Sponsor Message and Introduction to Hope for Healthy Families
Dr. Jessica Peck: We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor PreBorn. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection. And the majority of the time she will choose life. But they can't do it without our help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside them. One ultrasound is just $28. To donate, dial pound250 and say the keyword baby or visit preborn.com/AFR this year America celebrates its 250th birthday. 2.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And a half centuries of courage, innovation, faith and freedom. But what will the next 250 years hold? The next generation could hold the next Billy Graham, the next Roza Parks, the next Ronald Reagan. The next child whose life will impact generations. But first they must be given the chance to live it. I couldn't imagine my life without him because of them.
Dr. Jessica Peck: He's here. We're gonna get through it and it's gonna be okay. Everyday PreBorn Network clinics helps mothers facing unexpected pregnancies discover hope through a free ultrasound. When a mother sees her baby and that tiny heartbeat, her baby is twice as likely to be given the gift of life. What story will God write through America's next generation? In honor of America's 250th anniversary, we're asking friends to consider a special gift of $250. Your gift can help provide nearly nine life saving ultrasounds. Dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250 baby. Or donate securely at preborn.com/AFR that's preborn.com/AFR Every gift is tax- deductible.
: Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing hope for healthy families here on American Family Radio. here's your host professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of day getting to spend time with you prescribing hope for healthy families. Listen, we have got a really important conversation today. Today is a little more serious. But you know, life is serious and there is hope. When we believe in the power and the, the transforming potential of the gospel and the good news of Jesus, there is always hope. And so I want to give you a content advisor as we start just to use discretion because we're going to talk about some tough stuff but stuff that we need to talk about and way that in a way that is trauma informed and hope filled and faith informed as well. We all know that we are living in an age of unprecedent access. We have access to more things than we could have ever dreamed possible. When I was growing up, even in Gen X, the world was pretty small.
The Rise of Anxiety and the Intersection of Neuroscience, Faith, and Personal Responsibility
The world is pretty big right now and it's at our fingertips. We have access to information, to technology, to solutions. You can not only Google symptoms now we see people engaging with AI and using that as a healthcare provider, which I'm going to be honest, is pretty terrifying to me. It can be a starting place, but it should not. I'm just going to say that right up front. It should not replace that trusted relationship, especially that you have with primary care, a primary care provider who is going to connect you to other health services. But we have all kinds of health information at our fingertips. We can track our sleep. Some of you wear rings to do that, or watches you optimize your productivity and you even outsource our thinking to AI. And yet in the face of all of this, anxiety is rising, depression is increasing, loneliness is episode epidemic levels. People feel stuck, overwhelmed and mentally exhausted. And why? Because while we've learned how to manage our environments, we've often neglected the place that is where real change is happening. The renewing of our minds that comes to you straight from the book of Romans culture tells us you are your thoughts. We can manifest our thoughts into being, which we cannot do right away. And I don't endorse that at all. They say you can't help how you feel. If you feel it, it must be true. And what if you actually have more God given power over your thought life than you've led to believe? Now today we're going to have a conversation that sits at the intersection of one of my favorite places, neuroscience, faith and personal responsibility.
Introducing Dr. W. Lee Warren and the Concept of Self Brain Surgery for Healing
And it's going to challenge some of the assumptions that we carry. Are you a passive participant in your life or are you actively participating in your healing? Joining us today is Dr. W. Lee Warren. He is a board certified neurosurgeon with over 25 years of experience. He's an Iraq war veteran, he is a trauma survivor, he's an award winning author. And his new book, the Life Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery brings together cutting edge neuroscience and deep Christian faith to offer something both practical and powerful. The idea that you can literally change your mind, change your brain by changing your mind. Now.
Dr. Jessica Peck: After walking through profound personal trauma, including post traumatic stress disorder, the devastating loss of his son, Dr. Warren discovered that healing wasn't something just done to him. It was something he had to actively participate in. And he calls it self brain surgery. Not a metaphor but a mechanism of real change rooted in both science and scripture. Dr. Warren, welcome. We are so grateful for your time today.
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Jessica.
Challenging Materialism: How Neuroscience Aligns with Scripture on Mind-Body Connection
It's such an honor to be with you today. Thank you.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, Dr. Warren, I have to start off by telling you that my husband is actually a, rocket scientist. And it is a joke in our home all the time. It's not rocket science. And today we are talking with a neurosurgeon to say it's not brain surgery, but today we are actually going to talk about brain surgery.
Dr. W. Lee Warren: That's right.
Dr. Jessica Peck: That's right. Well, I'm. I'm so grateful for this. I read about your message, and I think this is something that really needs to be talked about today. And I know there's some people today who really need to read the whole book. And we know that we can't control everything that happens to us, which is what we try to do as a coping mechanism in this world, but we can influence how we experience it. And our thoughts aren't just abstract. They're not just neutral. They have physical impact on the brain and the brain structure. I want you just to give us a little bit of setup for that, and then we'll talk a little bit about your personal story and experience, but give us a little simple explanation about how we can step into this and how the concept of self brain surgery is even possible.
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. As you said, culture's telling us all. And really, science for decades has told us that everything about our lives is the result of how our brains work. If you zoom out a little bit from that, there's a worldview called materialism that goes all the way back to Isaac Newton in the 1600s. That basically, most of science in our culture is built on this idea that if you can break something down and understand the parts that it's made from, that you could kind of reverse engineer what that thing's going to do and what it's capable of. And that idea got into culture, especially after we discovered what makes genes work with the structure of DNA in the 1950s. And this idea got kind of out there and is commonly taught, and I think widely believed even by Christians, that everything about you is the product of the genes that you inherited from your mom and dad, the parents that raised you, the environment that you were raised in, and the set of things that you go through. Like, basically, your brain can be influenced negatively by all these things, but you're sort of stuck with the brain that you have. And the idea is that everything you think Feel, believe and do is because of how your brain works. And that's great if you want to sort of have a reason for why you feel and act the way that you do that, that gives you some peace to know that it's not your fault. Right? Your brain just is what it is. However, if you really look at what 21st century neuroscience is discovering, it actually lines up quite well with what scripture has always said. What we're actually learning when we look at what we can see when we put somebody in a scanner and image what their brain is doing now is that the brain actually isn't in charge of you, but your mind is actually in charge of you. And surprisingly, your mind and your brain are not the same thing. The things you think about can structurally change what your brain does, the chemicals it makes, the way it pushes you towards or away from anxiety, all those things are heavily influenced by what you think about. That sounds a lot like Second Corinthians 10, 5, right? Take every thought captive. Sounds a lot like Romans 12, 2. Renew your mind. Don't be conformed to what the world says. Like you said, follow your heart, believe your feelings, don't be conformed to that, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So what we're learning is that when God writes a prescription for how humans are supposed to flourish, neuroscience eventually catches up with it. And that's what we're seeing in the 21st century. So this idea that we're victims of our brain activity is only true as long as we believe that we have no power in that process, or as long as we don't take action to do what God said all along. so what we've learned is you literally have structural control over your brain and, and what it becomes when you change what you think about. And that's why I call it self brain surgery. It's as real as what I do in the operating room.
The Power of Self Brain Surgery: Rewiring the Brain for a Better Life Through Mindset
M. When I. When I operate on somebody's brain, I'm intentionally making a structural change in their brain for the purpose of improving their life in some way. And when you do what God said, when you take your thoughts captive, when you change what you think about, when you don't ponder all the negative stuff, and the Romans calls it, the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the spirit is life and peace. When you, when you don't focus on your feelings all the time, when you don't focus on all the problems that you've got, your brain literally rewires to create a life that feels better and allows you to flourish more completely than you can if you let your brain boss you around all the time.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, Dr. Warren, there's not many people who can say, when I'm operating on someone's brain, that is pretty impressive there. I mean, and you're looking at the physical structure of the brain, and this is fascinating in 21st century neuroscience. And the thing I love about it is exactly what you said. We're catching up to aligning with scripture. It's there in scripture all along. And as we learn these advances, you see it perfectly matches back to scripture.
Embracing Agency: Taking Responsibility for Healing and Navigating Trauma and Loss
But I think this is the encouraging thing, is that God has designed us. He has literally hardwired hope into our body because we are not just victims of our own circumstances. And many of the times, what happened to us, the trauma that we face, the trial, the tragedy, sometimes, many times it is not our fault at all, but it is our responsibility. It's our choice to take that healing journey. What does that look like? You know, you talked about this brain, mind, body connection, and how we have more power than we think. What does that actually look like in real life if people are thinking, okay, this is news to me. Where do you start to walk that out?
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Well, let me give you a story, a personal story. You know, one of the things as you alluded to in the setup here, is that, I'm not just coming at this conversation from the perspective of being some professor in a lab somewhere. But I came home from the Iraq war after surviving a hundred mortar attacks and doing 200 brain surgeries in a tent hospital. I came home pretty broken from the war. And I realized, as educated as I was, I realized that I began to be unable to trust my brain. My feelings would be very strong, that I was in some sort of danger and I could look around and know that I was not. So I got this sense that I couldn't really trust what my brain was telling me. And then I worked through that and learned how to manage that. And then we lost a son. In 2013, my son Mitch died, in a brutal stabbing that we still don't understand. And with a crime that was never solved. And, and, and after that, again, I was in this situation where the trauma was pushing me around and I was, I was being overwhelmed. And, and if you, if anybody listening has lost a child, you. You really feel like that's how it's going to be for the rest of your life. Like, like you're going to be that way forever. That's what it feels like.
