The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast

Learning the Discipline of Waiting is a Powerful Self-Brain Surgery ToolIf you can't say no to something you want today so that you can have something you need tomorrow, you can never be free. Here's some thoughts on delayed gratification, as one of the super powers in our quest for infinite happiness. (Adapted from Infinitely Happier, Part 11)Music by Lyle Lovett and Tommy Walker(Music shared on The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is authorized under BMI license #61063253 and ASCAP license #400010513 )My new book is called Hope is the First Dose: A Treatment Plan for Recovering from Trauma, Tragedy, and Other Massive Things. It is coming out on July 25, but you can pre-order it now anywhere books are sold.Self-Brain Surgery with Dr. Lee Warren is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drleewarren.substack.com/subscribe

Every Interaction Leaves a MarkEvery interaction with another person is a choice: do we use our words for our gain, or for theirs? Do we have transactional or transformational relationships? Here's a few thoughts on how to make sure we have a "first no harm" approach to others, and how words can heal or hurt.(Adapted from Infinitely Happier, Part 10)My new book is called Hope is the First Dose: A Treatment Plan for Recovering from Trauma, Tragedy, and Other Massive Things. It is coming out on July 25, but you can pre-order it now anywhere books are sold.Self-Brain Surgery with Dr. Lee Warren is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drleewarren.substack.com/subscribe

God wants your life to soar, but often it feels like we're crashing instead.(Adapted from Infinitely Happier, Part 9)Today, I want to talk about flying.I grew up around airplanes, because both of my parents were private pilots. And we lived down the road from a WWII pilot, Glen Walters.I used to go down to his house, and his wife Betsy would make ginger bread and I’d fish in their pond and, once in a while, Brother Walters would take me into his shop and let me play around with an airplane he was building. Come to think of it, he was “building” that plane the whole time I was growing up, and I don’t think he ever finished it. But I’d fly missions and save the day over and over like Pappy Boyington. And then I was in the air force. So I’ve always loved airplanes.And I love flying so much that I get more excited to meet fighter pilots than sports figures. I trained in Pittsburgh and worked for Joe Maroon, who was the team doctor for the Steelers and the Pirates, so there were always pro athletes around. But when I meet an F-16 or an F-15 pilot, I’m like a little kid. Those guys are my heroes, and that probably goes back to flying with my mom and dad and all those missions I flew in Glen Walters’s shop when I was 8 or 9.When you’re flying, you feel so free. You can see everything. You’re untethered from the earth and it’s like magic.As long as everything works.When it doesn’t work, though, things can get pretty crazy really fast. I told you a story once before in an old episode of a time I had in a T38. That was not fun.Landing a Blackhawk on a highway in Iraq was not fun.When things go wrong in the air, you’re in real trouble. The difference between life and death comes down to the pilot’s skill, the amount of damage to the plane, the weather, and a host of other things that are sometimes out of your control.Sort of like life, huh?Today, we’re going to talk about how to fly the plane of your life so you get where you need to go, so you’re on course and safe and set free from so many of the things that can ground us, limit us, or send us crashing down in a fire ball of problems we were never meant to face.I’ve learned a lot from the pilots in my life about how they prepare for flights, and all the things they do to make sure their passengers are safe.Today we’re going to take flight, friend.We’re going to take a lesson from the pilots so we can learn to pilot our lives into the wild blue yonder, where God intends for us to be. We’re taking a flying lesson, my friend, so we can leave behind our limits and be set free, starting today.Music by Tommy Walker(Music shared on The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is authorized under BMI license #61063253 and ASCAP license #400010513 )My new book is called Hope is the First Dose: A Treatment Plan for Recovering from Trauma, Tragedy, and Other Massive Things. It is coming out on July 25, but you can pre-order it now anywhere books are sold.Self-Brain Surgery with Dr. Lee Warren is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drleewarren.substack.com/subscribe

