January 17, 2026 • 16 mins
In this heart-expanding episode, Dr. Warren shows us how modern neuroscience is finally catching up to what Scripture has told us all along: that our minds can be renewed, reshaped, and transformed from the inside out.
Drawing from decades in the operating room and a lifetime of faith, he breaks down the beautiful reality of “mind-down control”—the God-given ability your mind has to influence the physical structure of your brain. And he does it in a way that makes even the most complex science feel accessible, empowering, and deeply hopeful.
Whether you’ve battled anxiety, negative self-talk, shame, or long-standing thought patterns that seem impossible to break, this episode shows you why your story is not fixed… and why change is not only possible, but promised.
This is the science of neuroplasticity. This is the truth of Romans 12:2. And this is your invitation to experience healing in a completely new way.
GUEST: Dr. Lee Warren // wleewarrenmd.com // @drleewarren
Dr. Warren's Podcast: https://wleewarrenmd.com/podcast/
Pre-Order Dr. Warren's New Book: DrLeeWarren.com/preorder
HOST: Leanne Ellington // StresslessEating.com // @leanneellington
To learn more about Leanne, head over to www.LeanneEllington.com, and to share your thoughts, questions, feedback, or guest suggestions instantly, head on over to www.WhatsGodGotToDoWithIt.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 (00:08):
If you want to go on a journey. If you're skeptical,
don't worry. Now here to preach. I'm gonna keep it
clean and talk to me and record where faith needs
fars nature and get in touch with your creator with
a bacon, love and June. She even speaks Hebrew. What's that, Dontato?
(00:31):
What's that? Well sabosation? We should talking transformation?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Don Sato?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Hey?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hey, and welcome back to what God got to do
with it. We are here for episode two of our
self Brain Surgery series here with doctor Lee Warren. So,
welcome back.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Thanks, I'm glad to be here again.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
We're going to dive into faith and neuroplasticity, which is,
you know, really the culmination of what self brain surgery
is and how God designed you to renew your mind.
This isn't just theoretical, This isn't just nice you know
in theory. This is what where scripture and science collide.
So when we talk about this idea of you know,
(01:16):
self brain surgery, which we talked about in episode one.
If you guys miss that, go back and listen to
last week's episode. But it's not just a metaphor, right,
it is a literal mechanism for transformation. So can you
talk to us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yeah, So, I find it pretty common that when people
hear somebody saying something like, hey, change your thoughts and
you'll change your life and all that, we almost immediately
go into this sort of self help mode where we
think that we're being given a mindset, a way to
think about something. And I just want to emphasize here
that what we're talking about is when you change the
(01:51):
way that you think, it's not metaphorical brain change that happens.
It's structural brain change. And there's a thing called a
microtubule in your brain. Microtubules are the kind of like
the girders, and if your brain is constructing itself and
connecting cells together, microtubules begin to lay down within seconds
of you giving your brain a command or thinking one
(02:12):
thought and replacement of another. And so microtubules form the structure,
and then the neuronal connections, which are called synapses, build
across those microtubules, and so you literally connect different brain
cells and different networks of brain cells than ever existed
before within seconds of you deciding to think one thing
(02:33):
and on another thing. So when I say you're performing
surgery on your brain. It's not metaphorical, it's literal. And
so I want you to understand that because it gives
you power. It means that you're not just learning some
other way to think about something. You're not just practicing
some sort of self help thing. You're actually understanding the
way your mind and your brain were designed to work
together for your own good. And so that's why when
(02:55):
scripture talks about transforming your life, talks about things like
having the mind of Christ, like you can think more
like Jesus does, and then when you do that, your
brain gets more like his would have been. So like
it's it's kind of blows in my mind, pardon the pun. Yeah,
but it's true and it's real, Like this is structural,
literal change, and you have the power to make that
(03:15):
happen inside your own head as soon as you decide
to think different thoughts. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Absolutely. For anyone who feels like this idea of renewing
their mind is great in theory and they know logically
that this is true, but they're having a hard time
practically applying it to themselves, what would you say to that.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I think the first thing is give yourself some tests. Okay,
So the Bible says, for example, don't be anxious about anything,
but instead be grateful, and then the peace will flow
into your life. If you think about that for a second,
you can test that out. And we know from neuroscience
research that the part of your brain that triggers anxiety
is called the amygdala, right down in your limbic system
(03:56):
the lizard brains some people call it, and the amigdala
is triggered by another part called the hippocampus. And hippo
campus is the part that kind of is like your
guard dog. It's looking out for threats all the time.