Observing Mind-Body Connection: Functional MRI Research Demonstrates Thought's Impact on Physiology
But we had this incredible experience where at the time, my wife Lisa and I ran our, practice together in Alabama. We lived in Auburn, Alabama, on the campus. Our office was on the campus of the university. And they were doing this world class functional MRI research in the building that we had our office in. And functional MRI research is where you can put somebody in a scanner and not just see what the brain looks like, but you can see what the brain is doing when somebody's thinking, like what chemicals are being made and what parts of the brain are being activated and all that. And we went down to this meeting a few weeks after Mitch died. We got invited to watch this research happen. And they put this woman in the scanner, Jessica, and they said, okay, Mrs. Johnson, think about the worst thing you've ever felt in your life. And we watched her think of something, and then we watched her brain change in response to what she was thinking about. So she called something to mind. Her brain lit up in the fear centers, the parts of her brain that are related to pain and anxiety and fight and flight and all that stuff. And then we watched her vital signs change. Her blood pressure went up, her heart rate went up, her respiratory rate went up. And we saw this sequence of mind activity affecting brain activity that affected body activity. And then they said, Mrs. M. Johnson, now think about the best thing you've ever felt. Stop thinking about that negative thing, and remember the happiest you've ever felt in your life. And very quickly, her fear center calmed down. Her frontal lobes came online. Other parts of her brain that are related to better things lit up. And then her body changed again. Her blood pressure came down, heart rate came down, all that stuff. And again we saw this sequence of mind affecting brain affecting body. And Lisa, my wife, said, hey, that reminds me of Philippians 4. And I said, what do you mean? And she said, well, Philippians 4 says, don't be anxious, be grateful instead, and you'll be filled with peace. Like, think about this thing and not that thing, and you'll feel better. And I started having this moment with God right there in the scanner where he revealed this idea to me that, like, literally, when you take your thoughts captive, you are changing your brain's response to the things that you've gone through. You're structurally changing what your brain is and what your brain does. And your body will respond because it's designed to heal, as you said. And so that means you're not a victim.
Shifting from Patient to Surgeon: Actively Participating in Healing Through Mind and Faith
You're a victim sometimes of circumstance, but you don't have to be a victim of response because you can change the response. You have power, you have agency. That makes you a surgeon and not just a patient. So that's how it played out for me. And now that's what I'm teaching people around the world.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Dr. Warren, it is so encouraging to hear you speak. You know, it's become in vogue lately to hate on medicine a little bit and, and really to, to talk about, to struggle with that tension that is there between science and faith. And you are such a, great example of the way that faith and science are just seamlessly integrating and, and just, it's so encouraging to me m say that you're thinking of scripture right when you're sitting there in the scanner. And I'm so encouraged by that. That scripture also impacts me. I think about that as a nurse practitioner because I think, you know, holistic health, we are connected. we are holistic people. It's not just our body, it's not just our mind, it's not just our spirit. It's all together. And when we think about the answer right there in scripture, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, present your request to God, in the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. And Dr. Warren, that was such a light bulb moment for me because I realized the scripture is not just talking about your theoretical heart, your theoretical mind, just like what you. It is your literal mind that God created, your literal heart down to your blood vessels, much like you talked about. When we come back. Dr. Warren, we're up against our first break here. We'll talk more about your personal, personal story.
Listener Support for American Family Radio and the Dr. Nurse Mama Show
And you're going to share with people what it looks like to shift from a patient mindset, that patient to Dr. Switch. And how you become an active participant in your healing rather than just a passive observer to your trauma. We'll be right back with more from Dr. Warren. Hello, I'm Jessica Peck, host of Dr. Nurse Mama. did you know that this content is listener supported? Without people like you, this podcast would not exist. And that's. That's why we need you. A generous monthly gift of any amount will help sustain American Family Radio and specifically this podcast. Please consider becoming a monthly financial partner today by visiting afr.net/give that's afr.net/give
This Is My Father's World by The Worship Initiative: This is my father's world and to my listening ears all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres. This is my father's word world. I Rest me in the F of rocks and trees of skies and seas is in the wonder.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That song is this is my father's world by the worship initiative. Listen, we all know we cannot control everything that happens to us, but we can influence how we experience it. Thoughts aren't just abstract. They have a physical impact on the brain and modern neurons. Neuroscience shows that thinking patterns actually rewire literal brain structure. And I'm talking today to Dr. Warren and Dr. W. Lee Warren.
A Neurosurgeon's Journey Through Trauma: Iraq War, PTSD, and the Loss of a Son
He has written a book book called the Life Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery. He's sharing his own personal story and his tremendous insight and experience as a neurosurgeon. One who worked in Iraq and combat trauma situations and who has experienced the loss of his son to talk about how we can change our thought patterns and take every thought captive. And the question is, are you just sitting around waiting for your life to change, or are you willing to change how you think about your life? Because if your thoughts can shape your brain, then your daily thinking patterns are doing more than you realize. It's not just describing your life to you. It's directing the actual direction of your life. Dr. Warren, you shared a little bit about your own personal story. I mean, you said it very quickly. But just the actual thought of that, of seeing you, visualizing you in a trauma tent in Iraq doing 200 surgeries, coming home, experiencing, being open about the fact that you had post traumatic stress disorder. That's a hard thing to say, experiencing the loss of your son. You said something earlier that caught my attention because, I mean, we think of neurosurgeon as like the upper echelon. Like, you are the smartest, most talented person, and for you to say, hey, I came back broken and that skill set wasn't enough for my healing. What did that journey look like personally for you? And how has it impacted the work that you wrote about here in your book?
Dr. W. Lee Warren: You know, I think, you know, going all the way back to Iraq, I did. I did the wrong thing. You talked about how smart neurosurgeons are supposed to be and all that, but we're just people like everybody else. And we trained for a long time to learn how to do things. But having a degree behind your name doesn't mean that you're situationally smart. And I did the wrong thing. When I came home after that trauma. And what I did was, I went to work and I put all my Iraq war mementos and shrapnel I'd removed from people and uniforms and all That I put that in a trunk in the garage in my house. And I didn't talk about it, and I just got to work and I went back to. Went back to work and, for years didn't talk about it, didn't try not to think about it, and I just stuffed it aside. And about four years after I came home from the war, so I, gave a talk one day at a Lions Club, and my wife was with me. And during that talk, somebody shut. It was at a restaurant, and somebody shut one of those walk in freezers, you know, the big ones at the door that kind of has a vacuum seal and it makes this sort of thwump kind of sound that you can feel in your ears. And that turns out that sound is almost exactly the sound of when a mortar is launched. This sort of deep sort of subsonic kind of sound. And I had a panic attack, like right there in front of the Lions Club. Had like a physiological attack as if I was being mortar. And I managed it pretty well. I'm not sure anybody besides Lisa knew that something was wrong, but the day after that, we were driving, and I was driving the car, and we stopped at a stoplight, and all of a sudden Lisa was shaking me. And I said, what are you doing? And she said, you just sat through two red lights because a helicopter flew by right at eyes level, and you just checked out, like, just disappeared like you weren't even here. And so I saw a helicopter and my mind took me back to Iraq, and I disappeared from the car that I was in, and I was somewhere else. And shortly after that, I started having nightmares, and the entire thing came unraveled for me. And it took a long time for me to figure out and admit what was happening. But I had ptsd. And the reason that happened is because I didn't manage it when I had a chance when I should have. Right? And so I just said all that to say like. Like, if you're experiencing stuff related to something you've gone through, it doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. And it doesn't mean you're dumb or weak or not smart enough or any of that, because I did it.
Understanding Trauma as Response: Learning a New Response for Healing and Flourishing
I mean, it happened to me. And I'm, you know, supposedly smart guy, Right? But what's encouraging is we've. I've now studied this for 13 years since Mitch died, because similar things happened after I lost my slimming. But what I've learned is trauma is not actually that the act of having gone through something hard that's not the trauma. The trauma is the response that your body chooses and that your brain consent, your mind and your brain consent to after that. And that's actually good news because if you think about it, if the. If the way my brain behaved after I lost my son or after I went to war and got blown up and all that stuff happened, if the way that my brain behaved in that was because of the event, then I couldn't change that. I had no hope for the future to feel different than it does now. Because that's what my brain did in response to the event. Right? But the fact is I can't. I can't go back and make myself not have gone to Iraq. I can't make my son come back. So those things are unchangeable. So if it was the actual event, I would have no hope. But what we've learned is you make a response to trauma and you can learn a different response if that response isn't helping you. And so that means that the set of things that you think about, the set of things that you've allowed your brain to automate, the way you respond to stresses and triggers, if those things aren't serving you well, then you can get invested and do the work, find whatever help you need or do whatever it takes. And you can make your brain learn a different response to that event that you've had so that when you begin to recall it or something reminds you of it, you can automate a healthier response that doesn't hurt you and doesn't hurt your family and doesn't result in you drinking or doing whatever it is that you do to numb yourself from it. You can learn a way to manage it.
The Brain's Automation Process: Neuroplasticity, Habits, and Operating Your Nervous System
That's what the Bible's getting at when it says that you want to make the words of your mouth and the meditation of your heart be pleasing to God. Not just the stuff you do, but the stuff you ponder, the stuff you think about, the stuff that begins to write code in your brain. Because that's how it works. Now, what we understand is that when you think about something from the same perspective for a long enough time, your brain decides that that thing is true, whether or not it is. And your brain begins to automate that response and make it where you don't have to think about it anymore for that to start happening again. And that's how you find yourself on the couch at 5pm with a half a bottle of wine down on the day that you said you weren't going to drink anymore. It happens because you've automated that response. And now you've got to make a new response, become the automatic one. And there's this amazing process that God gave us called neuroplasticity, where your brain basically wires together things that keep happening. So the. The neuroscience is called Hebb's law. Neurons that fire together, wire together. So the more you think about something, the more you do something over and over, your brain turns that into a little program that it can now run without you having to intentionally think about it. That's the basis of habits and addictions, but it's also the basis of our trauma responses and our triggers and the things that we say when we're not. When we're under stress and not paying attention. And so God gave us a system that we can learn how to operate to our own advantage instead of letting it operate us. And that's really the punchline of all that I've learned. If you don't learn how to operate your nervous system, it's going to operate you.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, Dr. Warren, there's, a. There's a tension here.
Navigating Hope and Grace: Embracing Agency While Trusting God's Promises for Healing
And you've kind of alluded to that because on the one side of it, on the one hand, it's so hopeful to know that the things that happen to us, our body, genetics, don't have the final say. We're not completely powerless. We're not just victims. And whatever happens, happens. There's a hope that's there. But then the other side of that is if, okay, if there's hope, if I have to move forward with intention, if I have to move forward with action, then there's that possibility that, okay, I'm going to fail, or I'll feel guilty because I'm not, or I'm human, I'm going to fall, I'm going to fail in that journey. And if I don't recover, like, is that. Is that my fault? How do you navigate kind of the tension of that spectrum and find God's grace in the middle?
