todo what you're doing.
And once you have that message,what happens is you say oh my
(25:57):
gosh, that's why I do it.
I never would think that,because it's not in your
thinking brain, it's in youremotional brain.
And then you just say theopposite in a very specific way
and the circuit goes away.
Boom, it's gone for the moment.
And then you do it repeatedlyover time, with a little more
sophistication, and it is erased.
When it's erased, you're nottrying to change your behavior,
(26:18):
you're not trying to change yourfood, because who would want to
change that when the problem'snot the food, it's the circuit.
When you change the circuit,you look at the food Like
someone.
I normally, if I don't use EBT,I could eat the entire pot of
this dish she had prepared inone night.
(26:39):
If I do use EBT, it takes methree nights and I'm completely
set to eat that amount and I'mcompletely satisfied.
And the reason is when youswitch circuits you get dopamine
, oxytocin and endorphinsnaturally.
And if we're not getting themnaturally, our brain wants to
get them from some kind ofexternal source like food.
(27:02):
So we're chemically satisfiedwith zero calories, zero extra
calories.
We just eat what we need andthat's the process.
And let me tell you the angerprocedure okay, so it's very
simple.
It's I feel, let's say, I'm outof control.
Anger procedure okay, so, it'svery simple.
It's I feel, let's say I'm outof control is topic right.
I feel angry that I'm out ofcontrol.
And remember, you can do thisabout anything.
(27:22):
It can be about your spouse, itcan be about your child or your
work or your mood, anythingthat's bothering you.
The same process Once you learnit, you will have it for life.
I feel angry that I can't standat that.
I hated that, I hate it, I hateit, I hate it, I hate it, I
hate it.
I really really hate it.
That's it.
And when you say that boom,anger is the only emotion in the
(27:48):
brain that's associated withpower.
The other negative emotionsamong the negative emotions, the
other negative emotions are oh,I feel sad, I feel afraid, I
feel guilty.
You basically flatline, and sothat's all technique that you
learn and perfect in EBT.
It moves, so that when you goto sadness and say I feel sad,
(28:08):
it's not depression, I feel alittle sad that I do that and I
feel afraid.
I feel afraid that it mighthurt me.
Not, I feel afraid that I'm abad person that I'll never be
over, because you've cleared thechemicals of stress and so
you're really very mindfullyaware and loving towards
yourself.
And if you go to I feel guilty,it's not I'm ashamed that I
(28:29):
overeat because the chemicalshave been cleared, it's hey,
everybody I do have some powerhere I feel guilty.
Why don't I just, you know, eathealthy?
And then you laugh even moreand say, of course I'm not going
(28:50):
to just eat healthy, because Ihave a circuit in my emotional
brain that was put there throughno fault of my own.
You know, mine was when I was11 and I reached for some
cinnamon rolls when I'd beenbullied at school.
I formed that circuit.
It was not my fault and ofcourse I wouldn't because.
And then the big reveal Now thisis the insight that we all want
, because we all really want toknow who we are right.
We want to know what's going oninside of me and really
(29:13):
understand why we're doing whatwe're doing right, because why
we're doing what we're doing isreally part of that connection
to the spiritual.
I'm connected to the deepestpart of myself and that
self-knowledge is how I evolveand to be a more loving, more
more committed christian too.
So the idea is, I say um, andthen you don't do any work.
(29:33):
This involves no work at all.
You just follow the formula andI say of course I, hey,
everybody, I do have some powerhere.
I feel guilty.
Why don't I just do thesensible thing that anyone would
do if they didn't have thiscircuit in their brain, and eat
healthy.
And then, out of completeself-love, you say of course I'm
(29:55):
not going to just eat healthy,because my unreasonable
expectation is and this is themessage that's in the circuit.
And then you pause Again.
This is a spiritual programbecause you pause, you allow
yourself to get out of overcontrol, you just essentially
open your heart.
Your mind goes blank for maybefive seconds, 10 seconds.
(30:19):
You connect with your body andmagically the words from that
circuit will appear in yourconscious mind and it'll
typically say I get my, and it'ssomething like existence, love,
safety, protection, power.
You know whatever that is.
It'll come to you and you'llsay oh, yes, that's, my drive is
(30:39):
from that.
I'm trying to get that.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
And then you say Is it pretty consistent, would you
say, like when people find thatmessage in a circuit, does this
tend to be the underlyingmessage in a lot of their poorly
wired circuits?
Does that question make sense?
No, they're not.
It's interesting, it may.
Or poorly wired circuits.
Does that question make sense?
Speaker 1 (30:55):
No, they're not.
It's interesting.
It may or may not be, andthat's why that's a fantastic
question.
This is the idea.
In the moment when I reachedfour, I came home from school.
I was 11 years old, my motherwas there, but I didn't know how
to talk about my feelings, andthe cinnamon rolls were on the
cabinet.
I ate three of them and I feltguilty because I had overeaten.
(31:21):
But the truth was that theovereating wasn't the problem.
I created a fight or flightcircuit was going inside of me,
plus I attached it to my foodcircuit and now I've got this
big old food circuit.
I wake up the next morning.
I've got a fight or flightdrive to overeat, and that's how
my drive to overeat was born.
In that moment, I needed love,so I get my love from it.
But if I'd been in a differentsituation, where I was needing
(31:44):
comfort or I was needing power,safety, yeah, yeah, and this is
what's important is that if you,as you learn to do this, you
get better and better at EBT thelong.
It's like mindfulness oranything in that you have.
You learn it over time.
You don't learn it by reading abook.
You start with a book, you gointo a group and, essentially,
(32:06):
you get better and better out ofit and you really learn to
listen to yourself.
And so you have to find theexact words.
One woman that I just workedwith who had bulimia since she
was gosh about 13 um, she herswas I get my mothering from, and
it wasn't from food, it wasfrom feeling full in her stomach
(32:26):
.
So what, what god is asking usto do, is to get to know our
emotional brain and be able toreally love and see ourselves
accurately.