It goes and retrieves memories of previous times when you've
been in a situation like this and tries to.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Make that never forgets right.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
It's trying to make sense of what's happening, and then
it tries to tell you whether you should be afraid
or you should calmed down right. And we learn now
that the amigdala, sorry, the hippocampus, will either send your
emotional power, your your brain power down towards that fight
flight freeze faun a megular response, or it will send
(04:32):
it up towards the frontal lobe, which is all about
regulation and rational decision making, an executive function, and your
ability to think through something and decide rather than reflexively
react to But what we've learned is really interesting is
you literally cannot be anxious and grateful in the same
moment because it's a one way switch that happens in
your hippocampus. And so when the Bible says don't be anxious,
(04:54):
be grateful and you'll be filled with peace, that's real
and that happened two thousand years before we had brain scans, right.
So when I say scripture and science work together, I
want you to just pay attention over the course of
your lifetime that every time the Bible has written a
prescription that says that your life will flourish if you
do these certain things. Eventually neuroscience proves that that's true.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
It always bends towards the truth of scripture. So don't
ever start to believe when the society tells you, hey,
you just follow your heart and live your truth, do
your thing, and you find that that leads you to
more anxiety, then just take scriptures for a second and say, wait,
if I don't want to be anxious, I can be grateful.
Think about something you're grateful for and write it down
and journal it and think about it, and then see
(05:38):
if you don't get less anxious. So that's a practical
step you can take.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
You can prove it.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
God always lays out things that you can prove that
what he says is true. This is one of them.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Absolutely, And like what I'm hearing is there is an
off switch for anxiety and fear and future pacing anticipating catastrophe, right,
And it's through gratitude, which I think a lot of
people think like, oh, I'm not, Oh, I actually hear
this a lot. I'm not air quotes good at gratitude, right,
But it's a practice. It's something that if you have
cobwebs when and it's been a while, or you've never
(06:07):
actually created that practice. That's the other beautiful thing that
we know about our brain is like, even if you're
not air quotes good at it, you can give your
brain this new stimulus and teach it take that direction.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
The thing about neuroplasticity is as soon as you begin
trying to tell your brain to do something different, your
brain starts laying down the hardware. And that's because your
mind is in charge. Like your brain's just waiting for
instructions to make you better. Your brain's designed to heal.
It's not designed to keep you stuck. It's designed to
help you overcome and transform. You just have to give
(06:39):
it the proper instruction. So if you don't think you're
having anything to be grateful for, you say, my life's
been terrible and all these bad things have happened. Would
I have to be grateful for the first thing is
be grateful that you have a system that will respond
if you try to think different thoughts and have a
different life, because it will happen in real time. You'll
start to feel it. In fact, we know now that
you get dopamine release within seconds of intention making a
(07:02):
mental decision that you're going to try to change, so
you get a low, immediate boost of the chemical that
makes you feel better, and your brain says, oh, that
was a reward. So if I want to feel that again,
I need to do that again, and you'll start laying
down the neurological hardware to be a more grateful person.