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Well, I go back to Psalm 103. The first part of Psalm 103 is these five promises that God makes. One of those, praise the Lord, oh, my soul, let all this that is within me praise your holy name, Praise the Lord, O my soul. And forget not all his benefits. And the first one is, he forgives all my sins, so we can trust in that. Right? The second one is, he heals all my diseases. And that one we have a harder time with because we can say, well, he didn't heal my cancer. He didn't heal this. He didn't heal that. And we can all, as Christians say, well, I know he's got a long term plan for ultimately healing all of us. But the word disease in the original languages doesn't just mean sicknesses, it means anything that makes us feel unwell. And so what God is saying here is, even though I haven't yet healed all of your physical illnesses, I can and will heal everything that makes you at disease. I can set your mind right, I can make you feel better and give you a better way to navigate and manage the things that are bothering you. So if you start to really try to take scripture seriously and you say, okay, I understand that I'm in a, I'm in a life and there's a process to this and it's not going to happen immediately. But God has promised me that he has equipped me to do this. You can go to the NewSong Testament, you can see a verse like 2nd Peter 1:3 that says, God's divine power has given me everything I need for life. Everything I need. Every time I talk about this, Jessica, somebody writes me, emails me, and says, yeah, but you don't know the trauma I went through. You don't know about my ADHD or you don't know about my anxiety disorder or any of that. And I would just, I would just lovingly say, okay, you're right, I don't. But does the scripture say God has given some of us part of what we need? Or does it say God has given us everything we need? It says he's given us everything we need. Right. So then I would say don't feel guilty that it's taking you a long time. Just keep trusting, keep calling on God to fulfill his promise. Remind him that he told you that he equipped you with everything you need. And then be willing to get whatever help you need to get yourself oriented towards this type of healing. Because sometimes you need outside help, but the work has to happen inside of you. And that's another place where people push back a little bit. They say, what are you saying? It's all self help and all that. It is self help, but it's not self reliance. Right? God has equipped you.
Self-Help vs. Self-Reliance: Operating Your Nervous System for an Abundant Life
Roman says that God works in you to act and to will and to act in ways that are according to his good pleasure. Which means he gave you the system, he wants you to do it. He calls you to do it and he empowers you to do it so you're not left alone in this. So it's self help because he's not going to operate for you. But he's right there. The great physician is there with you. Paul says you have the mind of Christ. He says in Ephesians that you had the same power working in you that he used to raise Jesus from the dead. So despite what you might feel, you are empowered with the same kind of power that Jesus used to reunite his mind and his brain, even though his body had been dead in the ground for three days. And so I would say just hang in there and work the system and pray with power. Call God out on his own promises. Give him no rest. Isaiah said. I think Ezekiel or Isaiah says, don't give him any rest. Keep pestering him and reminding him that he promised you, that he equipped you and he wants to relieve you of your disease.
Dr. Jessica Peck: This is so hard because really we're talking about issues of the sovereignty of God, accepting that, that bad things do happen in the world, but God has an ultimate plan for healing, just like you talked about. And all throughout Scripture, you know, we're encouraged to run with endurance, the race marked out for us. There are no scriptures that talk about quick fixes, life hacks. It's all about the long game. It's all about growing, struggling, you know, wrestling with God. There's so many places that are like that. That's a biblical mindset. And one of the places I hear that when you, Dr. Warren, is you talked about coming back from m. Iraq, putting that, that trunk into your garage and really functioning kind of, it sounds like relatively well for several years before it kind of came to a crisis level. Talk about the brain structure of that, because there's a lot of people who have shame about that, like, thinking, how can I say this? Like, I've been fine for four years. Why now? Like, why is this now a problem? And that I think can be even more of a barrier. But that's how trauma works and that's how it impacts our memory. And so talk about just kind of that delay and how it's never too late to choose a healing journey.
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Yeah, I think delay happens if you, if you compartmentalize your life enough, you can ignore something for a long time. But just because I wasn't having symptoms, just because I wasn't having flashbacks and, and you know, in panic attacks and all that stuff, it doesn't mean it wasn't affecting my life. So I was avoidant. I knew there were certain situations and times that were going to bother me. I didn't, I didn't name it yet. But like, a good example is, I remember, my kids Wanting to go to 4th of July, and I had a thought, that's going to sound like gunfire and rocket fire. I don't want to go there. Like, I remember, like, intellectually choosing to avoid a situation because I thought it might bug me. And so I wasn't having symptoms, but I was not living the full life that I needed to live. I wasn't in the places I should have been with my kids and as present as I should have been with them, because I was compartmentalizing, but also avoiding things that felt uncomfortable to me. Right. And I'm not saying you should always go press into everything that's uncomfortable. There's advantages and disadvantages to exposure therapy. But I am saying that I wasn't living a fully realized, abundant life. Don't forget Jesus said in John 10:10, the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. But I came that you might have life and have it abundantly. And he's not talking about someday, like in heaven. We're just going to knuckle through it now, but someday it's going to be better. He's saying, I came here that you could have an abundant life in the midst of all this stealing and killing and destroying business. And so for me, I, was not living that abundant life. I was just kind of knuckling my way through it. And then after that big PTSD flare up, I said, you know what? I've got to do something now, because I can't live any life now. Like, I can't drive down the road without having a pass out, you know? So I had. Something had to be done then. And that's kind of what trauma is going to do to you. Like, if you don't, if you went through something really significant, it's going to bubble up somewhere in your life, and it's either going to limit you and make you not have a fully realized life, or it's going to really blow up at some point and cause you some big trouble. And so the wise person would say, hey, I know I've been through some stuff. I want to have that abundant life that Jesus promised me. I want to get after it from a position of power. And, you know, you alluded earlier to this, what I call the patient, Dr. Switch. There's a guy named Leonard Rogan. You know what?
Dr. Jessica Peck: I'm actually going to hold you right there because we're already up against our second break. Our time is flying. When we come back, we'll talk about that patient. Dr. Switch, you're right. I did already preview that. We will deliver on that and talk about the pathway forward where healing, science and faith are not opposing forces. They are God's grace in your life telling the same story in a different language. We'll be right back with more from Dr. W. Lee Warren. The life changing art of self Brain surgery. Don't go away. We'll be right back.
The Enemy's Attacks and God's Truth: Finding Identity in His Image, Not Culture
: The enemy wants to destroy anything of God's, especially mankind who is made in God's image. What would it be like if every person knew that they were created in the image of God? We're talking about people, people loved by the Father, people for whom Jesus died.
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Where Would I Be by Matthew West and Peter Burton: Every wrong turn he turned around and I can just imagine if it didn't happen how it happened Seeing how good he's been to me. Oh, I can help but think where would I be if I didn't have Jesus pulling me out of that grave? Where would, where would I be if I didn't have mercy pulling me away from my way I probably crash in the st down in that dirt Like a prodigal running from home where would I be if I didn't have Jesus? Thank God, thank God, thank God. I'll never know.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends.
Empowered Healing: Shifting from Passive Recipient to Intentional Participant
Friends. That song is Where Would I Be by Matthew west and Peter Burton. And we're talking to a guest today who this is his story. Where would he be if he didn't have Jesus? He actually is a neurosurgeon, a brain surgeon. We're talking to Dr. W. Lee Warren, author of the Life Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery. And he is here today to remind us of something very powerful, that you are not powerless in your own mind. You may not control what has happened to you in the past, what you might be facing right now, but you do have influence over what you dwell on, what you believe and how you move forward and through the Grace of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the saving power of Jesus, you can shift your healing from just passive recipient to intentional participant, and that might just change everything. Dr. Warren, you were just about to talk about that and dive into that. That patient mindset of just being passive.
The Leonid Rogozov Story: Metacognition and Becoming Your Own Brain Surgeon
Let's go back to there.
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Yeah. There's a guy, the best example is a real person named Leonid Rogozov, who was a Soviet Union, general surgeon, young guy who was a surgeon. And in 1961, Dr. Rogazov was sent with the 13th Soviet expedition to Antarctica. So they sent him down to Antarctica to do research down there. A bunch of folks went down there, scientists and truck drivers and mechanics and whatnot. And somebody was smart enough to say, you know, they're going to get down there, and then the winter is going to come and the ocean is going to freeze, and they're going to be stuck there until the spring, so somebody might get sick, so we ought to send a doctor with them. So Rogazov was the doctor, and he kept a really good diary, which is really cool because you can read it online. It's fun to read that. but what nobody thought of was, what if the doctor got sick?
Dr. Jessica Peck: No.
Dr. W. Lee Warren: So they got down there. Rogazov started running a fever and having belly pain, and he pretty quickly figured out that he had appendicitis. And he was in real trouble. he wrote in his journal, you know, if you don't have surgery, you have appendicitis, you're going to die. And there's nobody here to take care of me. Like, I'm really in trouble here. I'm never going to see my wife again and all that. And he's in despair and he feels hopeless. And it's true, like, he has a real situation because there's not another doctor. And then Rogasov did this amazing thing, Jessica. That humans are given this gift where we have something called metacognition, you know, this ability to. To stop just feeling our feelings and thinking our thoughts, but to sort of think about what we're feeling and thinking and make decisions about them. That's taking your thoughts captive idea. And Rogazov did this incredible perspective shift where you can see it in his diary, where he was like, okay, my appendix is inflamed, and if I don't have it removed, I'm going to die. But I do know how to remove an inflamed appendix, and my appendix is going to bust, and if it busts, I'm going to Die, but because I don't have a surgeon, but I am a surgeon. And he made this switch in his mind of, hey, I'm not just a patient here who's looking for outside help. I'm also trained and wise surgeon. I know what to do. So he trained a mechanic to hand him instruments and to slap him in case he passed out from the pain. He trained another guy to hold the mirror up for him, and he removed his own appendix like Leon and Rogozov operated on himself. It's crazy, but it's true. But I just want to point out that the reason he did that was not because he was already a surgeon. It was because he was able to zoom out of his situation enough to see that he was not in fact helpless, that he had something he could do about the situation, that there was a possibility that he could get involved in his own care and not just be the patient, but also be the doctor. And now that we know that you can structurally change what your brain is, if you choose to change your thought that you can literally make a new brain for yourself, that means that you are not just a patient, you are also a brain surgeon. And that thing we alluded to earlier, that neuroplasticity process, where your brain will rewire things in accordance with what you're thinking about and make new automations. The bad news about that is that process is running all the time, whether or not you're in charge of it, whether or not you intentionally are directing it. So what that means is if you're sitting around thinking about the same woe as me stuff all the time, you're sitting around being afraid of the same things all the time. Your brain is just automating those and getting better and better and better at making those how you are at baseline. And that's why so many of us think, this is just the way I am.