Because once you find the exactwords that are in that circuit,
you know it, because you say toyourself does that ring true?
And if she says yes, it ringstrue, that means the words match
(32:49):
the message in the emotionalcircuit.
All you have to do is do thisprocess of changing it with
repeating it is.
I cannot get it that way andthat's ridiculous.
I can't all the way up to whereyou are going to get that
safety or that love, and it'salways from inside, from
connecting to the spiritual.
So the idea is, if you don'treally know yourself and listen
(33:09):
to yourself, you will not getthe right words.
And if you don't get theyourself and listen to yourself,
you will not get the rightwords, and if you don't get the
right words you'll get someimprovement.
But every time you get theright words from really loving
and connecting with yourself andlistening to yourself what
happens is boom.
That circuit can be gone in ananosecond and you get
immediately rewarded from havingthat kind of love and awareness
(33:32):
of the deepest part of yourself.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
And I can see.
I can definitely see thephysiology of the clarity
because of the very real statesof the brain where it's almost
you get so over analytical,trying to figure out why I'm
doing what I'm doing and losingyeah, you're.
It's almost like you're tryingto diagnose when you're still in
fight or flight mode, ratherthan being able to hit like what
you're talking about theemotional brain to get more
(34:04):
clarity on why I'm actuallydoing the things that I'm doing
and how it's relating to how wefeel.
Ultimately, yeah, um, what?
If people are interested inlearning more and certainly the
link to this book will be in theshow notes, it'll also be in
the app ladies, uh, in the earlymorning habit app.
(34:26):
But if people are interested inmore accountability and diving
through a 30day challenge tounderstand this better, where's
the best place for them to go?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
The best place to go is there's only one place to go.
It's really EBT.
It's like food stamps, exceptit's emotionalbraintrainingorg,
and the reason for that is thatit is a process that you have to
learn.
It's a very gentle process.
You're always in completecontrol, so you go at your own
pace and you get into a smallgroup.
(34:58):
So you have all that love andsafety and really profound love
in these small groups.
They're by telephone, so no oneknows who you are.
You get to know the people, butit's your first name only.
But let me just go back to thatrewiring experience I mentioned
to you with the 30-day challenge.
It's amazing because you havefreedom.
You actually find that you'rereleasing weight with joy
(35:20):
instead of feeling like you are,you know, trapped in this body
that you don't want to be in.
You are actually feelingsatisfied on less food.
You are really wondering whyfood was ever such a big deal to
you.
You really realize it was justa circuit, but it's really about
overall quality of life.
So when you first come in, youdon't rewire a circuit, you just
(35:41):
learn how to spiral up and feelgreat in the moment.
And then let's say, you go inand you do the challenge and you
are very different, but you'regoing to continue to use the
same tools for work, stress, forrelationships, for setting
boundaries with people so theytreat you better.
You know anything that bothersyou you're going to be using, so
it's the intensity of it.
This is what neuroplasticity isabout.
(36:02):
Go through and do somethingreally intense and say wow, but
then go and do it softly foranything that bothers you or
just to create more joy in yourlife.
So it's an overall program foroptimal health and you need to
be in a group.
I will tell you I started thiswhen I was 28.
I'm 75 now.
It is cutting edge neuroscience.
(36:23):
It is unlike any other program,because no other program is
taking those gnarly emotions andrapidly dismantling them and
turning them into joy.
We have codified that.
But the issue is, if you coulddo it without a group, I would
be the happiest person on earthbecause meeting would be in
(36:43):
everyone's hands.
But we have data to show that,unless you get, that's why we
make it very inexpensive.
It's $99 a for for completeprofessional support every
single day of the month, plusyour own private group, plus the
app, because we want everyoneto have this if you're not in a
group.
I promise you you can't wingthis because the emotional brain
(37:06):
demands that you say.
You know what I matter.
I'm going to use cutting edgeneuroscience to get closer to
the deepest part of myself.
We know that spiritualityblossoms even more.
Overall health blossoms as yourelease the extra weight or
whatever that excess you'reworking on.
But I would say I welcomeanyone to go ahead and read the
(37:29):
book.
It's very extensive, but if youwant results, we know that it's
not about an app and it's notabout the science.
It's about actually signing upfor a group.
You just sign up for a groupthe accountability, start doing
it.
Accountability and the love andthe training, the providers.
You know how if you go totherapy.
(37:49):
I don't know if you've everfelt this way, but when I went
to therapy I am a psychologist,but I'm a health psychologist.
I'm about promoting optimalhealth.
I chose not to be a clinicalpsychologist because I really
think we're all perfect in ourown way.
I think we're made after Godand I believe just a few
circuits in our brain that wereencoded through no fault of our
(38:09):
own are blocking that and I wantto unleash that ability to get
back to that norm of joy andconnection in each person.
But essentially, when you gointo that group and start slowly
changing, what happens is yourlife just blossoms and people
love it Once they've been in thegroup for six weeks.
The first six weeks you saywhat's this app anyway?
(38:32):
And your provider helps you andtrains you.
But also when you go to atherapist on some of these
things, because this is not apsychological problem, it's just
circuits.
But if you're desperate, yousay, well, I don't want to go on
another diet, so I better go toa therapist and find out what's
wrong with you.
Nothing is wrong with you andthe person who is the provider
could be a nutritionist or couldbe a physician, or could be a
(38:55):
therapist for that matter, butthey're not practicing therapy.
What they're practicing is EBT.
And in order for us to certifyanyone as a clinician in EBT,
they have to do the workthemselves.
They have to go in becauseeveryone has circuits.
There's not these people thatare something's wrong with them
and their patients, and thenthere's these providers.
Everyone has these circuits.
(39:17):
The only difference is somepeople clear their circuits and
some people go to their deathbedwith their circuits and what
we're saying is don't go anotherday with these circuits.
It's not about you, it's just awire.