To get more air quotes good at being great.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, totally, because we are either positively anticipating or negatively anticipated,
it's already happening. And that goes right in alignment with
what we were talking about last week, which you are
already performing brain surgery on yourself every single day. So
now you're just giving us the tools to be able
to say, Okay, I'm going to be the surgeon, I'm
going to be the architect. I'm going to co create
with the surgeon.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Right.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
And so when we're talking about this concept changing people's lives,
can you share any examples that you've seen throughout your history,
your career of how renewing of the mind and taking
these thoughts captive and changing your mind to change your
brain has been you know, has has shown.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Up absolutely and I can tell you from my own
experience as me, like I said earlier, after I lost
my son, I was really mad at God and my
wife and I were really frustrated and fill with doubt
and I didn't know, I didn't understand why something like
that could happen, and I was awash in this sort
of doubt of wondering if all the things I had
(08:30):
always believed in the places i'd always counted on were
true or not. And after that day that I told
you about in the first episode of watching that scan
happen and seeing people change their minds, I decided that
if I was going to believe that I got to
see my son again, which is one of the things
about scripture that promises there's a resurrection and you get
to see your people again in heaven, if I was
(08:50):
going to believe that, then I had to count on
the fact that the Bible says God can't tell a
lie and that all his promises are true. So if
I was going to believe that one's true, that I
needed to find some other more immediate promises that would
also be true. And so I started looking to see
if those promises felt true or would turn out to
be true. And one of them is That's a good
example is this verse in Psal I'm thirty four eighteen
(09:12):
that says the Lord is close to the broken hearted.
And I was broken hearted. I was as broken as
a person can be. And what I found was when
I started praying that God would show me that that
was true, I needed him to be close to me
because I wasn't even sure I believed in him anymore. Yeah,
And so I needed to feel that so that I
could believe that my son. I was going to get
to see my son again. If the promises I all
(09:33):
have to be true, then both of those would need
to be true. And I would find in the weeks
after Mitch died it was the most amazing thing. Leanne.
Right at the worst moment I didn't think I could
go on another second, Lisa would walk in the room
and give me a hug. Or I would get a
text message from somebody that said, hey, I was thinking
and praying about you just then, or my email would
show up with a scripture that was hopeful and encouraging,
(09:55):
and the Holy Spirit just said to me, that's me
being close to you when you're broken hearted. And it
turned out to be true. And then I started seeing
other promises that turned out to be true, and I
could just, one by one grab onto them, and it
was like knots on a rope, and I started to
have the juice to be able to pull myself up
out of that pit. And before I knew it, I
had hope again and I believed again, and that gave
(10:17):
me the juice to then say, well, tomorrow's going to
feel a little bit brighter because I know that what
I'm putting my feet down is going to hold me up.
And that's life changed, that's mind change. And it started
with this decision that I wasn't going to let my
brain boss me around, because when you go through something
hard like that, you start hearing all these accusatory thoughts
in your head. You should have been there, you should
(10:38):
have done something different. You know, you want to get dad,
or all those things. Your wife's going to leave you
because you know something's going to happen, and it's too
hard to go through and survive, and so you start
hearing all that, and then I start looking at the
neuroscience research that says that, guess what, eighty percent of
the things you think are not true. And I said, well, wait,
if I'm proving that the things that God says are
(10:59):
always true and eighty percent of the things I think
are not true, then I need to change my mind
about the noise I hear in my head most of
the time, and I need to start doubting that and
being more sure that the truth of Scripture is real.
And then I can over time that balance started to
win out where I would hear the voice of God
more than the voice inside of my head.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yes, amen, yeah, And when you know the Lord is
close to the broken hearted. I think, you know, I
just want to remind everyone like we have a God
that can handle those things of like, hey God, I'm
mad at You's right, right, and he can handle it.