Neuroplasticity and Agency: Directing Your Brain's Future and Taking the First Steps
This just can't change for me because this is how I am. But the truth is, as soon as you start giving your brain different instructions, your brain will begin to make new structures. And so, just like Rogozoff did, you can switch to become the doctor and not just the patient. And all of a sudden you're doing something to make your brain work better in supporting you than it always has before. And so that's incredibly hopeful. You have so much agency. The psychologists, when they talk about hope, they say that the two components of hope are agency and opportunity. Agency means the belief that there is something that you could do about the problem, that you have an opportunity means that you have a chance to do that thing. And so here you have agency and opportunity. God has given you the ability to direct what your brain becomes. And so that means the question before all of us is really like, do you like what your brain is doing to you now? And if you don't, are you willing to switch roles from patient to doctor and do something about it?
Dr. Jessica Peck: M. That is really encouraging. And what a wild story, honestly. But so instructive for us. And honestly, Dr. Warren, as you were talking, I was thinking about, you know, the rise of AI. And everybody now is starting to become pretty familiar with thing platforms like ChatGPT and how they work. And as you're describing how the brain rewires itself, I can't help but think about the parrots parallel between that and AI. Like your brain is like AI. It's only as good as the information that you feed it. Like that's what's going to feed you out in the algorithm. If you feed it better information, it's going to feed you. It's going to feed you better, patterns, better neurological patterns. Now, why do people stay stuck? There's people who are thinking, okay, I get this. I hear this. What are those first steps forward? If you're thinking, People are just at that realization mode. Thinking, okay, I'm tracking with what you're saying. This is me. I'm stuck in that negative thought pattern. I'm a victim. I'm a passive participant. What do you recommend for those first steps? To start to pick up the scalpel and become your own brain surgeon?
Testing the Process: Replacing Negative Thoughts with Scripture for Brain Rewiring
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Well, the first thing is you can just test it. You know, the Bible says taste and see that the Lord is good. Like you can, you can run some tests. Like, I encourage people to be good scientists. So the scientific method is you look at something, you test it to try to figure out how it works. You make a hypothesis about it. And if you're. If your data doesn't back it up, then you change your hypothesis and try something else, right? You keep trying until you figure it out. And so the first thing I would say, test this process to see if it doesn't work for you. So if you hear me say something like, my second and third commandments of self brain surgery are that feelings aren't facts, they're chemical events in your brain and that not all your thoughts are true. Like, if you can believe that, then you can say, okay, good research says that something like two thirds of the things we automatically think and feel turn out not to be accurate or true. Then you would start saying, okay, if I'm not getting good results from my life, because I've thought that I had to believe and act on everything I thought or felt. Now I'm just going to try what Dr. Warren said. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to get up in the morning and I'm going to take a piece of paper and write down the three most common things I thought about the day before, before, and just write them down. And then I'm going to ask some questions. Are those things true or not? And if those recurring common thoughts that are building the brain that I have aren't really true, like nobody loves me, my future will never be as good as I wanted it to be. Any of those kind of things that we all think they say, okay, if those thoughts aren't actually true, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to take some things from scripture that I know are true because God said them. And I'm going to tell my brain that all day today. I'm going to meditate on and repeat all these things that are true. When I have a thought that pops up that says there's no hope for me, I'm going to replace that or transplant it with the scripture. Like Jeremiah 29:11, God has a plan for me, a plan to price for me and not to harm me, a plan to give me hope and a future. And every time you have the negative automatic thought, you transplant it for that one. And then the next day, just get up, audit your thoughts again and see if some of those weren't a little bit more positive. See if your brain isn't starting to support the idea that you can have a change in your baseline negative thought and feeling. And if you do that, I promise you, because it's been studied with functional MRI, if you do that every day for seven or 10 days, you're going to start having a more positive baseline experience. And so what that does then is zoom out as a scientist again and say, I just proved to myself that I am not in fact stuck with the brain that I have, that I can actually perform an operation on my brain, and it will change what it does. So you have to persist because the neuroplasticity takes some time to automate and rewire and make things permanent. But if you can do that with one thing, then you can prove to yourself that it actually works across the board. Then you can start using it to improve your marriage and improve how you parent and improve how triggerable you are when people offend you and all those kinds of things. You can change literally any sort of response that you have to stress if you just work this system. It really works.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It really does. I've used it myself. Honestly, I didn't. I hadn't read your book, but I walked a journey of trauma and recovery and, and cognitive behavioral therapy and retraining your brain exactly like what you're talking about. One of the things that really helped me, Dr. Warren, was in looking at the science of earworms, when you hear music and how it activates the auditory complex and how that interacts with your brain. And so when I was looking for messages of hope like that, I was retraining my brain. I would also put those on my playlist and just play that song all day long so that it would even come up my subconscious that, you know, okay, all right. These are, these are words that are being spoken to me to retrain my brain not to think that thought of doom, but to think thoughts that are based on God's word and scripture. And you've done such a beautiful job of that, just constantly leading us back to scripture. And Dr. Warren, I hope that, that people will pick up a copy of your book, the Life Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery, and they will take a step towards healing. But you know, Dr. Warren, I have to ask you, because I'm listening to you talk and thinking about the things that you've seen. I mean, 200 brain surgeries, that's 200 lives. Young lives that were severely impacted by violence, their families were impacted. You lost your son in a tragic and horrible, horrible way. What is it that makes, makes your faith so unshakable?
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Well, I've been tested in the fire. You know, the thing is, the Bible says that God will refine you in the furnace of suffering. And so when I lost my son, I really needed to believe that there was going to be a resurrection. I really needed to believe, the only thing that passed for hope was the idea that I would get to see him again someday. So I found that scripture in Hebrews that said that if that God never changes and that all of his promises are true. So I said, okay, if that long range promise of resurrection is true, then maybe some of these short range ones are also true and I can start trying to prove them. And as a scientist, I wanted some proof. So I said, well, God says he's going to be close to the brokenhearted, and I would hold on to that. And right at my worst moment, Lisa would walk in the room and encourage me or somebody would text me with something that was encouraging. And I felt God being close to me when I was brokenhearted. So that gave me a little proof. And I started climbing up those rungs of proven promises and over time things like, you know, the hardest one early was Romans 8:28. God works things together for the good of those who love him. Like that doesn't feel true when you lose your son. But 13 years later, I can tell you that I am a fundamentally better person than I was before I lost my son. It's not good that I lost him. But God burned some things out of me that didn't need to be there. God refined and focused my life. I know what my life is about now. And so my faith has been proven out in the hardest times and places in my life as the only thing that could have helped me stay alive and ah, have some meaning and purpose after all those things happen. So for me it was, I approached it scientifically. I found that God proves himself out when he says, taste and see. It's okay to test your him, it's okay to challenge him. It's okay to shake your fist at him. The prophets in the Old Testament did it all the time. Like Jeremiah said, I will, I will question your justice God, like, like it's okay to tell God what you're thinking. A third of the psalms are laments. Like he's the people yelling at God about stuff that hurts them. So I've put him to the test. I've been through the fire. And I can just tell you on the other side of it, everything he says about his prescription for flourishing turns out to be true.
The Life-Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery: A Message of Hope, Healing, and God's Grace
Dr. Jessica Peck: There's just almost, I don't, don't have words to respond to that. It's so powerful to see someone who has been tested in the fire like that, who has just been through unspeakable trauma and tragedy and to use the immense, you know, the knowledge that you have, but also your unshakable faith and to see those things together, it is really powerful. Honestly, Dr. Warren and I just want to thank you, you so much for sharing with us today. Sharing your story, sharing this perspective, being obedient to the calling to write these things out in a book to provide hope and healing for others. I want to give my listeners the cop, and the name of the book one more time. It's called the Life Changing Art of Self brain surgery by Dr. W. Lee Warren. And it is just amazing to see you using your platform not only as a neurosurgeon, but as a child of God and someone who has hope. And I'm thinking about that verse that I was sharing earlier, that God has given us each a, race to run with endurance. And the ending part of that verse is to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning his shame, and now is seated at the right hand of God. And Dr. Warren, that that's exactly the hope that you have pointed us to today. To know that no matter what happens on this earth, that one day, in a way that we can't understand, that God is going to make all things new. He loves to redeem, to restore, to renew. And he's given us new mercies for every morning and things that we can do to find the grace of God here in our everyday life. Wherever you are in your healing journey, I pray, as I always do, that the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you and give you peace. And let today be the first day that you step forward in a healing journey. God bless you.
Sponsor Message: Supporting Preborn and Loving Young Moms in Crisis
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Jeff Chamblee: opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Sponsor Message and Introduction to Hope for Healthy Families
Dr. Jessica Peck: We would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor PreBorn. When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, it's a divine connection. And the majority of the time she will choose life. But they can't do it without our help. Preborn needs us, the pro life community, to come alongside them. One ultrasound is just $28. To donate, dial pound250 and say the keyword baby or visit preborn.com/AFR this year America celebrates its 250th birthday. 2.
