Your church comes to you each week to fill their cup. But when the crowd leaves, who's filling yours? That's exactly what I'm here to do with my new podcast from Focus on the Family. It's called Pastor to Pastor with Dave Stone. I'm so excited to help you navigate the unique challenges that pastors face in their ministry journey, both personally and professionally.
So, I invite you to listen and subscribe to Pastor to Pastor, wherever you get your podcasts. That's why all of a sudden you start reading scripture like Romans 12 about renewing your mind and you start seeing that the Bible had it right all along. Again, that what you think about turns your brain into what it is. It's never been that your brain determines who you are, it's what you think about determines what your brain becomes. That's neurosurgeon Dr.
Lee Warren talking about the brain and how faith and brain science have come together. I'm looking forward to a great conversation today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller. John, this topic of brain science fascinates me, how we think, how our minds work, and impact everything we do in life, all within a Christian context.
We don't need to shrink back from the science of it all because, as Dr. Warren's going to explain, boy, science and scripture are coming together, especially in neuroresearch. And as we touched on last time, this is not some kind of new age discussion about positive thinking. As you'll learn, we really do have some agency and control over how we process things and how, with God's help as the designer, we can overcome dysfunction and trauma and choose a healthier path in life. There's a lot we can take away from this discussion and apply to our lives, to our marriage.
Marriages, and to our parenting. Dr. Lee Warren is a neurosurgeon and best-selling author. His book is called The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery. Such an interesting title.
Be sure and get the book from us here at Focus on the Family. That helps us continue on in so many ways with this family ministry. Let's go ahead now and listen to the second half of the conversation with Dr. Warren on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Dr.
Warren, as a neurosurgeon. and a believer in Jesus. When you look at the anatomy of the brain, And this idea in scripture that we're body, soul, and spirit. As both a Christian and a scientist, what does that mean to you? What is our mind?
What is our soul? What are those things for you?
So, the Bible uses three terms: mind, heart, and soul. And it conflates the terms. They really all mean the same thing. It's the part of you that is not going to die when your body dies.
So, even though society tells us that our brains are us, that everything, in fact, traditional neuroscience says everything about you is because of brain activity. But 21st-century neuroscience is starting to hint at there's a difference between mind and brain, which is what the Bible always said all along.
So, every Christian that's listening to our voices today already believes that there's a part of them that's going to live forever, that's not buried when your brain is gone, right? And so, mind is the part of you that's eternal, that was made in God's image. It's not your body that was made in God's image, it's your mind, your spirit, your soul. And so, mind has controlling influence over what brain becomes. Brain is the hardware through which we project our mental life that God has given us into the world and interact with other humans.
So, mind and brain are not the same thing. What we know now is that we have tremendous control. Control over what our brains do based on what we think about and what we ponder, how we spend our mental energy. That's exactly what Ephesians chapter 4 in the Bible is about. All the trouble the Gentiles have is because of the futility of their thinking.
Paul says in Ephesians 4:17, and in 4:23 he says, But not you. You're made new in the attitude of your minds. Your mind is different than your brain. Wow, that is fascinating. Dr.
Warren, one of the distinctions many writers, authors have talked about, philosophers, is this distinction between the rest of the created world and us being made in the image of God. And I think specifically they'll point to things like music, art. The emotions of the soul Um love. and greed and hate and all those things that we uniquely seem to experience being made in his image. And then of course the stain of sin in humanity from the fall of Adam.
and Eve. How do you process that as a neurosurgeon and this idea between good and evil? and the battle that we have and ho what our makeup is.
Well we have a a Easy ability to forget that we're always in a spiritual war, right? That there's a spiritual component to what's going on around us. And so you have a mind that's immaterial, that's made in God's image, that is meant to communicate with Him and live with Him forever. And that's in a body, embodied in a brain that allows that to project into the world. And animals have brains, and only humans have minds.
So the difference between us and the rest of the created order is that we have this immaterial, eternal part that allows God gave us this gift of selective attention. We, among all the things He created, have the ability to decide to think about one thing and not another, to choose to put our intention and our will and our focus on something and not something else. We don't have animal instincts. We have the ability to choose. And then we're in this spiritual battle where the enemy of our soul wants to make us believe that we're just the brains in our head.