But even just calling that out for what it is
versus not calling it out and feeling the shame associated
with it. That's where again it completely creates a different
experience in your brain. You know, the same feeling, but
(11:41):
different experience is about the feeling. You know, so super
super powerful and so for somebody who is feeling stuck
or powerless. Science says neuroplasticity, Scripture says renewal. Now there's
this part where it's like, Okay, I am going through
something acute and I need like the brain to help,
Like I like, we're we're on a l looking for
a lifeline, wanting the brain to help us right and
(12:03):
help heal and all of that. And then there's that
big picture renewal side of it of like you can
become a different version of yourself, you know, full healing
all of that. Can you share a little just piece
about the short term and long term implications of all
of this.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Let's say you're having an anxiety attack. Let's say that
you're in the middle of something hard and the panic
starts to set in and you feel like you're going
to spiral on your brain. Every time before has led
you to spiral, and you find yourself out of control,
and that leads to you choosing some kind of numbing behavior,
drinking alcohol or something, so you don't think about it
or feeling anymore. If you're having that happen to you,
(12:38):
here's a way that you can prove that your mind
is in charge of your brain. You can do something.
My favorite one is they call five four three two one,
like say, I want to interrupt this panic attack, and
I want to decide that I want my brain to
do something different than it's doing just sending me into
this panic. I can say, with my eyes, what are
five things I can see right now? I can make
(13:00):
myself look around the room. I see you, I see
my wife Lisa over there, I see this microphone, I
see the lights, I see the recorder over there. And
what am I doing. I'm not doing some kind of
magic trick. Your brain actually cannot multitask. You can't do
two things at the same time in your brain. So
what I'm doing is I'm diverting blood flow from the
fear center that's about to generate this panic attack, and
(13:22):
I'm pushing it up towards my occipital lobes, which is
where my vision is. I'm stealing from that anxiety, and
I'm to say, Okay, I still feel kind of panicky,
and I've already named my five things I can see?
What are four things I can hear right now? I
can hear the fan running, I can hear your voice,
I can hear you whatever a car off in the distance.
And what am I doing now? Well, I'm diverting blood
to my temporal lobes, can my auditory cortex, and then
(13:43):
I can do three things. I can taste, I can
do two things, I can smell, one thing I can touch.
And I can basically steal that moment that was getting
ready to happen by directing my mind to tell my
brain to do different things since I can't do two
things at once. And now what have I done? I've
averted the panic, But I've also proven to myself that
I actually have charge over what my brain is doing,
(14:05):
and I don't have to let it push me around anymore.
Sure So, you can convince yourself that's self brain surgery.
You just took a process that you're used to giving
into that you thought was in control of you, and
you didn't think you had agency over and you just
convinced yourself that you can interrupt at anytime you need.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
To absolutely and to even stack on that. How cool
what you just said is because for anybody who's disconnected
from themselves physiologically, actually redirecting to the sensory system and
creating that body connection, that's another skill set that can
be created and talk about when you're in a low
place like the more you can actually connect to yourself,
everything else opens up too. So I love the little
(14:40):
gifts that come out of what you share. We are
going to close out right now, but we are going
to get ready for diving into the Ten Commandments of
brain surgery in our next episode. In the meantime, guys,
if you head over to doctor Leewarren dot com slash
preorder before February third, you can pre order his new
book that's coming out, Plus he's got a bunch of
gifts and bonuses that come alongside it. Where can people
(15:04):
find you online and listen to your podcast?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
So I'm at doctor Leewarren dot com. You can get
my newsletter, my podcast, all my social links are there.