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: Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing hope for healthy families here on American Family Radio. here's your host professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of day getting to spend time with you prescribing hope for healthy families. Listen, we have got a really important conversation today. Today is a little more serious. But you know, life is serious and there is hope. When we believe in the power and the, the transforming potential of the gospel and the good news of Jesus, there is always hope. And so I want to give you a content advisor as we start just to use discretion because we're going to talk about some tough stuff but stuff that we need to talk about and way that in a way that is trauma informed and hope filled and faith informed as well. We all know that we are living in an age of unprecedent access. We have access to more things than we could have ever dreamed possible. When I was growing up, even in Gen X, the world was pretty small.
The Rise of Anxiety and the Intersection of Neuroscience, Faith, and Personal Responsibility
The world is pretty big right now and it's at our fingertips. We have access to information, to technology, to solutions. You can not only Google symptoms now we see people engaging with AI and using that as a healthcare provider, which I'm going to be honest, is pretty terrifying to me. It can be a starting place, but it should not. I'm just going to say that right up front. It should not replace that trusted relationship, especially that you have with primary care, a primary care provider who is going to connect you to other health services. But we have all kinds of health information at our fingertips. We can track our sleep. Some of you wear rings to do that, or watches you optimize your productivity and you even outsource our thinking to AI. And yet in the face of all of this, anxiety is rising, depression is increasing, loneliness is episode epidemic levels. People feel stuck, overwhelmed and mentally exhausted. And why? Because while we've learned how to manage our environments, we've often neglected the place that is where real change is happening. The renewing of our minds that comes to you straight from the book of Romans culture tells us you are your thoughts. We can manifest our thoughts into being, which we cannot do right away. And I don't endorse that at all. They say you can't help how you feel. If you feel it, it must be true. And what if you actually have more God given power over your thought life than you've led to believe? Now today we're going to have a conversation that sits at the intersection of one of my favorite places, neuroscience, faith and personal responsibility.
Introducing Dr. W. Lee Warren and the Concept of Self Brain Surgery for Healing
And it's going to challenge some of the assumptions that we carry. Are you a passive participant in your life or are you actively participating in your healing? Joining us today is Dr. W. Lee Warren. He is a board certified neurosurgeon with over 25 years of experience. He's an Iraq war veteran, he is a trauma survivor, he's an award winning author. And his new book, the Life Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery brings together cutting edge neuroscience and deep Christian faith to offer something both practical and powerful. The idea that you can literally change your mind, change your brain by changing your mind. Now.
Dr. Jessica Peck: After walking through profound personal trauma, including post traumatic stress disorder, the devastating loss of his son, Dr. Warren discovered that healing wasn't something just done to him. It was something he had to actively participate in. And he calls it self brain surgery. Not a metaphor but a mechanism of real change rooted in both science and scripture. Dr. Warren, welcome. We are so grateful for your time today.
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Jessica.
Challenging Materialism: How Neuroscience Aligns with Scripture on Mind-Body Connection
It's such an honor to be with you today. Thank you.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, Dr. Warren, I have to start off by telling you that my husband is actually a, rocket scientist. And it is a joke in our home all the time. It's not rocket science. And today we are talking with a neurosurgeon to say it's not brain surgery, but today we are actually going to talk about brain surgery.
Dr. W. Lee Warren: That's right.
Dr. Jessica Peck: That's right. Well, I'm. I'm so grateful for this. I read about your message, and I think this is something that really needs to be talked about today. And I know there's some people today who really need to read the whole book. And we know that we can't control everything that happens to us, which is what we try to do as a coping mechanism in this world, but we can influence how we experience it. And our thoughts aren't just abstract. They're not just neutral. They have physical impact on the brain and the brain structure. I want you just to give us a little bit of setup for that, and then we'll talk a little bit about your personal story and experience, but give us a little simple explanation about how we can step into this and how the concept of self brain surgery is even possible.
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. As you said, culture's telling us all. And really, science for decades has told us that everything about our lives is the result of how our brains work. If you zoom out a little bit from that, there's a worldview called materialism that goes all the way back to Isaac Newton in the 1600s. That basically, most of science in our culture is built on this idea that if you can break something down and understand the parts that it's made from, that you could kind of reverse engineer what that thing's going to do and what it's capable of. And that idea got into culture, especially after we discovered what makes genes work with the structure of DNA in the 1950s. And this idea got kind of out there and is commonly taught, and I think widely believed even by Christians, that everything about you is the product of the genes that you inherited from your mom and dad, the parents that raised you, the environment that you were raised in, and the set of things that you go through. Like, basically, your brain can be influenced negatively by all these things, but you're sort of stuck with the brain that you have. And the idea is that everything you think Feel, believe and do is because of how your brain works. And that's great if you want to sort of have a reason for why you feel and act the way that you do that, that gives you some peace to know that it's not your fault. Right? Your brain just is what it is. However, if you really look at what 21st century neuroscience is discovering, it actually lines up quite well with what scripture has always said. What we're actually learning when we look at what we can see when we put somebody in a scanner and image what their brain is doing now is that the brain actually isn't in charge of you, but your mind is actually in charge of you. And surprisingly, your mind and your brain are not the same thing. The things you think about can structurally change what your brain does, the chemicals it makes, the way it pushes you towards or away from anxiety, all those things are heavily influenced by what you think about. That sounds a lot like Second Corinthians 10, 5, right? Take every thought captive. Sounds a lot like Romans 12, 2. Renew your mind. Don't be conformed to what the world says. Like you said, follow your heart, believe your feelings, don't be conformed to that, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So what we're learning is that when God writes a prescription for how humans are supposed to flourish, neuroscience eventually catches up with it. And that's what we're seeing in the 21st century. So this idea that we're victims of our brain activity is only true as long as we believe that we have no power in that process, or as long as we don't take action to do what God said all along. so what we've learned is you literally have structural control over your brain and, and what it becomes when you change what you think about. And that's why I call it self brain surgery. It's as real as what I do in the operating room.
The Power of Self Brain Surgery: Rewiring the Brain for a Better Life Through Mindset
M. When I. When I operate on somebody's brain, I'm intentionally making a structural change in their brain for the purpose of improving their life in some way. And when you do what God said, when you take your thoughts captive, when you change what you think about, when you don't ponder all the negative stuff, and the Romans calls it, the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the spirit is life and peace. When you, when you don't focus on your feelings all the time, when you don't focus on all the problems that you've got, your brain literally rewires to create a life that feels better and allows you to flourish more completely than you can if you let your brain boss you around all the time.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, Dr. Warren, there's not many people who can say, when I'm operating on someone's brain, that is pretty impressive there. I mean, and you're looking at the physical structure of the brain, and this is fascinating in 21st century neuroscience. And the thing I love about it is exactly what you said. We're catching up to aligning with scripture. It's there in scripture all along. And as we learn these advances, you see it perfectly matches back to scripture.
Embracing Agency: Taking Responsibility for Healing and Navigating Trauma and Loss
But I think this is the encouraging thing, is that God has designed us. He has literally hardwired hope into our body because we are not just victims of our own circumstances. And many of the times, what happened to us, the trauma that we face, the trial, the tragedy, sometimes, many times it is not our fault at all, but it is our responsibility. It's our choice to take that healing journey. What does that look like? You know, you talked about this brain, mind, body connection, and how we have more power than we think. What does that actually look like in real life if people are thinking, okay, this is news to me. Where do you start to walk that out?
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Well, let me give you a story, a personal story. You know, one of the things as you alluded to in the setup here, is that, I'm not just coming at this conversation from the perspective of being some professor in a lab somewhere. But I came home from the Iraq war after surviving a hundred mortar attacks and doing 200 brain surgeries in a tent hospital. I came home pretty broken from the war. And I realized, as educated as I was, I realized that I began to be unable to trust my brain. My feelings would be very strong, that I was in some sort of danger and I could look around and know that I was not. So I got this sense that I couldn't really trust what my brain was telling me. And then I worked through that and learned how to manage that. And then we lost a son. In 2013, my son Mitch died, in a brutal stabbing that we still don't understand. And with a crime that was never solved. And, and, and after that, again, I was in this situation where the trauma was pushing me around and I was, I was being overwhelmed. And, and if you, if anybody listening has lost a child, you. You really feel like that's how it's going to be for the rest of your life. Like, like you're going to be that way forever. That's what it feels like.
Observing Mind-Body Connection: Functional MRI Research Demonstrates Thought's Impact on Physiology
But we had this incredible experience where at the time, my wife Lisa and I ran our, practice together in Alabama. We lived in Auburn, Alabama, on the campus. Our office was on the campus of the university. And they were doing this world class functional MRI research in the building that we had our office in. And functional MRI research is where you can put somebody in a scanner and not just see what the brain looks like, but you can see what the brain is doing when somebody's thinking, like what chemicals are being made and what parts of the brain are being activated and all that. And we went down to this meeting a few weeks after Mitch died. We got invited to watch this research happen. And they put this woman in the scanner, Jessica, and they said, okay, Mrs. Johnson, think about the worst thing you've ever felt in your life. And we watched her think of something, and then we watched her brain change in response to what she was thinking about. So she called something to mind. Her brain lit up in the fear centers, the parts of her brain that are related to pain and anxiety and fight and flight and all that stuff. And then we watched her vital signs change. Her blood pressure went up, her heart rate went up, her respiratory rate went up. And we saw this sequence of mind activity affecting brain activity that affected body activity. And then they said, Mrs. M. Johnson, now think about the best thing you've ever felt. Stop thinking about that negative thing, and remember the happiest you've ever felt in your life. And very quickly, her fear center calmed down. Her frontal lobes came online. Other parts of her brain that are related to better things lit up. And then her body changed again. Her blood pressure came down, heart rate came down, all that stuff. And again we saw this sequence of mind affecting brain affecting body. And Lisa, my wife, said, hey, that reminds me of Philippians 4. And I said, what do you mean? And she said, well, Philippians 4 says, don't be anxious, be grateful instead, and you'll be filled with peace. Like, think about this thing and not that thing, and you'll feel better. And I started having this moment with God right there in the scanner where he revealed this idea to me that, like, literally, when you take your thoughts captive, you are changing your brain's response to the things that you've gone through. You're structurally changing what your brain is and what your brain does. And your body will respond because it's designed to heal, as you said. And so that means you're not a victim.