Our system, our health caresystem, at some point probably
not in my lifetime will be allabout EBT.
It has to be Because ultimately, the problem is physiologic and
(39:42):
you can't change yourphysiology with thoughts.
And if your thoughts aren'tworking well because we're
stressed, and we're all sostressed right now, it's very
hard to stay with behaviorchange consistently enough to
make a difference withoutorganizing your entire life
around your behavior change.
It should be effortless.
When you clear the stress, youjust naturally eat healthy, you
(40:03):
sleep more, you know all is good.
So I would say essentially ifyou want transformation, get
into a group and start creatingmore joy with these skills.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yeah, I love it, ebtorg.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yes, EBTorg I mean Dr Laurel and I are definitely on
the same page in that emotionalhealth is the future of medicine
.
It has to be, or we are goingto continue to see a focus on
chronic disease alone.
So emotional health is the keyto unlocking health across all
areas of life.
Ebt is cutting edge.
This is very science-based, soit is deep, Like she said.
If you enjoy that, youdefinitely want to get this book
.
One, Two, Three, Joy.
(40:46):
If you want the easier button,then ebtorg to check out Dr
Laurel's amazing work.
It's an honor having you here.
I love seeing somebody who hasgone ahead doing the work, and
learning from you has been a joy.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
My pleasure.
Thank you for inviting me.
Wonderful to be with you.
The brain actually coughs up kind of gnarly
emotions when we're in stressand if you don't unravel those
emotions with a very simpleprocess, very simple two to
three minutes, thenbiochemically you're still in
stress.
You're telling yourself youshouldn't eat that, but your
chemicals are making itimpossible for you not to eat it
.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Dr Laurel, it is so wonderful to have you here on
the Rise Renew podcast and inour live early morning habit
community for those ladies thatare here live.
We're going to chat about herbook One, two, three, joy, and
we're going to tap into the easy, natural way to lose stress and
weight and sustain it withoutthe need for drugs.
(00:45):
It is scientific, proven andfun, dr Laurel, welcome.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
What a pleasure.
Thanks so much.
I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
It's so fun to have you here.
I wish I could show you thenumber of notes that I took in
this book when I got this,because we have a very similar,
I think, underlying message,which is emotional health has
the power to unlock betterhealth in all areas of our life,
and what you do so well in thisbook which, by the way, she's a
(01:16):
best New York Times bestsellingauthor.
How many books have you written?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
13, 14, something along that I was going to say 12
.
13, 14, something along thoselines I was going to say 12.
I'm not far off.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Then I think there's about another 20 workbooks, I
mean really I'm 75, so I've beendoing this for some time.
I have lots of time.
Yeah, it's incredible, and thatcomes out.
I mean, this is just one of herdozen plus books, but your
knowledge on this area is very,very clear, and so it is an
honor to have you here.
(01:46):
I think one of the biggestmisconceptions about emotion is
how we have correlated it withthe heart, and, yes, it's a nice
picture for us, but what Ithink a lot of people miss is
that emotion is, in fact,centered in our brain.
(02:07):
It is stemming from our brainand it's a neurophysiological
process that happens.
So I think before we can eventalk about emotional brain
training, it's important for usto understand the different
areas of the brain and howstress moves us from these
different areas before we canunderstand how emotional brain
training helps intervene in that.
(02:30):
So I'd love to hear more aboutthat.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Well, I think you really hit it, because whenever
I hear the word emotional, Ithink, oh my God, it's
psychological.
Actually, that's psychology.
The field of psychology cameabout long after the medical
sciences.
It's actually biologicalemotions are used in the brain
to give us control over ourentire physiology.
(02:56):
Okay, you cannot think your wayout of an eating binge, and
that's why what's happeningright now with people is it's
very, very damaging to live insociety not knowing about ebt,
because what you hear is youhave to think your way out of a
binge.
I mean, for me as a, as aperson who had really strong
(03:17):
desires to overeat and wastrapped in that for about 20
years, it is miserable.
And when someone would just say,well, just do it, just go on
this diet or just change yourbehavior, change your thoughts,
the fact is, these drives thatwe have are biochemically driven
by stress level in the brain.
The way you control your stressis not by thinking.
(03:40):
I mean, you know, if you'rejust having a little bit of
stress, you can do it, you canthink a positive thought, but
once you get to moderate stressor high stress, which most of us
are in chronically, there's noway that's going to happen,
because the brain actuallycoughs up kind of gnarly
emotions when we're in stressand if you don't unravel those
emotions with a very simpleprocess, very simple two to
(04:03):
three minutes, thenbiochemically you're still in
stress.
You're telling yourself youshouldn't eat that, but your
chemicals are making itimpossible for you not to eat it
.
Eight different chemicals makeyou overeat if you're in stress.
So one thing no judgment.
Also, have a lot of patiencefor yourself because, oh my gosh
, I just read what was in thenewspaper about, you know,
(04:27):
positive thinking and changingyour behavior.
I think there's something wrongwith me.
There's nothing wrong with you.
The current methods are notdealing with giving you the
skills you need to turn offthose stress areas in the brain
I'll tell you about in a moment.
I'm going to the American, theObesity Association of America
(04:49):
major, the biggest organizationof obesity in the world, and I'm
giving a full one hour talk tothem in April and I'm just
telling them exactly what I'mtelling you right now.
It's about stress and here'swhat you want to know.
You want to know just what yousaid on it that there are five
different stress levels in thebrain.
(05:09):
We call them brain states ornumbers.
So you're not going to askyourself how you feel.
That's all psychological.
What do you do with a feeling?
Anyway, if you're in stress,you don't really know how you
feel or what you need.
So you just say am I at brainstate one, where the thinking
brain at the top of your head,basically the low stress area,
(05:30):
the thinking brain, is in charge.
The chemicals are great, youfeel rewarded and you feel safe.
And those stress chemicals theeight of them that get
dysregulated with stress arehappy as can be and you can have
one bite of an apple and enjoyit instead of having to eat the
whole piece or more of piebecause you don't have those
(05:54):
chemicals running.