I'm on Instagram and then a little bit on Twitter,
but mostly on Instagram at doctor Lee Warren and love
to connect with people. You can reach me through the
website So.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Amazing and the Doctor Lee Warren podcast weekly episodes Such
Amazing Goodness over there. We'll link it all in the
show notes and we will be back next time for
episode number three of our self brain surgery series. Bye,
We'll be back with more What's God Got to Do
with It? But in the meantime, I would definitely love
to hear from you, so just tell me where you
(15:43):
are in your story or maybe what questions you have,
like where do you feel you need clarity or support
or wisdom in your own journey. I definitely want to
hear from you, So head on over to What's God
Got to Do with It? Dot com and scroll down
to the form to share your thoughts, your questions, your feedback,
and you can do that instantly. So What's God Got
(16:05):
to Do with It? Dot com? You'll find all the
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(16:25):
It really means so much. What's God Got to Do
With It is an iHeartRadio podcast on the Amy Brown
Podcast Network. It's written and hosted by me Leanne Ellington,
executive produced by Elizabeth Fozio, post production and editing by
Houston Tilley, and original music written by Cheryl Stark and
produced by Adam Stark
If you want to go on a journey. If you're skeptical,
don't worry. Now here to preach. I'm gonna keep it
clean and talk to me and record where faith needs
fars nature and get in touch with your creator with
a bacon, love and June. She even speaks Hebrew. What's that, Dontato?
(00:31):
What's that? Well sabosation? We should talking transformation?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Don Sato?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Hey?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hey, and welcome back to what God got to do
with it. We are here for episode two of our
self Brain Surgery series here with doctor Lee Warren. So,
welcome back.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Thanks, I'm glad to be here again.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
We're going to dive into faith and neuroplasticity, which is,
you know, really the culmination of what self brain surgery
is and how God designed you to renew your mind.
This isn't just theoretical, This isn't just nice you know
in theory. This is what where scripture and science collide.
So when we talk about this idea of you know,
(01:16):
self brain surgery, which we talked about in episode one.
If you guys miss that, go back and listen to
last week's episode. But it's not just a metaphor, right,
it is a literal mechanism for transformation. So can you
talk to us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yeah, So, I find it pretty common that when people
hear somebody saying something like, hey, change your thoughts and
you'll change your life and all that, we almost immediately
go into this sort of self help mode where we
think that we're being given a mindset, a way to
think about something. And I just want to emphasize here
that what we're talking about is when you change the
(01:51):
way that you think, it's not metaphorical brain change that happens.
It's structural brain change. And there's a thing called a
microtubule in your brain. Microtubules are the kind of like
the girders, and if your brain is constructing itself and
connecting cells together, microtubules begin to lay down within seconds
of you giving your brain a command or thinking one
(02:12):
thought and replacement of another. And so microtubules form the structure,
and then the neuronal connections, which are called synapses, build
across those microtubules, and so you literally connect different brain
cells and different networks of brain cells than ever existed
before within seconds of you deciding to think one thing
(02:33):
and on another thing. So when I say you're performing
surgery on your brain. It's not metaphorical, it's literal. And
so I want you to understand that because it gives
you power. It means that you're not just learning some
other way to think about something. You're not just practicing
some sort of self help thing. You're actually understanding the
way your mind and your brain were designed to work
together for your own good. And so that's why when
(02:55):
scripture talks about transforming your life, talks about things like
having the mind of Christ, like you can think more
like Jesus does, and then when you do that, your
brain gets more like his would have been. So like
it's it's kind of blows in my mind, pardon the pun. Yeah,
but it's true and it's real, Like this is structural,
literal change, and you have the power to make that
(03:15):
happen inside your own head as soon as you decide
to think different thoughts. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Absolutely. For anyone who feels like this idea of renewing
their mind is great in theory and they know logically
that this is true, but they're having a hard time
practically applying it to themselves, what would you say to that.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I think the first thing is give yourself some tests. Okay,
So the Bible says, for example, don't be anxious about anything,
but instead be grateful, and then the peace will flow
into your life. If you think about that for a second,
you can test that out. And we know from neuroscience
research that the part of your brain that triggers anxiety
is called the amygdala, right down in your limbic system
(03:56):
the lizard brains some people call it, and the amigdala
is triggered by another part called the hippocampus. And hippo
campus is the part that kind of is like your
guard dog. It's looking out for threats all the time.