Shifting from Patient to Surgeon: Actively Participating in Healing Through Mind and Faith
You're a victim sometimes of circumstance, but you don't have to be a victim of response because you can change the response. You have power, you have agency. That makes you a surgeon and not just a patient. So that's how it played out for me. And now that's what I'm teaching people around the world.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Dr. Warren, it is so encouraging to hear you speak. You know, it's become in vogue lately to hate on medicine a little bit and, and really to, to talk about, to struggle with that tension that is there between science and faith. And you are such a, great example of the way that faith and science are just seamlessly integrating and, and just, it's so encouraging to me m say that you're thinking of scripture right when you're sitting there in the scanner. And I'm so encouraged by that. That scripture also impacts me. I think about that as a nurse practitioner because I think, you know, holistic health, we are connected. we are holistic people. It's not just our body, it's not just our mind, it's not just our spirit. It's all together. And when we think about the answer right there in scripture, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, present your request to God, in the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. And Dr. Warren, that was such a light bulb moment for me because I realized the scripture is not just talking about your theoretical heart, your theoretical mind, just like what you. It is your literal mind that God created, your literal heart down to your blood vessels, much like you talked about. When we come back. Dr. Warren, we're up against our first break here. We'll talk more about your personal, personal story.
Listener Support for American Family Radio and the Dr. Nurse Mama Show
And you're going to share with people what it looks like to shift from a patient mindset, that patient to Dr. Switch. And how you become an active participant in your healing rather than just a passive observer to your trauma. We'll be right back with more from Dr. Warren. Hello, I'm Jessica Peck, host of Dr. Nurse Mama. did you know that this content is listener supported? Without people like you, this podcast would not exist. And that's. That's why we need you. A generous monthly gift of any amount will help sustain American Family Radio and specifically this podcast. Please consider becoming a monthly financial partner today by visiting afr.net/give that's afr.net/give
This Is My Father's World by The Worship Initiative: This is my father's world and to my listening ears all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres. This is my father's word world. I Rest me in the F of rocks and trees of skies and seas is in the wonder.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That song is this is my father's world by the worship initiative. Listen, we all know we cannot control everything that happens to us, but we can influence how we experience it. Thoughts aren't just abstract. They have a physical impact on the brain and modern neurons. Neuroscience shows that thinking patterns actually rewire literal brain structure. And I'm talking today to Dr. Warren and Dr. W. Lee Warren.
A Neurosurgeon's Journey Through Trauma: Iraq War, PTSD, and the Loss of a Son
He has written a book book called the Life Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery. He's sharing his own personal story and his tremendous insight and experience as a neurosurgeon. One who worked in Iraq and combat trauma situations and who has experienced the loss of his son to talk about how we can change our thought patterns and take every thought captive. And the question is, are you just sitting around waiting for your life to change, or are you willing to change how you think about your life? Because if your thoughts can shape your brain, then your daily thinking patterns are doing more than you realize. It's not just describing your life to you. It's directing the actual direction of your life. Dr. Warren, you shared a little bit about your own personal story. I mean, you said it very quickly. But just the actual thought of that, of seeing you, visualizing you in a trauma tent in Iraq doing 200 surgeries, coming home, experiencing, being open about the fact that you had post traumatic stress disorder. That's a hard thing to say, experiencing the loss of your son. You said something earlier that caught my attention because, I mean, we think of neurosurgeon as like the upper echelon. Like, you are the smartest, most talented person, and for you to say, hey, I came back broken and that skill set wasn't enough for my healing. What did that journey look like personally for you? And how has it impacted the work that you wrote about here in your book?
Dr. W. Lee Warren: You know, I think, you know, going all the way back to Iraq, I did. I did the wrong thing. You talked about how smart neurosurgeons are supposed to be and all that, but we're just people like everybody else. And we trained for a long time to learn how to do things. But having a degree behind your name doesn't mean that you're situationally smart. And I did the wrong thing. When I came home after that trauma. And what I did was, I went to work and I put all my Iraq war mementos and shrapnel I'd removed from people and uniforms and all That I put that in a trunk in the garage in my house. And I didn't talk about it, and I just got to work and I went back to. Went back to work and, for years didn't talk about it, didn't try not to think about it, and I just stuffed it aside. And about four years after I came home from the war, so I, gave a talk one day at a Lions Club, and my wife was with me. And during that talk, somebody shut. It was at a restaurant, and somebody shut one of those walk in freezers, you know, the big ones at the door that kind of has a vacuum seal and it makes this sort of thwump kind of sound that you can feel in your ears. And that turns out that sound is almost exactly the sound of when a mortar is launched. This sort of deep sort of subsonic kind of sound. And I had a panic attack, like right there in front of the Lions Club. Had like a physiological attack as if I was being mortar. And I managed it pretty well. I'm not sure anybody besides Lisa knew that something was wrong, but the day after that, we were driving, and I was driving the car, and we stopped at a stoplight, and all of a sudden Lisa was shaking me. And I said, what are you doing? And she said, you just sat through two red lights because a helicopter flew by right at eyes level, and you just checked out, like, just disappeared like you weren't even here. And so I saw a helicopter and my mind took me back to Iraq, and I disappeared from the car that I was in, and I was somewhere else. And shortly after that, I started having nightmares, and the entire thing came unraveled for me. And it took a long time for me to figure out and admit what was happening. But I had ptsd. And the reason that happened is because I didn't manage it when I had a chance when I should have. Right? And so I just said all that to say like. Like, if you're experiencing stuff related to something you've gone through, it doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. And it doesn't mean you're dumb or weak or not smart enough or any of that, because I did it.
Understanding Trauma as Response: Learning a New Response for Healing and Flourishing
I mean, it happened to me. And I'm, you know, supposedly smart guy, Right? But what's encouraging is we've. I've now studied this for 13 years since Mitch died, because similar things happened after I lost my slimming. But what I've learned is trauma is not actually that the act of having gone through something hard that's not the trauma. The trauma is the response that your body chooses and that your brain consent, your mind and your brain consent to after that. And that's actually good news because if you think about it, if the. If the way my brain behaved after I lost my son or after I went to war and got blown up and all that stuff happened, if the way that my brain behaved in that was because of the event, then I couldn't change that. I had no hope for the future to feel different than it does now. Because that's what my brain did in response to the event. Right? But the fact is I can't. I can't go back and make myself not have gone to Iraq. I can't make my son come back. So those things are unchangeable. So if it was the actual event, I would have no hope. But what we've learned is you make a response to trauma and you can learn a different response if that response isn't helping you. And so that means that the set of things that you think about, the set of things that you've allowed your brain to automate, the way you respond to stresses and triggers, if those things aren't serving you well, then you can get invested and do the work, find whatever help you need or do whatever it takes. And you can make your brain learn a different response to that event that you've had so that when you begin to recall it or something reminds you of it, you can automate a healthier response that doesn't hurt you and doesn't hurt your family and doesn't result in you drinking or doing whatever it is that you do to numb yourself from it. You can learn a way to manage it.
The Brain's Automation Process: Neuroplasticity, Habits, and Operating Your Nervous System
That's what the Bible's getting at when it says that you want to make the words of your mouth and the meditation of your heart be pleasing to God. Not just the stuff you do, but the stuff you ponder, the stuff you think about, the stuff that begins to write code in your brain. Because that's how it works. Now, what we understand is that when you think about something from the same perspective for a long enough time, your brain decides that that thing is true, whether or not it is. And your brain begins to automate that response and make it where you don't have to think about it anymore for that to start happening again. And that's how you find yourself on the couch at 5pm with a half a bottle of wine down on the day that you said you weren't going to drink anymore. It happens because you've automated that response. And now you've got to make a new response, become the automatic one. And there's this amazing process that God gave us called neuroplasticity, where your brain basically wires together things that keep happening. So the. The neuroscience is called Hebb's law. Neurons that fire together, wire together. So the more you think about something, the more you do something over and over, your brain turns that into a little program that it can now run without you having to intentionally think about it. That's the basis of habits and addictions, but it's also the basis of our trauma responses and our triggers and the things that we say when we're not. When we're under stress and not paying attention. And so God gave us a system that we can learn how to operate to our own advantage instead of letting it operate us. And that's really the punchline of all that I've learned. If you don't learn how to operate your nervous system, it's going to operate you.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, Dr. Warren, there's, a. There's a tension here.
Navigating Hope and Grace: Embracing Agency While Trusting God's Promises for Healing
And you've kind of alluded to that because on the one side of it, on the one hand, it's so hopeful to know that the things that happen to us, our body, genetics, don't have the final say. We're not completely powerless. We're not just victims. And whatever happens, happens. There's a hope that's there. But then the other side of that is if, okay, if there's hope, if I have to move forward with intention, if I have to move forward with action, then there's that possibility that, okay, I'm going to fail, or I'll feel guilty because I'm not, or I'm human, I'm going to fall, I'm going to fail in that journey. And if I don't recover, like, is that. Is that my fault? How do you navigate kind of the tension of that spectrum and find God's grace in the middle?
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Well, I go back to Psalm 103. The first part of Psalm 103 is these five promises that God makes. One of those, praise the Lord, oh, my soul, let all this that is within me praise your holy name, Praise the Lord, O my soul. And forget not all his benefits. And the first one is, he forgives all my sins, so we can trust in that. Right? The second one is, he heals all my diseases. And that one we have a harder time with because we can say, well, he didn't heal my cancer. He didn't heal this. He didn't heal that. And we can all, as Christians say, well, I know he's got a long term plan for ultimately healing all of us. But the word disease in the original languages doesn't just mean sicknesses, it means anything that makes us feel unwell. And so what God is saying here is, even though I haven't yet healed all of your physical illnesses, I can and will heal everything that makes you at disease. I can set your mind right, I can make you feel better and give you a better way to navigate and manage the things that are bothering you. So if you start to really try to take scripture seriously and you say, okay, I understand that I'm in a, I'm in a life and there's a process to this and it's not going to happen immediately. But God has promised me that he has equipped me to do this. You can go to the NewSong Testament, you can see a verse like 2nd Peter 1:3 that says, God's divine power has given me everything I need for life. Everything I need. Every time I talk about this, Jessica, somebody writes me, emails me, and says, yeah, but you don't know the trauma I went through. You don't know about my ADHD or you don't know about my anxiety disorder or any of that. And I would just, I would just lovingly say, okay, you're right, I don't. But does the scripture say God has given some of us part of what we need? Or does it say God has given us everything we need? It says he's given us everything we need. Right. So then I would say don't feel guilty that it's taking you a long time. Just keep trusting, keep calling on God to fulfill his promise. Remind him that he told you that he equipped you with everything you need. And then be willing to get whatever help you need to get yourself oriented towards this type of healing. Because sometimes you need outside help, but the work has to happen inside of you. And that's another place where people push back a little bit. They say, what are you saying? It's all self help and all that. It is self help, but it's not self reliance. Right? God has equipped you.