That we're obligated to behave certain ways, that we're required to respond in certain ways, that we're required to follow our heart or follow our instinct or behave like everybody else does. And the truth is, if you can understand that there's an enemy that's trying to do the steal and kill and destroy part. And your Creator came here to give you the abundant part. Abundance is not about circumstances. It's about the peace of mind that comes of knowing that you always have a choice in what you get to decide to think about, how you feel inside, and how you interact with other people and with your creator.
That's why awe and wonder and music and art and all those things are different for us than they are for the rest of the created order because God allows us to ponder things and decide to choose to think about things. And that changes what our bodies and our lives become. I know you're a neurosurgeon, a psychologist or psychiatrist, what they're dealing with with high levels of anxiety and depression in the culture right now. How does a person that wakes up already predisposed to kind of thinking fearfully of everything around them. Structurally, how do they begin to rethink that when that's your pattern?
So, the first thing is to realize that the research shows that a large percentage of the automatic things that we think and feel, so these thoughts that pop into our heads or these moods kind of come upon us-a large percentage of those are not based on anything that's real. They're just based on your brain trying to make sense out of the environment or out of your past experience. And so, if you're used to feeling a certain way all the time, your brain will sort of wake you up feeling that way. But as soon as you learn that you can start to ponder things from a different perspective and your brain will begin to reinforce what you're telling it to focus on, your mood will follow that. The psychology is very clear now.
The people who learn to think more positively, again, not false positivity, but to think more realistically, that I have some control and some agency in what I feel and what my life turns out to be if I choose to renew my mind, like the Bible says.
So, I would say if you're struggling with mood or affect, like understand that you're not the victim of that. You don't have to respond to what your brain and your emotions are telling you. You can literally use your mind to control your brain from the top down and decide. rather how you want to feel and begin to make that more real. The Apostle Paul choosing to sing in jail.
Yeah. That's an interesting thing because you would think a Roman jail at that time was probably pretty bleak. Yeah. Dirty. you know, horrifically dirty.
And yet, like Paul says, you know, in all your circumstances, you know, rejoice. And you think of that in in modern times, like really Paul? And we get upset if we don't have air conditioning. That's right. But in his context, he was trying to say something to us that really is in line with what you're saying.
about being content in all your circumstances. Not letting your circumstances overcome your emotional well being. That's right. Speak to that context of what you're saying and what Paul's trying to communicate to us. It turns out he was hinting at something that we know now from neuroscience: that when you can choose joy, when you can decide, again, selective attention, decide to think about one thing or from a different perspective than you feel obligated by your circumstances to feel, it's not hopeless positivity.
It's not crazy. It's this decision to operate your mind and your brain in a way that's separate from your circumstances. And what we know from neuroscience now is if you look at anxiety, for example, the neurological switch in your brain that allows anxiety to happen and this spider-flight reflex happen starts in your hippocampus. And the hippocampus is a one-way switch either between anxiety and fear. Or between gratitude and joy, that you can't be anxious and grateful at the same time.
That's why Paul went in Philippians 4 and said. Don't be anxious for anything, but in everything with gratitude and thanksgiving, present your request, and the peace of God will guard your heart. We know now that that happens in your hippocampus, and it's either or. You can't be anxious and be grateful at the same time.
So, the secret out of anxiety is to make yourself think of something for which you're grateful, to choose joy, to rejoice instead. That's what Paul was saying in the Roman prison: like in all your circumstances, rejoice, because that's going to guard your heart and your mind. You don't have to suffer. There's an old saying about the difference between suffering and adversity. Like, adversity is mandatory, suffering is a choice.
You don't have to suffer. You can choose a different train of thought. You use the example of receiving a letter from the IRS that gives a Pavlovian kind of response. I would say it's been a while since I've had that letter, and I hope nobody's planning that letter for me. But speak to that moment when you get that letter that says, We need to audit you.
Yeah, so the point of this story is just that we've been taught, especially in this generation right now in the culture, we're supposed to honor our faith. Feelings and believe our heart and follow our truth and all these things that we're being taught. And I make the point that research actually suggests that a lot of the things that we feel don't reflect anything that's really happening. And the chemicals that create how you feel inside-the anxiety, fear, anticipation-whatever-there's a small set of neurotransmitters that create all of those things that we can feel. And so, I use the example of the letter to say that not everything you feel is a fact, it's a chemical event in your brain.