And then it goes from theneocortex a little bit down
about where your eyebrow is.
Then it's halfway between yourneocortex and your limbic brain.
That's number two.
That's when you feel good butyou don't feel really rewarded.
We need to feel rewarded, weneed that joy, we need that
pleasure.
So one's okay.
(06:15):
When you get down to three, youare in the limbic brain.
That means you are emotional,your emotions are all scattered,
you feel kind of anxious.
Those circuits are starting toactivate so that those chemicals
that are making you think aboutfood right now are coming up.
Go down to four, which isdefinitely stress.
You are almost to the reptilianbrain.
(06:37):
You are almost out of control.
Your thinking brain is comingoffline and you just know that
you absolutely need to eat forlove or for connection or for
comfort.
And then at five, when thereptilian brain is in offline
and you just know that youabsolutely need to eat for love
or for connection or for comfort.
And then at five, when thereptilian brain is in full bore,
forget it.
You're going to get whateveryou want when you want it and
you really have biologically notpsychologically biologically
(06:58):
lost control.
Now, if you, if you just haveregular human skills like being
mindful or thinking positivethoughts, you're fine at brain
state one or two.
Once you cross that line intothree, you're in the limbic
brain and then the reptilianbrain and truly, every time
you've ever overeaten, just takea moment and give yourself
(07:20):
grace, give yourself a sense ofcompassion for yourself, because
it is really just a skillinsufficiency.
You haven't been told.
The problem is stress.
You need emotional tools toclear that stress and there's
nothing wrong with you.
It's biochemically driven.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
And I think it's worth noting.
We're honing in right now onovereating, but that response
for everyone could be different.
It could be and you could speakto this probably even better
than me but it's almost likewhat sort of the place that our
brain has gone to under stress.
And are that neuroplasticitystatement, the neurons that fire
(08:04):
together, wire together.
Is that right?
Did I say that right?
And so it's that idea that youknow.
For those of you listening, itmight not be overeating, but it
could be a different behavioralpattern that is damaging to you.
But this concept that you'resharing is applying to anything.
(08:25):
Like maybe you could just lista couple that might resonate
with the women listening, likemaybe this is actually their
response.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Actually, let me give you the rationale as well as
the common presentations.
First of all, when I'm at three, four, five or any of us are,
we're in something called stressoverload.
It's called medically, it'scalled allostasis, and a circuit
that's a stress overloadcircuit in the brain, in the
amygdala, where it stores all ofour experiences, is activated
(08:55):
and that circuit has, goesquickly, you know, just gets,
just gets activated and allthese chemicals come.
It tells us what to do becauseit knows that we're neither safe
nor rewarded and our DNA is setup to make us safe and rewarded
.
So what happens is we get thismessage I get my safety or my
love or my comfort, and whateverwe've done before to get to
(09:19):
feel better, even though itdoesn't help us any and it's not
really a great idea, whateverwe did before, the brain has
over, remembered and made acircuit.
So the tail end of the circuitis whatever we do.
So, even though the americanpsychological association is
still engaged in telling peoplethings that are not
scientifically true, which is anaddiction has a certain uh,
(09:42):
depression has a certaindiagnosis.
Anxiety, um, addiction, allthese things have different
diagnoses.
Truly, all of them are the samein that there's a circuit there
that's driving us to repeatthat behavior, taking us the
thinking brain offline.
We're out of controlbiologically.
So whatever we happen to do inthe past whether it's a behavior
(10:03):
like overspending, overworking,procrastination, drinking drugs
, whatever that is we're goingto go for it as if our life
depended on it, because that'sthe message in the unconscious
mind.
But also it can be a mood.
A mood and most people have amood circuit where they all of a
(10:25):
sudden they're triggered and,let's say, they go into a panic
or into anxiety or intodepression or into hostility or
just self-judgment or whatever.
Yeah, so it can be a mood arelationship pattern, um,
overgiving and merging withpeople, or distancing and
putting up walls, so any of theor thought patterns.
So whatever happens to be onthe end of that circuit,
(10:45):
whatever we happened to do inthe past that got locked into
our brain, we're going tocontinue to do it until we
unlock that circuit and rewireit, and that's what we do with
EBT.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
And I think it's also worth noting that for some of
us, for a lot of us, we'reprobably unwiring and then
rewiring patterns that haveexisted since childhood.
Probably for some of us, for alot of us, we're probably
unwiring and then rewiringpatterns that have existed since
childhood, probably for many ofus, things that have been
taught, things that have beenprogrammed.
So it's to your point again,it's an idea of grace, patience
and work to rewire those neurons, those circuits that have been,
(11:22):
you know, traditionally andrepeatedly wired together.
So that's hard, but teach uswhat you are doing to, in a
proven way, help people rewire.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Well, we know for sure that if it's not fun, it's
not EBT, and the reason for thatis the brain will only do
things that feel rewarding andmeaningful and even fun, because
you're getting to know who youreally are.
You're finding out why am Idoing that anyway?
And you'll find out with EBTand then change the circuit.
So we know that emotional braintraining started at the
(11:59):
University of California, sanFrancisco.
I was a young professor, didn'tknow quite what I was doing,
and I happened to get into aposition where I could explore
the root causes of obesity.
And because I was not apsychologist at the time, I was
a nutritionist and I was kind oflike necessary, they kind of
needed somebody for the grantwho was a nutritionist.
(12:20):
I went back after that tobecome a health psychologist,
but they didn't really, you know, give me too much trouble
because they didn't expect muchof me.
So what I did is I spent yearsgoing to the root cause and what
we found was that, essentiallyscientifically if you have
anyone who's listening to thisor watching this the process of
(12:42):
rewiring a circuit is extremelysimple.
It is scientific.
It doesn't matter whether youweigh 110 pounds more than you
want to, or five pounds, oryou're anorexic and you're
underweight, or you're normalweight and you just every night
struggle with feeling out ofcontrol of your food.