Self-Help vs. Self-Reliance: Operating Your Nervous System for an Abundant Life
Roman says that God works in you to act and to will and to act in ways that are according to his good pleasure. Which means he gave you the system, he wants you to do it. He calls you to do it and he empowers you to do it so you're not left alone in this. So it's self help because he's not going to operate for you. But he's right there. The great physician is there with you. Paul says you have the mind of Christ. He says in Ephesians that you had the same power working in you that he used to raise Jesus from the dead. So despite what you might feel, you are empowered with the same kind of power that Jesus used to reunite his mind and his brain, even though his body had been dead in the ground for three days. And so I would say just hang in there and work the system and pray with power. Call God out on his own promises. Give him no rest. Isaiah said. I think Ezekiel or Isaiah says, don't give him any rest. Keep pestering him and reminding him that he promised you, that he equipped you and he wants to relieve you of your disease.
Dr. Jessica Peck: This is so hard because really we're talking about issues of the sovereignty of God, accepting that, that bad things do happen in the world, but God has an ultimate plan for healing, just like you talked about. And all throughout Scripture, you know, we're encouraged to run with endurance, the race marked out for us. There are no scriptures that talk about quick fixes, life hacks. It's all about the long game. It's all about growing, struggling, you know, wrestling with God. There's so many places that are like that. That's a biblical mindset. And one of the places I hear that when you, Dr. Warren, is you talked about coming back from m. Iraq, putting that, that trunk into your garage and really functioning kind of, it sounds like relatively well for several years before it kind of came to a crisis level. Talk about the brain structure of that, because there's a lot of people who have shame about that, like, thinking, how can I say this? Like, I've been fine for four years. Why now? Like, why is this now a problem? And that I think can be even more of a barrier. But that's how trauma works and that's how it impacts our memory. And so talk about just kind of that delay and how it's never too late to choose a healing journey.
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Yeah, I think delay happens if you, if you compartmentalize your life enough, you can ignore something for a long time. But just because I wasn't having symptoms, just because I wasn't having flashbacks and, and you know, in panic attacks and all that stuff, it doesn't mean it wasn't affecting my life. So I was avoidant. I knew there were certain situations and times that were going to bother me. I didn't, I didn't name it yet. But like, a good example is, I remember, my kids Wanting to go to 4th of July, and I had a thought, that's going to sound like gunfire and rocket fire. I don't want to go there. Like, I remember, like, intellectually choosing to avoid a situation because I thought it might bug me. And so I wasn't having symptoms, but I was not living the full life that I needed to live. I wasn't in the places I should have been with my kids and as present as I should have been with them, because I was compartmentalizing, but also avoiding things that felt uncomfortable to me. Right. And I'm not saying you should always go press into everything that's uncomfortable. There's advantages and disadvantages to exposure therapy. But I am saying that I wasn't living a fully realized, abundant life. Don't forget Jesus said in John 10:10, the thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. But I came that you might have life and have it abundantly. And he's not talking about someday, like in heaven. We're just going to knuckle through it now, but someday it's going to be better. He's saying, I came here that you could have an abundant life in the midst of all this stealing and killing and destroying business. And so for me, I, was not living that abundant life. I was just kind of knuckling my way through it. And then after that big PTSD flare up, I said, you know what? I've got to do something now, because I can't live any life now. Like, I can't drive down the road without having a pass out, you know? So I had. Something had to be done then. And that's kind of what trauma is going to do to you. Like, if you don't, if you went through something really significant, it's going to bubble up somewhere in your life, and it's either going to limit you and make you not have a fully realized life, or it's going to really blow up at some point and cause you some big trouble. And so the wise person would say, hey, I know I've been through some stuff. I want to have that abundant life that Jesus promised me. I want to get after it from a position of power. And, you know, you alluded earlier to this, what I call the patient, Dr. Switch. There's a guy named Leonard Rogan. You know what?
Dr. Jessica Peck: I'm actually going to hold you right there because we're already up against our second break. Our time is flying. When we come back, we'll talk about that patient. Dr. Switch, you're right. I did already preview that. We will deliver on that and talk about the pathway forward where healing, science and faith are not opposing forces. They are God's grace in your life telling the same story in a different language. We'll be right back with more from Dr. W. Lee Warren. The life changing art of self Brain surgery. Don't go away. We'll be right back.
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Where Would I Be by Matthew West and Peter Burton: Every wrong turn he turned around and I can just imagine if it didn't happen how it happened Seeing how good he's been to me. Oh, I can help but think where would I be if I didn't have Jesus pulling me out of that grave? Where would, where would I be if I didn't have mercy pulling me away from my way I probably crash in the st down in that dirt Like a prodigal running from home where would I be if I didn't have Jesus? Thank God, thank God, thank God. I'll never know.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends.
Empowered Healing: Shifting from Passive Recipient to Intentional Participant
Friends. That song is Where Would I Be by Matthew west and Peter Burton. And we're talking to a guest today who this is his story. Where would he be if he didn't have Jesus? He actually is a neurosurgeon, a brain surgeon. We're talking to Dr. W. Lee Warren, author of the Life Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery. And he is here today to remind us of something very powerful, that you are not powerless in your own mind. You may not control what has happened to you in the past, what you might be facing right now, but you do have influence over what you dwell on, what you believe and how you move forward and through the Grace of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the saving power of Jesus, you can shift your healing from just passive recipient to intentional participant, and that might just change everything. Dr. Warren, you were just about to talk about that and dive into that. That patient mindset of just being passive.
The Leonid Rogozov Story: Metacognition and Becoming Your Own Brain Surgeon
Let's go back to there.
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Yeah. There's a guy, the best example is a real person named Leonid Rogozov, who was a Soviet Union, general surgeon, young guy who was a surgeon. And in 1961, Dr. Rogazov was sent with the 13th Soviet expedition to Antarctica. So they sent him down to Antarctica to do research down there. A bunch of folks went down there, scientists and truck drivers and mechanics and whatnot. And somebody was smart enough to say, you know, they're going to get down there, and then the winter is going to come and the ocean is going to freeze, and they're going to be stuck there until the spring, so somebody might get sick, so we ought to send a doctor with them. So Rogazov was the doctor, and he kept a really good diary, which is really cool because you can read it online. It's fun to read that. but what nobody thought of was, what if the doctor got sick?
Dr. Jessica Peck: No.
Dr. W. Lee Warren: So they got down there. Rogazov started running a fever and having belly pain, and he pretty quickly figured out that he had appendicitis. And he was in real trouble. he wrote in his journal, you know, if you don't have surgery, you have appendicitis, you're going to die. And there's nobody here to take care of me. Like, I'm really in trouble here. I'm never going to see my wife again and all that. And he's in despair and he feels hopeless. And it's true, like, he has a real situation because there's not another doctor. And then Rogasov did this amazing thing, Jessica. That humans are given this gift where we have something called metacognition, you know, this ability to. To stop just feeling our feelings and thinking our thoughts, but to sort of think about what we're feeling and thinking and make decisions about them. That's taking your thoughts captive idea. And Rogazov did this incredible perspective shift where you can see it in his diary, where he was like, okay, my appendix is inflamed, and if I don't have it removed, I'm going to die. But I do know how to remove an inflamed appendix, and my appendix is going to bust, and if it busts, I'm going to Die, but because I don't have a surgeon, but I am a surgeon. And he made this switch in his mind of, hey, I'm not just a patient here who's looking for outside help. I'm also trained and wise surgeon. I know what to do. So he trained a mechanic to hand him instruments and to slap him in case he passed out from the pain. He trained another guy to hold the mirror up for him, and he removed his own appendix like Leon and Rogozov operated on himself. It's crazy, but it's true. But I just want to point out that the reason he did that was not because he was already a surgeon. It was because he was able to zoom out of his situation enough to see that he was not in fact helpless, that he had something he could do about the situation, that there was a possibility that he could get involved in his own care and not just be the patient, but also be the doctor. And now that we know that you can structurally change what your brain is, if you choose to change your thought that you can literally make a new brain for yourself, that means that you are not just a patient, you are also a brain surgeon. And that thing we alluded to earlier, that neuroplasticity process, where your brain will rewire things in accordance with what you're thinking about and make new automations. The bad news about that is that process is running all the time, whether or not you're in charge of it, whether or not you intentionally are directing it. So what that means is if you're sitting around thinking about the same woe as me stuff all the time, you're sitting around being afraid of the same things all the time. Your brain is just automating those and getting better and better and better at making those how you are at baseline. And that's why so many of us think, this is just the way I am.
Neuroplasticity and Agency: Directing Your Brain's Future and Taking the First Steps
This just can't change for me because this is how I am. But the truth is, as soon as you start giving your brain different instructions, your brain will begin to make new structures. And so, just like Rogozoff did, you can switch to become the doctor and not just the patient. And all of a sudden you're doing something to make your brain work better in supporting you than it always has before. And so that's incredibly hopeful. You have so much agency. The psychologists, when they talk about hope, they say that the two components of hope are agency and opportunity. Agency means the belief that there is something that you could do about the problem, that you have an opportunity means that you have a chance to do that thing. And so here you have agency and opportunity. God has given you the ability to direct what your brain becomes. And so that means the question before all of us is really like, do you like what your brain is doing to you now? And if you don't, are you willing to switch roles from patient to doctor and do something about it?