So, if you imagine going to the mailbox and you open it up and pull that letter out that says IRS on it, all of us have some sort of a physiological response to that. If you're human. If you're human, you see that letter, and a few things happen to your body. The hair on the back of your neck stands up, and your heart rate quickens, and your breath gets faster, and you feel something physiologically.
Now I would ask you, is that fear? Because you're afraid that the letter contains notification that you're getting an audit, or you have a big fine to pay, or you did something wrong, and they're going to put you in jail or something. Is it fear that you're feeling? Or have you been anticipating the refund that you need to make a house payment and you're excited? But just think for a second about fear and excitement.
What do you feel in your body? Your hair stands up, your heart rate quickens, your breath quickens, all that your mouth gets dry, all that stuff.
So that it's never been really the thing that has created what you're feeling. It's the story that you're telling yourself about what the feeling means, right? The same set of chemicals are doing the same thing to your body.
Now, in the book, I say this: go look at the envelope again, and now you realize it was addressed to your neighbor. It wasn't even your letter, right?
So it was never true that there was danger or excitement available to you because it wasn't for you. And so until you open the letter and find out what's in it, the physiological response that you're having isn't true. It's about the story that you're telling in your head. And so if we can all learn that feelings aren't facts, Then we can stop reacting to them automatically as if they are facts, and we can start gathering, being curious about them, gathering some data before we decide how to respond. How much better would our lives be if we just lived in that curiosity rather than believing everything we feel?
Well, again, know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Will set you free. I mean, it is so, it's almost plainly in sight, but we haven't seen it this clearly, right? That's right. Like, science is revealing God's truth.
That's right. Which is so exciting, actually, in this moment where science and those that don't believe in God are trying to trumpet that somehow science is the God. That's right. And it's woefully inadequate, isn't it? That's right.
As you said earlier, you were alluding to Newton and Copernicus and Galileo and Kepler and all those early scientists. They created Western science and the scientific method for the purpose of helping people to learn a method of investigating what God has done and give Him glory and be an awful. Of it. We know now how good awe is for our brain. We're supposed to be wondering and amazed at the things God did, right?
And they actually put on the door of the lab at Cambridge University, where they later discovered DNA. Maxwell, when he was working out magnetism, inscribed on the archway of that door the verse, Psalm 111, that says, Great are the works of the Lord, they are to be delightful to those who ponder them.
So, like, science was created. To expose faith and manifest faith. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and today we're talking with Dr. Lee Warren about his book, The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery. The subtitle is Connecting Neuroscience and Faith to Radically Transform Your Life.
Get a copy from us here at the ministry when you stop by the show notes. The links are right there for you. When you look at neuroplasticity, which is another element that you're talking about, and the need for that, when we're young, our brains are soft and spongy, I guess. You can give me the medical definition. As we get older, it tends to become harder, literally.
Our brains lose a bit of that plasticity. What does plasticity provide us as human beings made in the image of God?
Well, so actually there's newer research that suggests it's not actually that cut and dry. We don't actually ever get too old for this to work in our favor. The reason it feels that way is because, so neuroplasticity is this process that we've been describing of how brains disconnect old pathways and make new ones. That's the whole punchline is that the brain is not stuck. It's not rigid.
It's not hard. It's plastic. It's moldable. It's malleable. And that process by which it changes is called neuroplasticity.
It's easier when you're a child because you don't have these decades of wires that have been put down and reinforced. The process works by reinforcing things over and over to automate them so you don't have to think about them as much. That frees up mental resources so your brain can do automated things and your mind can do things you want to think about actively. As we get older, we have to make decisions to change that wiring and it's more difficult to overcome those years of automation.
So as we get older, we have to sort of do it more diligently. When you're a child, it's just happening at a pace that's phenomenal. When you get older, that old automated pathway seems more insurmountable, but it's not. We can learn to overcome it. We even talk in those idioms, I guess, or sayings like children are like sponges.
They're soaking up information and data and details. It just seems like that, again, is how God created a young child, right? Just to absorb all this information. Other things that we might say are like, you know, that person doesn't fall far from the tree. You know, behaviorally, like, yeah, well, his dad was an alcoholic or had some family issue.