It doesn't matter.
The process you learn ofrewiring is exactly the same.
(13:05):
It is scientific.
Even though we're verydifferent in what we think about
in our neocortex, in ouremotional brain, in the
primitive emotional spiritualstress brain, we're exactly the
same.
So what we've done is codifythe resiliency pathways in the
brain so you can actually use anapp and you can rewire your
(13:27):
circuits, except for one caveatthese circuits are in the
emotional brain.
This is again the seat of thesoul, the center of all
tenderness, attachment,spirituality.
Everything that's reallyimportant is there, and this is
the brain.
That requires love.
It requires having a loving,wonderful, prideful, exciting
(13:50):
time, and so we don't give thisapp out because it won't work
unless you're in a small groupwith maybe five or six other
people on the telephone,privately, with a certified EBT
provider who guides your way,and everyone is rewiring
circuits because everyone hasthem.
(14:10):
So you're in a support group andyou come in and you start
warming up.
For maybe about a month youhave the app and you're with
other people.
You're connecting with themthrough the app.
You can spend five minutes andyou can listen to each other and
be a warm presence, no adviceto each other, and all of a
sudden you learn how to spiralup in the moment.
So you start spiraling up outof stress, out of three, four
(14:34):
and five, back to that state ofemotional and spiritual
connection where those chemicalsare making us overeat or judge
ourselves and gain weight.
They're bye-bye at that point.
And what happens?
You start by actually doing itbefore you eat and what happens
is you notice that you're, youdon't have the interest in food
(14:55):
anymore.
We're not trying to changebehavior, because the problem is
not behavior, it's a circuit.
We're trying to change thecircuit so we get lasting change
.
And then after about four weeksyou say, okay, I'm going to use
the same tools and I'm actuallygoing to erase these circuits
so I get lasting effects.
So you're in your same groupNow.
(15:15):
You're comfortable with the sixother people.
Everybody's helping each otherand inspiring each other and
learning from each other.
And you go there once a weekfor a half an hour and then you
check in with each other duringthe week.
So you say I'm ready to do the30 day challenge and you go in
for the 30 day challenge and youchange your life.
You actually reset your brain.
(15:35):
So you don't have that drive toovereat, you don't have that
biological tendency to gainweight and you have a different
relationship with your emotions.
And typically in relationshipsyou're not either distancing and
you know getting not gettingthat oxytocin that we need in
order to um to is an appetitesuppressant, or merging and
(15:56):
giving too much.
So in in 30 days you changeyour life and you essentially
get from whatever habit yourbrain's in.
Maybe it's used to being atthree, four or five, because
there's a set point of three,four or five and it bumps up to
about a two and all of a suddenyou say, wow, this is a whole
(16:17):
different world.
I really like this.
At that point, if you just leave, what happens is the brain says
, ha ha, that was good, you didit well for a month, but I'm
gonna backlash because the brainis now comfortable being in
chronic stress.
Before it was comfortable, it'dbe three, four or five, and so
(16:38):
you just stay in your group andyou do more work to clear out
the clutter from the past andclear out some of the things
that have happened that may havestressed you, you basically
raise the set point of yourbrain.
So your brain naturally comesto that loving state of
connection.
With less work, it's moreautomatic and that's how you get
lasting weight loss and freedomfrom not only overeating and
(16:59):
overweight but from all thesubstitute excesses.
So many people go and say, oh,oh, I'm going to really diet.
And then what happens is theyend up with with anorexia.
They're so rigid around foodthey can't even enjoy it, or
essentially they stop, you know,overeating and start
overspending.
Or start because essentiallythe spiritual elements of life,
from a christian perspective,from a perspective of the
(17:24):
soul-based and biologic, wantsyou to be at set point one,
because in that state ofconnection what happens is you
have more to give back to theworld, and that's what we're
here for right To give back, youknow, to enjoy our talents and
make the world a better place,and we can do that when we're
healthier.
And so, essentially, you raiseyour set point for lasting
(17:45):
results and a life of joy andspirituality and purpose.
That's easy.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah, I mean, I hear.
What I hear you saying isyou're resetting your stress
baseline.
It's like we've almost entereda state where we live the new
rested is stressed.
We think we're rested, butwe're actually living in a place
of stress and elevated cortisollevels, and it's almost like we
(18:12):
literally need to rewire ourown thinking of what it even is
to be rested.
It's like we don't evenactually know what it is and I'm
speaking for myself, too totruly experience joy in a rested
state, because we're living inlike these emotional survival
modes, and some in a much moresignificant way than others.
Some are truly in survival modethey're not even sure where
(18:34):
their next meal is going to comefrom but many of us are living
in like an emotional state ofsurvival.
So I'm wanting to reiterateagain what you pointed out you
have accountability set up inplace for people who really want
to take this to the next levelwith your group.
(18:57):
That meets Changing your Lifein 30 Days, with the
accountability on the app.
We're going to make sure thatall of those resources are
linked.
But what I would love to hearyou highlight is what is the
actual scientific process?
What are people doing to whatyou call spiraling up and moving
out of these states.
(19:17):
Talk to us about whatpractically feet on the ground,
or in your brain, if you will,you're doing.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I can even demonstrate it if you want,
because it is very simple.
And it's so simple you thinkwell, that's not a problem.
Yeah, the brain doesn't want todo it and that's why we have to
train the brain to do it.
Unless you're having fun, youhave other people to do it with,
you get inspired, you're notgoing to give the intensity
that's necessary.
(19:45):
The reason we love the 30 30day challenge, you know, in
other words, 30 days to changeyour life, is when people are in
those 30 days they can preparefor them as long as they want
and then do it.
What happens is they say theseskills are magical because to
change the brain takes thatintensity.
So they get a big bump up andfrom then on on, they stay with
(20:06):
EBC for a long time.
But here's what you do.