It goes and retrieves memories of previous times when you've
been in a situation like this and tries to.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Make that never forgets right.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
It's trying to make sense of what's happening, and then
it tries to tell you whether you should be afraid
or you should calmed down right. And we learn now
that the amigdala, sorry, the hippocampus, will either send your
emotional power, your your brain power down towards that fight
flight freeze faun a megular response, or it will send
(04:32):
it up towards the frontal lobe, which is all about
regulation and rational decision making, an executive function, and your
ability to think through something and decide rather than reflexively
react to But what we've learned is really interesting is
you literally cannot be anxious and grateful in the same
moment because it's a one way switch that happens in
your hippocampus. And so when the Bible says don't be anxious,
(04:54):
be grateful and you'll be filled with peace, that's real
and that happened two thousand years before we had brain scans, right.
So when I say scripture and science work together, I
want you to just pay attention over the course of
your lifetime that every time the Bible has written a
prescription that says that your life will flourish if you
do these certain things. Eventually neuroscience proves that that's true.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
It always bends towards the truth of scripture. So don't
ever start to believe when the society tells you, hey,
you just follow your heart and live your truth, do
your thing, and you find that that leads you to
more anxiety, then just take scriptures for a second and say, wait,
if I don't want to be anxious, I can be grateful.
Think about something you're grateful for and write it down
and journal it and think about it, and then see
(05:38):
if you don't get less anxious. So that's a practical
step you can take.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
You can prove it.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
God always lays out things that you can prove that
what he says is true. This is one of them.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Absolutely, And like what I'm hearing is there is an
off switch for anxiety and fear and future pacing anticipating catastrophe, right,
And it's through gratitude, which I think a lot of
people think like, oh, I'm not, Oh, I actually hear
this a lot. I'm not air quotes good at gratitude, right,
But it's a practice. It's something that if you have
cobwebs when and it's been a while, or you've never
(06:07):
actually created that practice. That's the other beautiful thing that
we know about our brain is like, even if you're
not air quotes good at it, you can give your
brain this new stimulus and teach it take that direction.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
The thing about neuroplasticity is as soon as you begin
trying to tell your brain to do something different, your
brain starts laying down the hardware. And that's because your
mind is in charge. Like your brain's just waiting for
instructions to make you better. Your brain's designed to heal.
It's not designed to keep you stuck. It's designed to
help you overcome and transform. You just have to give
(06:39):
it the proper instruction. So if you don't think you're
having anything to be grateful for, you say, my life's
been terrible and all these bad things have happened. Would
I have to be grateful for the first thing is
be grateful that you have a system that will respond
if you try to think different thoughts and have a
different life, because it will happen in real time. You'll
start to feel it. In fact, we know now that
you get dopamine release within seconds of intention making a
(07:02):
mental decision that you're going to try to change, so
you get a low, immediate boost of the chemical that
makes you feel better, and your brain says, oh, that
was a reward. So if I want to feel that again,
I need to do that again, and you'll start laying
down the neurological hardware to be a more grateful person.
To get more air quotes good at being great.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, totally, because we are either positively anticipating or negatively anticipated,
it's already happening. And that goes right in alignment with
what we were talking about last week, which you are
already performing brain surgery on yourself every single day. So
now you're just giving us the tools to be able
to say, Okay, I'm going to be the surgeon, I'm
going to be the architect. I'm going to co create
with the surgeon.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Right.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
And so when we're talking about this concept changing people's lives,
can you share any examples that you've seen throughout your history,
your career of how renewing of the mind and taking
these thoughts captive and changing your mind to change your
brain has been you know, has has shown.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Up absolutely and I can tell you from my own
experience as me, like I said earlier, after I lost
my son, I was really mad at God and my
wife and I were really frustrated and fill with doubt
and I didn't know, I didn't understand why something like
that could happen, and I was awash in this sort
of doubt of wondering if all the things I had
(08:30):
always believed in the places i'd always counted on were
true or not. And after that day that I told
you about in the first episode of watching that scan
happen and seeing people change their minds, I decided that
if I was going to believe that I got to
see my son again, which is one of the things
about scripture that promises there's a resurrection and you get
to see your people again in heaven, if I was
(08:50):
going to believe that, then I had to count on
the fact that the Bible says God can't tell a
lie and that all his promises are true. So if
I was going to believe that one's true, that I
needed to find some other more immediate promises that would
also be true. And so I started looking to see
if those promises felt true or would turn out to
be true. And one of them is That's a good
example is this verse in Psal I'm thirty four eighteen
(09:12):
that says the Lord is close to the broken hearted.