And then, you know, one of the kids, two of the kids end up in that same spot. Speak to that linkage between. you know, that saying where people say, you know, well You know, the Daly family. You know what I'm saying? Right, absolutely.
It goes back to that epigenetic thing we talked about earlier. That we know now that the way you think about things is what drives these structural changes in your brain. The genetic set point of where you start comes from these epigenetic switches that happen even up to four generations before we're born. The problem is, As we're growing up, we don't know yet that we have this type of control over what our brains become. And we have been taught by our society that our brains are fixed and formed by our genetics and our upbringing.
So you grow up in this environment, and before you ever think about it, you've automated those pathways for many years. And the society tells you, Well, you're going to be like your family is because you inherited their genetics and you grew up in their worldview. And so by the time we're old enough to hear somebody say this on the radio that you have some choice and some agency in this, a lot of those pathways have been automated for decades. And so, again, as you're growing up, you don't know that you're absorbing worldview, and it's more about the environment in which you're raised than it is the fixed nature of the brain because the brain's not actually ever been fixed. And so, when you hear that, when somebody listening to our voices today hears, wait, I can change these things, I don't have to be like my dad, I don't have to be an alcoholic or an abuser just because he was.
That's a setting-free moment. That's a moment of declaration of saying, I can change the future for myself and my family as soon as I learn to. think about my life in a different way. But it takes making choices. It takes choices.
Dr. Warren, we develop these patterns that you're talking about. Many counselors will talk about family of origin issues if you lived under great stress or lived with dysfunctional parents that had addictions or something like that. There is a way that we, as children, begin to overcome those environments with resiliency, sometimes unhealthy ways of avoidance and things like that. But in marriage, as we grow up and we enter into marriage, we bring some of those features.
of how to interact with our spouse into the marriage. And that's where marital conflict Can occur, you know, and focus on the family. We're here for you if you're in that spot. And it might sound something like this: you know, every time she says that to me. It triggers this in me.
Following that is really critical rather than just moving on to the next disagreement or fight you might get into with your spouse. Understanding why, why when she accuses me of something, do I react the way I react? And then why is she so quick to accuse me is a whole nother thing to look at. But in this context of neuroscience, How do we understand how that applies to our marriages to have a healthy, wonderful oneness that God really did create us for as a married Husband and wife. Yeah, that's really a really good thing to think about because all of us sort of think that.
Other people's behavior has an inherent ability to make us behave certain ways. But the truth is, you use the word trigger, it requires somebody to pull the trigger. Like, an external event can't make me pull a trigger.
So, if you understand that the way you feel inside is built on your whole life and all the things that happened before you got into that marriage, and that the way your spouse behaves is built on their whole life. And you start looking at, I get to determine. My response, and I don't need to let an automated feeling that I have built a story around determine what becomes true in my world or in my marriage or in my home.
So, once you understand that you actually have agency, that nobody else can actually make you feel or behave in a certain way, they can trigger a physiological response based on your past, but they can't actually pull the trigger on what you do or what you become. And so, then that begins to put us in this driver's seat: I have a mind that God has created and allows me to renew day by day with the Holy Spirit that's in charge of my brain. Once you understand that your mind actually turns your brain into what it is, and that's what your body becomes, then you start saying, Wait, I can think ahead of situations where I know I tend to have a stressful moment with my spouse, and I can decide in advance what type of response I'm going to choose instead of letting that triggering feeling make me believe I am obligated to behave in a certain way. And then what will happen is, again, through these mirror neurons and all these other ways that we affect other people, your spouse will begin to change in response to. How you're behaving differently now, too.
And so the path forward is to reject the pattern of the past and to decide we have control and agency over what the future can become.
So that little bit of gap between stimulus and response allows you to have that power. You know, what's so interesting to me, the elements, what I mean by that, the emotions that God gives us uniquely, this idea of humility. The ability to go to your spouse or to go to your child and say, I'm sorry. and the power of that to change their heart and their mind. In that way.
Isn't it interesting that God gives us that medical kit, if I could call it that, to be able to pull out something like humility to express to another person. which then it kind of evokes from them an acceptance hopefully. And a forgiveness, and these things are all intertwined, helping us. Oh, it's beautiful. It is.