Dr. Jessica Peck: M. That is really encouraging. And what a wild story, honestly. But so instructive for us. And honestly, Dr. Warren, as you were talking, I was thinking about, you know, the rise of AI. And everybody now is starting to become pretty familiar with thing platforms like ChatGPT and how they work. And as you're describing how the brain rewires itself, I can't help but think about the parrots parallel between that and AI. Like your brain is like AI. It's only as good as the information that you feed it. Like that's what's going to feed you out in the algorithm. If you feed it better information, it's going to feed you. It's going to feed you better, patterns, better neurological patterns. Now, why do people stay stuck? There's people who are thinking, okay, I get this. I hear this. What are those first steps forward? If you're thinking, People are just at that realization mode. Thinking, okay, I'm tracking with what you're saying. This is me. I'm stuck in that negative thought pattern. I'm a victim. I'm a passive participant. What do you recommend for those first steps? To start to pick up the scalpel and become your own brain surgeon?
Testing the Process: Replacing Negative Thoughts with Scripture for Brain Rewiring
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Well, the first thing is you can just test it. You know, the Bible says taste and see that the Lord is good. Like you can, you can run some tests. Like, I encourage people to be good scientists. So the scientific method is you look at something, you test it to try to figure out how it works. You make a hypothesis about it. And if you're. If your data doesn't back it up, then you change your hypothesis and try something else, right? You keep trying until you figure it out. And so the first thing I would say, test this process to see if it doesn't work for you. So if you hear me say something like, my second and third commandments of self brain surgery are that feelings aren't facts, they're chemical events in your brain and that not all your thoughts are true. Like, if you can believe that, then you can say, okay, good research says that something like two thirds of the things we automatically think and feel turn out not to be accurate or true. Then you would start saying, okay, if I'm not getting good results from my life, because I've thought that I had to believe and act on everything I thought or felt. Now I'm just going to try what Dr. Warren said. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to get up in the morning and I'm going to take a piece of paper and write down the three most common things I thought about the day before, before, and just write them down. And then I'm going to ask some questions. Are those things true or not? And if those recurring common thoughts that are building the brain that I have aren't really true, like nobody loves me, my future will never be as good as I wanted it to be. Any of those kind of things that we all think they say, okay, if those thoughts aren't actually true, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to take some things from scripture that I know are true because God said them. And I'm going to tell my brain that all day today. I'm going to meditate on and repeat all these things that are true. When I have a thought that pops up that says there's no hope for me, I'm going to replace that or transplant it with the scripture. Like Jeremiah 29:11, God has a plan for me, a plan to price for me and not to harm me, a plan to give me hope and a future. And every time you have the negative automatic thought, you transplant it for that one. And then the next day, just get up, audit your thoughts again and see if some of those weren't a little bit more positive. See if your brain isn't starting to support the idea that you can have a change in your baseline negative thought and feeling. And if you do that, I promise you, because it's been studied with functional MRI, if you do that every day for seven or 10 days, you're going to start having a more positive baseline experience. And so what that does then is zoom out as a scientist again and say, I just proved to myself that I am not in fact stuck with the brain that I have, that I can actually perform an operation on my brain, and it will change what it does. So you have to persist because the neuroplasticity takes some time to automate and rewire and make things permanent. But if you can do that with one thing, then you can prove to yourself that it actually works across the board. Then you can start using it to improve your marriage and improve how you parent and improve how triggerable you are when people offend you and all those kinds of things. You can change literally any sort of response that you have to stress if you just work this system. It really works.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It really does. I've used it myself. Honestly, I didn't. I hadn't read your book, but I walked a journey of trauma and recovery and, and cognitive behavioral therapy and retraining your brain exactly like what you're talking about. One of the things that really helped me, Dr. Warren, was in looking at the science of earworms, when you hear music and how it activates the auditory complex and how that interacts with your brain. And so when I was looking for messages of hope like that, I was retraining my brain. I would also put those on my playlist and just play that song all day long so that it would even come up my subconscious that, you know, okay, all right. These are, these are words that are being spoken to me to retrain my brain not to think that thought of doom, but to think thoughts that are based on God's word and scripture. And you've done such a beautiful job of that, just constantly leading us back to scripture. And Dr. Warren, I hope that, that people will pick up a copy of your book, the Life Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery, and they will take a step towards healing. But you know, Dr. Warren, I have to ask you, because I'm listening to you talk and thinking about the things that you've seen. I mean, 200 brain surgeries, that's 200 lives. Young lives that were severely impacted by violence, their families were impacted. You lost your son in a tragic and horrible, horrible way. What is it that makes, makes your faith so unshakable?
Dr. W. Lee Warren: Well, I've been tested in the fire. You know, the thing is, the Bible says that God will refine you in the furnace of suffering. And so when I lost my son, I really needed to believe that there was going to be a resurrection. I really needed to believe, the only thing that passed for hope was the idea that I would get to see him again someday. So I found that scripture in Hebrews that said that if that God never changes and that all of his promises are true. So I said, okay, if that long range promise of resurrection is true, then maybe some of these short range ones are also true and I can start trying to prove them. And as a scientist, I wanted some proof. So I said, well, God says he's going to be close to the brokenhearted, and I would hold on to that. And right at my worst moment, Lisa would walk in the room and encourage me or somebody would text me with something that was encouraging. And I felt God being close to me when I was brokenhearted. So that gave me a little proof. And I started climbing up those rungs of proven promises and over time things like, you know, the hardest one early was Romans 8:28. God works things together for the good of those who love him. Like that doesn't feel true when you lose your son. But 13 years later, I can tell you that I am a fundamentally better person than I was before I lost my son. It's not good that I lost him. But God burned some things out of me that didn't need to be there. God refined and focused my life. I know what my life is about now. And so my faith has been proven out in the hardest times and places in my life as the only thing that could have helped me stay alive and ah, have some meaning and purpose after all those things happen. So for me it was, I approached it scientifically. I found that God proves himself out when he says, taste and see. It's okay to test your him, it's okay to challenge him. It's okay to shake your fist at him. The prophets in the Old Testament did it all the time. Like Jeremiah said, I will, I will question your justice God, like, like it's okay to tell God what you're thinking. A third of the psalms are laments. Like he's the people yelling at God about stuff that hurts them. So I've put him to the test. I've been through the fire. And I can just tell you on the other side of it, everything he says about his prescription for flourishing turns out to be true.
The Life-Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery: A Message of Hope, Healing, and God's Grace
Dr. Jessica Peck: There's just almost, I don't, don't have words to respond to that. It's so powerful to see someone who has been tested in the fire like that, who has just been through unspeakable trauma and tragedy and to use the immense, you know, the knowledge that you have, but also your unshakable faith and to see those things together, it is really powerful. Honestly, Dr. Warren and I just want to thank you, you so much for sharing with us today. Sharing your story, sharing this perspective, being obedient to the calling to write these things out in a book to provide hope and healing for others. I want to give my listeners the cop, and the name of the book one more time. It's called the Life Changing Art of Self brain surgery by Dr. W. Lee Warren. And it is just amazing to see you using your platform not only as a neurosurgeon, but as a child of God and someone who has hope. And I'm thinking about that verse that I was sharing earlier, that God has given us each a, race to run with endurance. And the ending part of that verse is to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning his shame, and now is seated at the right hand of God. And Dr. Warren, that that's exactly the hope that you have pointed us to today. To know that no matter what happens on this earth, that one day, in a way that we can't understand, that God is going to make all things new. He loves to redeem, to restore, to renew. And he's given us new mercies for every morning and things that we can do to find the grace of God here in our everyday life. Wherever you are in your healing journey, I pray, as I always do, that the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you and give you peace. And let today be the first day that you step forward in a healing journey. God bless you.
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Jeff Chamblee: opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Neurosurgeon, author, and podcaster Dr. Lee Warren joins Jessica to talk about how neuroscience and faith connect to experience healing and hope.
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Chapters:
(00:00) Sponsor Message and Introduction to Hope for Healthy Families
(02:47) The Rise of Anxiety and the Intersection of Neuroscience, Faith, and Personal Responsibility
(04:23) Introducing Dr. W. Lee Warren and the Concept of Self Brain Surgery for Healing
(05:34) Challenging Materialism: How Neuroscience Aligns with Scripture on Mind-Body Connection
(09:36) The Power of Self Brain Surgery: Rewiring the Brain for a Better Life Through Mindset
(10:42) Embracing Agency: Taking Responsibility for Healing and Navigating Trauma and Loss
(12:28) Observing Mind-Body Connection: Functional MRI Research Demonstrates Thought's Impact on Physiology
(14:37) Shifting from Patient to Surgeon: Actively Participating in Healing Through Mind and Faith
(16:11) Listener Support for American Family Radio and the Dr. Nurse Mama Show
(18:29) A Neurosurgeon's Journey Through Trauma: Iraq War, PTSD, and the Loss of a Son
(22:28) Understanding Trauma as Response: Learning a New Response for Healing and Flourishing
(24:14) The Brain's Automation Process: Neuroplasticity, Habits, and Operating Your Nervous System
(25:51) Navigating Hope and Grace: Embracing Agency While Trusting God's Promises for Healing
(28:58) Self-Help vs. Self-Reliance: Operating Your Nervous System for an Abundant Life
(33:59) The Enemy's Attacks and God's Truth: Finding Identity in His Image, Not Culture
(36:04) Empowered Healing: Shifting from Passive Recipient to Intentional Participant
(37:03) The Leonid Rogozov Story: Metacognition and Becoming Your Own Brain Surgeon
(40:33) Neuroplasticity and Agency: Directing Your Brain's Future and Taking the First Steps
(42:38) Testing the Process: Replacing Negative Thoughts with Scripture for Brain Rewiring
(49:04) The Life-Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery: A Message of Hope, Healing, and God's Grace
(51:06) Sponsor Message: Supporting Preborn and Loving Young Moms in Crisis
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