And I was broken hearted. I was as broken as
a person can be. And what I found was when
I started praying that God would show me that that
was true, I needed him to be close to me
because I wasn't even sure I believed in him anymore. Yeah,
And so I needed to feel that so that I
could believe that my son. I was going to get
to see my son again. If the promises I all
(09:33):
have to be true, then both of those would need
to be true. And I would find in the weeks
after Mitch died it was the most amazing thing. Leanne.
Right at the worst moment I didn't think I could
go on another second, Lisa would walk in the room
and give me a hug. Or I would get a
text message from somebody that said, hey, I was thinking
and praying about you just then, or my email would
show up with a scripture that was hopeful and encouraging,
(09:55):
and the Holy Spirit just said to me, that's me
being close to you when you're broken hearted. And it
turned out to be true. And then I started seeing
other promises that turned out to be true, and I
could just, one by one grab onto them, and it
was like knots on a rope, and I started to
have the juice to be able to pull myself up
out of that pit. And before I knew it, I
had hope again and I believed again, and that gave
(10:17):
me the juice to then say, well, tomorrow's going to
feel a little bit brighter because I know that what
I'm putting my feet down is going to hold me up.
And that's life changed, that's mind change. And it started
with this decision that I wasn't going to let my
brain boss me around, because when you go through something
hard like that, you start hearing all these accusatory thoughts
in your head. You should have been there, you should
(10:38):
have done something different. You know, you want to get dad,
or all those things. Your wife's going to leave you
because you know something's going to happen, and it's too
hard to go through and survive, and so you start
hearing all that, and then I start looking at the
neuroscience research that says that, guess what, eighty percent of
the things you think are not true. And I said, well, wait,
if I'm proving that the things that God says are
(10:59):
always true and eighty percent of the things I think
are not true, then I need to change my mind
about the noise I hear in my head most of
the time, and I need to start doubting that and
being more sure that the truth of Scripture is real.
And then I can over time that balance started to
win out where I would hear the voice of God
more than the voice inside of my head.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yes, amen, yeah, And when you know the Lord is
close to the broken hearted. I think, you know, I
just want to remind everyone like we have a God
that can handle those things of like, hey God, I'm
mad at You's right, right, and he can handle it.
But even just calling that out for what it is
versus not calling it out and feeling the shame associated
with it. That's where again it completely creates a different
experience in your brain. You know, the same feeling, but
(11:41):
different experience is about the feeling. You know, so super
super powerful and so for somebody who is feeling stuck
or powerless. Science says neuroplasticity, Scripture says renewal. Now there's
this part where it's like, Okay, I am going through
something acute and I need like the brain to help,
Like I like, we're we're on a l looking for
a lifeline, wanting the brain to help us right and
(12:03):
help heal and all of that. And then there's that
big picture renewal side of it of like you can
become a different version of yourself, you know, full healing
all of that. Can you share a little just piece
about the short term and long term implications of all
of this.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Let's say you're having an anxiety attack. Let's say that
you're in the middle of something hard and the panic
starts to set in and you feel like you're going
to spiral on your brain. Every time before has led
you to spiral, and you find yourself out of control,
and that leads to you choosing some kind of numbing behavior,
drinking alcohol or something, so you don't think about it
or feeling anymore. If you're having that happen to you,
(12:38):
here's a way that you can prove that your mind
is in charge of your brain. You can do something.