It's a beautiful design, and we can engage with God's help, the design that He gave us. We don't have to do all that work on our own. But if you start to understand that you actually have a choice over how tomorrow looks and it doesn't have to look like yesterday did, it starts to empower you with this feeling that God has given me a toolkit. If I can just learn how to operate it according to His design, my life can look very different than it has in the past. You know, certainly, those situations where you do have trauma, like a foster child or a bio-child who is struggling, it can be either one.
Then you move into just day in and day out. Parenting and either the good or the ill we're causing our children. And then hearing you, Dr. Warren, about. that my study that we are impacting our children.
In the human studies that you talked about, we're impacting our children, our grandchildren potentially, down the line dependent upon our. Unbiblical responses being fearful or anxious or and how that can go to the next generations. In that context, what are a few practical steps that we can take? to help The outcome Of our future generations, those that come behind us. I think it's incredibly important to set your intention of how you want to operate your mind-brain interface and how you want to operate your interactions with others early in the morning.
This is why I love the morning quiet time so much. You have an opportunity to think ahead of times and events where you tend to be under stress. And when we're under stress, it's when we tend to make mistakes in the things that we say to our children, or God forbid, things we do to our children.
So if you think ahead, When we're late for school, I tend to yell, I tend to do this, I tend to say that. And then you think about the fact that you're not just dealing with your child in that moment, but that you're changing their potentially genetic structure that could affect their families in the future. Then you can say, wait, if every time we're in this situation, I say the same set of things that hurts my kid's heart, instead, I'm going to prepare a different response and rehearse that. You'll begin to lay down wires, like we talked about earlier. You'll begin to change how your brain is anticipating that moment, which means that you're more likely to engage with the new behavior than the old.
And you can literally start to change the dynamic of how you're interacting with your kids because you set your intention earlier in the day.
So be aware that we tend to repeat actions and behaviors and words when we're under stress. And we do that because we weren't thinking ahead and preparing a different response.
So I would say for parents, like set some intentional time. Get up a few minutes earlier. Make some decisions. Pray through the moments where you know you tend to step off the track and hurt your kids' feelings or get into a Fight with your spouse or something and set a different intention and then mentally rehearse it. Interestingly, your brain doesn't know the difference between something that's really happening and something that you're just ruminating or anticipating.
So, that means you can get this is why athletes are able to visualize their performance and get better at it when they actually perform.
So, do that as a parent too. Visualize those interactions, see them getting better instead of worse. Believe that God's given you the neural hardware to make that change and make that change real, and then see your great-grandchildren having better lives because you made that choice, and you'll begin to change the dynamic of your family. Man, I so enjoyed that visit with Dr. Lee Warren, and I'm sure there are so many different takeaways that can be of help to you from this discussion.
A good place to start is by asking us for a copy of his book, The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery. And for a gift of any amount to Focus on the Family, we'll be happy to send that to you as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry. And let me say how grateful we really are for your support. We're coming up on 50 years of ministry, and it's amazing to see the work that God has done in people's lives over the years because of your generosity. Maybe your parents raised you on Focus on the Family.
I hear that so often, and of course, leaned into the help that we offer. Or maybe you're listening for the first time. Welcome. We're here to serve you and your family, hopefully, for the next many decades together, and provide those timely resources. To help meet your needs.
And if you're struggling in marriage or parenting or you've suffered trauma, as talked about with Dr. Lee Warren today, there is hope for you. Contact Focus on the Family and set up a free counseling appointment on the phone, and you'll receive a call back soon from a caring Christian counselor. The starting point is 1-800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459, or our website, and the link is in the show notes.
Well, be sure to join us next time as Dr. Holly Brand explores ways that you can help your child learn to engage wisely with the culture. And the number one influence is how the parents are living. And again, we already knew this by reading Deuteronomy when God says, you know, speak it all day, you know, write it on your doorframes as you walk, as you lie down. Share this with your children.
Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller and body you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ. Your church comes to you each week to fill their cup. But when the crowd leaves, who's filling yours? That's exactly what I'm here to do with my new podcast from Focus on the Family.
It's called Pastor to Pastor with Dave Stone. I'm so excited to help you navigate the unique challenges that pastors face in their ministry journey, both personally and professionally.
So, I invite you to listen and subscribe to Pastor to Pastor, wherever you get your podcasts. Mm.