You essentially wake up in themorning and you're Christian,
you probably pray in the morning.
Right, you say a prayer in themorning and you start your day
and really all through the Bible.
It talks about joy, and joy isa spiritual state.
It's also the best state forphysiology when all of those
(20:28):
eight chemicals that make ushungry, lethargic, depressed,
anxious and pack on pounds areturned off.
So you say to yourself I amcreating joy in my life, in
addition to whatever prayerfulthing you want to say and that
relationship with Jesus.
So the idea is you then startgoing upon your day, but you do
(20:50):
exactly what you just referredto, anna, is that we are in a
culture now that the norm isincredibly unhealthy.
It is to be stressed out, andso you get really a good
consumer of life, and wheneveryou're not in that connected
state, you reach for your appand you go through it.
You don't have to think.
You go through the app and I'mgoing to show you.
(21:11):
What you do is you essentiallybreak down the circuit with
emotions that is causing youproblems and you replace it with
a circuit that's making youhealthy and happy, and we call
that spiral up.
So you switch from the damagingcircuits to the healthy
circuits in two to three minutesand then you stay in that glow.
(21:31):
You can feel the glow in yourbody, and then the next time it
happens, you do it again.
And also you learn a lot ofdifferent tricks.
There's a lot of reallyadvanced skills and there's ways
to get joy directly when youdon't feel like feeling your
emotions.
There's a lot of variety.
But let me tell you the basicskill and anyone that is
(21:56):
watching or listening pleaseappreciate that you need to get
really picky, that if you're notin that state of connection joy
, that you make sure that youset boundaries in your life so
that you can be in that state ofjoy.
Because when you're in thatstate of brain, state, one in
joy, that's when spirituallyyou're connected, that's when
you are able to give back andalso take care of your health.
If you don't take care of yourhealth, you're not going to be
(22:17):
here to give back.
So you get to be pretty pickyabout it.
And this is how you do it.
You first do everything thatyour mother told you not to do.
The first thing is you complain.
You say in five sentences whatis bothering you and you don't
say a sophisticated complaint.
You don't say well, thesituation is, it's been really
(22:38):
hard for me lately and so Ithink there's something wrong
with me.
I'm not sure I've been thinkingthis is too much in your head,
because this is the brain ofbeing a child.
You know we're children of theuniverse and so you keep it
really simple and you soundfrustrated because in fact you
don't want to feel bad.
Right, you want to be back tothat state of connection.
(23:00):
So you say something like thesituation is I'm overeating and
uh, it's, it's gotten out ofcontrol.
And I tell myself not toovereat and then I just I think
I'm not going to be able to doit.
I kind of want to do it, andthen that by that night I'm
overeating, that's it.
No more talking, no morethinking.
(23:21):
Just state it like it is.
And then you say you wait,because you're using the skills
in your thinking brain, behindyour forehead, to control the
uncontrollable, which is theemotional brain.
And you have to turn yourattention to your body, because
we experience our emotions inour body, not in our.
(23:43):
They're activated by our brain.
We experience them in our body.
So you let go of control, youlet Christ in you, let that
moment of tolerating,irresolution and trusting occur
and you go into your body andyou wait until some words from
your body appear in your mindand the next lead-in it's a
(24:05):
series of lead-ins or promptsand then you just trust your
body and say something.
And so I'm going to say whatI'm most stressed about, because
we want to find what you'remost stressed about.
Right, because that's going todo the best good is to take that
circuit and erase it or atleast switch it off.
So we say what I'm moststressed about is I'm out of
control.
Does that ring true?
(24:26):
Yeah, because you're alwayssaying does it ring true?
Because when the words actuallymatch what's in your emotional
brain, you get this relaxationresponse.
You say, oh yes, that ringstrue.
And then you do something elsethat your mother probably told
you never to do you expresssomething called the anger
procedure.
(24:47):
It takes about 15-20 secondsand a brief burst of safe,
healthy anger stops the emotionsfor getting stuck.
The reason we don't talk aboutour feelings or feel our
feelings when we're stressed isbecause they're scattered,
they're stuck or they're toxic.
In other words, it's smart notto feel your feelings because
(25:10):
you don't have that EBT process.
You're going to feel worse andit's not going to go anywhere
good.
A brief expression of angerabout being stressed actually
changes the whole game and whenyou go into the feelings that
follow, you have one expressionof sadness instead of being
depressed, one expression offear instead of being you know,
(25:34):
panicked or anxious, yeah, oneguilt which is hey, what could I
do differently?
And by that time the circuitreveals itself to you and you
can change it.
And by that time the circuitreveals itself to you and you
can change it.
The message you have to have,the message, the exact message
in your brain that tells you todo what you're doing.
And once you have that message,what happens is you say oh my
(25:57):
gosh, that's why I do it.
I never would think that,because it's not in your
thinking brain, it's in youremotional brain.
And then you just say theopposite in a very specific way
and the circuit goes away.
Boom, it's gone for the moment.
And then you do it repeatedlyover time, with a little more
sophistication, and it is erased.
When it's erased, you're nottrying to change your behavior,
(26:18):
you're not trying to change yourfood, because who would want to
change that when the problem'snot the food, it's the circuit.
When you change the circuit,you look at the food Like
someone.
I normally, if I don't use EBT,I could eat the entire pot of
this dish she had prepared inone night.
(26:39):
If I do use EBT, it takes methree nights and I'm completely
set to eat that amount and I'mcompletely satisfied.
And the reason is when youswitch circuits you get dopamine
, oxytocin and endorphinsnaturally.
And if we're not getting themnaturally, our brain wants to
get them from some kind ofexternal source like food.
(27:02):
So we're chemically satisfiedwith zero calories, zero extra
calories.
We just eat what we need andthat's the process.
And let me tell you the angerprocedure okay, so it's very
simple.
It's I feel, let's say, I'm outof control.
Anger procedure okay, so, it'svery simple.
It's I feel, let's say I'm outof control is topic right.