My favorite one is they call five four three two one,
like say, I want to interrupt this panic attack, and
I want to decide that I want my brain to
do something different than it's doing just sending me into
this panic. I can say, with my eyes, what are
five things I can see right now? I can make
(13:00):
myself look around the room. I see you, I see
my wife Lisa over there, I see this microphone, I
see the lights, I see the recorder over there. And
what am I doing. I'm not doing some kind of
magic trick. Your brain actually cannot multitask. You can't do
two things at the same time in your brain. So
what I'm doing is I'm diverting blood flow from the
fear center that's about to generate this panic attack, and
(13:22):
I'm pushing it up towards my occipital lobes, which is
where my vision is. I'm stealing from that anxiety, and
I'm to say, Okay, I still feel kind of panicky,
and I've already named my five things I can see?
What are four things I can hear right now? I
can hear the fan running, I can hear your voice,
I can hear you whatever a car off in the distance.
And what am I doing now? Well, I'm diverting blood
to my temporal lobes, can my auditory cortex, and then
(13:43):
I can do three things. I can taste, I can
do two things, I can smell, one thing I can touch.
And I can basically steal that moment that was getting
ready to happen by directing my mind to tell my
brain to do different things since I can't do two
things at once. And now what have I done? I've
averted the panic, But I've also proven to myself that
I actually have charge over what my brain is doing,
(14:05):
and I don't have to let it push me around anymore.
Sure So, you can convince yourself that's self brain surgery.
You just took a process that you're used to giving
into that you thought was in control of you, and
you didn't think you had agency over and you just
convinced yourself that you can interrupt at anytime you need.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
To absolutely and to even stack on that. How cool
what you just said is because for anybody who's disconnected
from themselves physiologically, actually redirecting to the sensory system and
creating that body connection, that's another skill set that can
be created and talk about when you're in a low
place like the more you can actually connect to yourself,
everything else opens up too. So I love the little
(14:40):
gifts that come out of what you share. We are
going to close out right now, but we are going
to get ready for diving into the Ten Commandments of
brain surgery in our next episode. In the meantime, guys,
if you head over to doctor Leewarren dot com slash
preorder before February third, you can pre order his new
book that's coming out, Plus he's got a bunch of
gifts and bonuses that come alongside it. Where can people
(15:04):
find you online and listen to your podcast?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
So I'm at doctor Leewarren dot com. You can get
my newsletter, my podcast, all my social links are there.
I'm on Instagram and then a little bit on Twitter,
but mostly on Instagram at doctor Lee Warren and love
to connect with people. You can reach me through the
website So.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Amazing and the Doctor Lee Warren podcast weekly episodes Such
Amazing Goodness over there. We'll link it all in the
show notes and we will be back next time for
episode number three of our self brain surgery series. Bye,
We'll be back with more What's God Got to Do
with It? But in the meantime, I would definitely love
to hear from you, so just tell me where you
(15:43):
are in your story or maybe what questions you have,
like where do you feel you need clarity or support
or wisdom in your own journey. I definitely want to
hear from you, So head on over to What's God
Got to Do with It? Dot com and scroll down
to the form to share your thoughts, your questions, your feedback,
and you can do that instantly. So What's God Got
(16:05):
to Do with It? Dot com? You'll find all the
ways to do that. And if you like this podcast
and want to hear more, go ahead and follow, like,
and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts to get your
weekly dose of What's God Got to Do With It?
New episodes drop every single Tuesday, and while you're there,
be sure to rate and review to show your support.
(16:25):
It really means so much. What's God Got to Do
With It is an iHeartRadio podcast on the Amy Brown
Podcast Network. It's written and hosted by me Leanne Ellington,
executive produced by Elizabeth Fozio, post production and editing by
Houston Tilley, and original music written by Cheryl Stark and
produced by Adam Stark
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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