I feel angry that I'm out ofcontrol.
And remember, you can do thisabout anything.
(27:22):
It can be about your spouse, itcan be about your child or your
work or your mood, anythingthat's bothering you.
The same process Once you learnit, you will have it for life.
I feel angry that I can't standat that.
I hated that, I hate it, I hateit, I hate it, I hate it, I
hate it.
I really really hate it.
That's it.
And when you say that boom,anger is the only emotion in the
(27:48):
brain that's associated withpower.
The other negative emotionsamong the negative emotions, the
other negative emotions are oh,I feel sad, I feel afraid, I
feel guilty.
You basically flatline, and sothat's all technique that you
learn and perfect in EBT.
It moves, so that when you goto sadness and say I feel sad,
(28:08):
it's not depression, I feel alittle sad that I do that and I
feel afraid.
I feel afraid that it mighthurt me.
Not, I feel afraid that I'm abad person that I'll never be
over, because you've cleared thechemicals of stress and so
you're really very mindfullyaware and loving towards
yourself.
And if you go to I feel guilty,it's not I'm ashamed that I
(28:29):
overeat because the chemicalshave been cleared, it's hey,
everybody I do have some powerhere I feel guilty.
Why don't I just, you know, eathealthy?
And then you laugh even moreand say, of course I'm not going
(28:50):
to just eat healthy, because Ihave a circuit in my emotional
brain that was put there throughno fault of my own.
You know, mine was when I was11 and I reached for some
cinnamon rolls when I'd beenbullied at school.
I formed that circuit.
It was not my fault and ofcourse I wouldn't because.
And then the big reveal Now thisis the insight that we all want
, because we all really want toknow who we are right.
We want to know what's going oninside of me and really
(29:13):
understand why we're doing whatwe're doing right, because why
we're doing what we're doing isreally part of that connection
to the spiritual.
I'm connected to the deepestpart of myself and that
self-knowledge is how I evolveand to be a more loving, more
more committed christian too.
So the idea is, I say um, andthen you don't do any work.
(29:33):
This involves no work at all.
You just follow the formula andI say of course I, hey,
everybody, I do have some powerhere.
I feel guilty.
Why don't I just do thesensible thing that anyone would
do if they didn't have thiscircuit in their brain, and eat
healthy.
And then, out of completeself-love, you say of course I'm
(29:55):
not going to just eat healthy,because my unreasonable
expectation is and this is themessage that's in the circuit.
And then you pause Again.
This is a spiritual programbecause you pause, you allow
yourself to get out of overcontrol, you just essentially
open your heart.
Your mind goes blank for maybefive seconds, 10 seconds.
(30:19):
You connect with your body andmagically the words from that
circuit will appear in yourconscious mind and it'll
typically say I get my, and it'ssomething like existence, love,
safety, protection, power.
You know whatever that is.
It'll come to you and you'llsay oh, yes, that's, my drive is
(30:39):
from that.
I'm trying to get that.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
And then you say Is it pretty consistent, would you
say, like when people find thatmessage in a circuit, does this
tend to be the underlyingmessage in a lot of their poorly
wired circuits?
Does that question make sense?
No, they're not.
It's interesting, it may.
Or poorly wired circuits.
Does that question make sense?
Speaker 1 (30:55):
No, they're not.
It's interesting.
It may or may not be, andthat's why that's a fantastic
question.
This is the idea.
In the moment when I reachedfour, I came home from school.
I was 11 years old, my motherwas there, but I didn't know how
to talk about my feelings, andthe cinnamon rolls were on the
cabinet.
I ate three of them and I feltguilty because I had overeaten.
(31:21):
But the truth was that theovereating wasn't the problem.
I created a fight or flightcircuit was going inside of me,
plus I attached it to my foodcircuit and now I've got this
big old food circuit.
I wake up the next morning.
I've got a fight or flightdrive to overeat, and that's how
my drive to overeat was born.
In that moment, I needed love,so I get my love from it.
But if I'd been in a differentsituation, where I was needing
(31:44):
comfort or I was needing power,safety, yeah, yeah, and this is
what's important is that if you,as you learn to do this, you
get better and better at EBT thelong.
It's like mindfulness oranything in that you have.
You learn it over time.
You don't learn it by reading abook.
You start with a book, you gointo a group and, essentially,
(32:06):
you get better and better out ofit and you really learn to
listen to yourself.
And so you have to find theexact words.
One woman that I just workedwith who had bulimia since she
was gosh about 13 um, she herswas I get my mothering from, and
it wasn't from food, it wasfrom feeling full in her stomach
(32:26):
.
So what, what god is asking usto do, is to get to know our
emotional brain and be able toreally love and see ourselves
accurately.
Because once you find the exactwords that are in that circuit,
you know it, because you say toyourself does that ring true?
And if she says yes, it ringstrue, that means the words match
(32:49):
the message in the emotionalcircuit.
All you have to do is do thisprocess of changing it with
repeating it is.
I cannot get it that way andthat's ridiculous.
I can't all the way up to whereyou are going to get that
safety or that love, and it'salways from inside, from
connecting to the spiritual.
So the idea is, if you don'treally know yourself and listen
(33:09):
to yourself, you will not getthe right words.
And if you don't get theyourself and listen to yourself,
you will not get the rightwords, and if you don't get the
right words you'll get someimprovement.
But every time you get theright words from really loving
and connecting with yourself andlistening to yourself what
happens is boom.
That circuit can be gone in ananosecond and you get
immediately rewarded from havingthat kind of love and awareness
(33:32):
of the deepest part of yourself.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
And I can see.
I can definitely see thephysiology of the clarity
because of the very real statesof the brain where it's almost
you get so over analytical,trying to figure out why I'm
doing what I'm doing and losingyeah, you're.
It's almost like you're tryingto diagnose when you're still in
fight or flight mode, ratherthan being able to hit like what
you're talking about theemotional brain to get more
(34:04):
clarity on why I'm actuallydoing the things that I'm doing
and how it's relating to how wefeel.
Ultimately, yeah, um, what?
If people are interested inlearning more and certainly the
link to this book will be in theshow notes, it'll also be in
the app ladies, uh, in the earlymorning habit app.
(34:26):
But if people are interested inmore accountability and diving
through a 30day challenge tounderstand this better, where's
the best place for them to go?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
The best place to go is there's only one place to go.
It's really EBT.
It's like food stamps, exceptit's emotionalbraintrainingorg,
and the reason for that is thatit is a process that you have to
learn.
It's a very gentle process.
You're always in completecontrol, so you go at your own
pace and you get into a smallgroup.
(34:58):
So you have all that love andsafety and really profound love
in these small groups.
They're by telephone, so no oneknows who you are.
You get to know the people, butit's your first name only.
But let me just go back to thatrewiring experience I mentioned
to you with the 30-day challenge.
It's amazing because you havefreedom.
You actually find that you'rereleasing weight with joy
(35:20):
instead of feeling like you are,you know, trapped in this body
that you don't want to be in.
You are actually feelingsatisfied on less food.
You are really wondering whyfood was ever such a big deal to
you.
You really realize it was justa circuit, but it's really about
overall quality of life.
So when you first come in, youdon't rewire a circuit, you just
(35:41):
learn how to spiral up and feelgreat in the moment.
And then let's say, you go inand you do the challenge and you
are very different, but you'regoing to continue to use the
same tools for work, stress, forrelationships, for setting
boundaries with people so theytreat you better.
You know anything that bothersyou you're going to be using, so
it's the intensity of it.
This is what neuroplasticity isabout.
(36:02):
Go through and do somethingreally intense and say wow, but
then go and do it softly foranything that bothers you or
just to create more joy in yourlife.
So it's an overall program foroptimal health and you need to
be in a group.
I will tell you I started thiswhen I was 28.
I'm 75 now.
It is cutting edge neuroscience.
(36:23):
It is unlike any other program,because no other program is
taking those gnarly emotions andrapidly dismantling them and
turning them into joy.
We have codified that.
But the issue is, if you coulddo it without a group, I would
be the happiest person on earthbecause meeting would be in
(36:43):
everyone's hands.
But we have data to show that,unless you get, that's why we
make it very inexpensive.
It's $99 a for for completeprofessional support every
single day of the month, plusyour own private group, plus the
app, because we want everyoneto have this if you're not in a
group.
I promise you you can't wingthis because the emotional brain
(37:06):
demands that you say.
You know what I matter.
I'm going to use cutting edgeneuroscience to get closer to
the deepest part of myself.
We know that spiritualityblossoms even more.
Overall health blossoms as yourelease the extra weight or
whatever that excess you'reworking on.
But I would say I welcomeanyone to go ahead and read the
(37:29):
book.
It's very extensive, but if youwant results, we know that it's
not about an app and it's notabout the science.
It's about actually signing upfor a group.
You just sign up for a groupthe accountability, start doing
it.
Accountability and the love andthe training, the providers.
You know how if you go totherapy.
(37:49):
I don't know if you've everfelt this way, but when I went
to therapy I am a psychologist,but I'm a health psychologist.
I'm about promoting optimalhealth.
I chose not to be a clinicalpsychologist because I really
think we're all perfect in ourown way.
I think we're made after Godand I believe just a few
circuits in our brain that wereencoded through no fault of our
(38:09):
own are blocking that and I wantto unleash that ability to get
back to that norm of joy andconnection in each person.
But essentially, when you gointo that group and start slowly
changing, what happens is yourlife just blossoms and people
love it Once they've been in thegroup for six weeks.
The first six weeks you saywhat's this app anyway?
(38:32):
And your provider helps you andtrains you.
But also when you go to atherapist on some of these
things, because this is not apsychological problem, it's just
circuits.
But if you're desperate, yousay, well, I don't want to go on
another diet, so I better go toa therapist and find out what's
wrong with you.
Nothing is wrong with you andthe person who is the provider
could be a nutritionist or couldbe a physician, or could be a
(38:55):
therapist for that matter, butthey're not practicing therapy.
What they're practicing is EBT.
And in order for us to certifyanyone as a clinician in EBT,
they have to do the workthemselves.
They have to go in becauseeveryone has circuits.
There's not these people thatare something's wrong with them
and their patients, and thenthere's these providers.
Everyone has these circuits.
(39:17):
The only difference is somepeople clear their circuits and
some people go to their deathbedwith their circuits and what
we're saying is don't go anotherday with these circuits.
It's not about you, it's just awire.
Our system, our health caresystem, at some point probably
not in my lifetime will be allabout EBT.
It has to be Because ultimately, the problem is physiologic and
(39:42):
you can't change yourphysiology with thoughts.
And if your thoughts aren'tworking well because we're
stressed, and we're all sostressed right now, it's very
hard to stay with behaviorchange consistently enough to
make a difference withoutorganizing your entire life
around your behavior change.
It should be effortless.
When you clear the stress, youjust naturally eat healthy, you
(40:03):
sleep more, you know all is good.
So I would say essentially ifyou want transformation, get
into a group and start creatingmore joy with these skills.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yeah, I love it, ebtorg.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yes, EBTorg I mean Dr Laurel and I are definitely on
the same page in that emotionalhealth is the future of medicine
.
It has to be, or we are goingto continue to see a focus on
chronic disease alone.
So emotional health is the keyto unlocking health across all
areas of life.
Ebt is cutting edge.
This is very science-based, soit is deep, Like she said.
If you enjoy that, youdefinitely want to get this book
.
One, Two, Three, Joy.
(40:46):
If you want the easier button,then ebtorg to check out Dr
Laurel's amazing work.
It's an honor having you here.
I love seeing somebody who hasgone ahead doing the work, and
learning from you has been a joy.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
My pleasure.
Thank you for inviting me.
Wonderful to be with you.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.