Overthinking Can Drive Us Crazy and Wreck Our Peace of Mind(Adapted from Infinitely Happier, Part 7)Worrying isn’t the only thought issue we face. Whether it’s worry, regret, sadness, decision making, whatever, sometimes we simply overthink things. In this episode we'll learn how to stop overthinking everything, which will help us in our quest to become Infinitely Happier.Music by Tommy Walker(Music shared on The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is authorized under BMI license #61063253 and ASCAP license #400010513 )My new book is called Hope is the First Dose: A Treatment Plan for Recovering from Trauma, Tragedy, and Other Massive Things. It is coming out on July 25, but you can pre-order it now anywhere books are sold.Self-Brain Surgery with Dr. Lee Warren is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drleewarren.substack.com/subscribe

Sometimes life feels like a fight. Here’s how to win.(Adapted from Season 1, Episode 50, Infinitely Happier Part 6)Sometimes we struggle because we keep losing battles our heart knows we’re supposed to win. Or even worse, we don’t even try sometimes. And when we know we were supposed to take up a challenge and we’re too afraid to even try, it leaves us feeling ashamed and guilty.In this episode, we'll learn how to face off agains our biggest battles, and win.Music by Tommy Walker(Music shared on The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is authorized under BMI license #61063253 and ASCAP license #400010513 )My new book is called Hope is the First Dose: A Treatment Plan for Recovering from Trauma, Tragedy, and Other Massive Things. It is coming out on July 25, but you can pre-order it now anywhere books are sold.Self-Brain Surgery with Dr. Lee Warren is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drleewarren.substack.com/subscribe

Today we’re going to do a little relationship brain surgery. Because when you’re trying to change your life, it seems like there’s always one person- THAT GUY- who’s out there to stymie you. Last episode, we talked about the new job I’m taking in a new place. I'm so pumped about it, because Lisa and I and our team are bringing neurosurgery to a community that’s never had access before. And I have decided to make it the best and most successful part of my career.I want you to make the same decision: success is the only option because you're tired of being stuck in some places of your life. What if you could guarantee that, with a solid purpose, careful planning, and a little help, there was no chance that you could fail to make major life change happen in your mind, body, spirit, work and relationships?I'm here to tell you that it's possible. No one knows what life's going to hold for us. There's a lot of scary stuff out there- the economy, COVID-19, the uncertainty of aging... there's no telling what might come along in your life. But if we're put together right, we can not just survive but actually thrive despite our circumstances and have a healthier, better, and happier life. Today, we’re going to talk about what to do when there’s THAT GUY out there, getting in your way, causing you trouble, being mean or abusive or hateful or whatever. It requires brain surgery, learning to look at relationships in a new way. And you’ll be surprised how effective it is.You might be saying, “But Doc, how can I change my mind, how can I learn to be infinitely happier when THAT GUY keeps doing things to irritate, hurt, anger, offend, and cause me trouble?”You know THAT GUY- no matter how hard you try, there's that one person in your life who's always out there, saying the wrong thing, not doing the right thing, holding you back, putting you down, being mean or neglectful or unfair or abusive to you. It might be more than one person. It might be your husband, your mom, your boss.But trust me, if you hate THAT GUY, you're the one who's going to suffer.My new book is called Hope is the First Dose: A Treatment Plan for Recovering from Trauma, Tragedy, and Other Massive Things. It is coming out on July 25, but you can pre-order it now anywhere books are sold.Self-Brain Surgery with Dr. Lee Warren is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drleewarren.substack.com/subscribe

It’s Tuesdays with Tata! Here’s a great talk from last year with Tata about what it means to be sealed by God.Scripture:II Corinthians 1:22Ephesians 1:13-14Music by Phil Wickham(Music shared on The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is authorized under BMI license #61063253 and ASCAP license #400010513 )Self-Brain Surgery with Dr. Lee Warren is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.My new book is called Hope is the First Dose: A Treatment Plan for Recovering from Trauma, Tragedy, and Other Massive Things. It is coming out on July 25, but you can pre-order it now anywhere books are sold. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drleewarren.substack.com/subscribe

It’s Mind Change Monday!Today is also May 1, the first day of Remodel May! Some of the episodes we create this month will focus on areas of our lives we can remodel to find hope, craft resilience, and hold on during hard times. We’ll use brain science and scripture to become healthier, feel better, and be happier, perhaps even infinitely happier than we could on our own. Here’s Infinitely Happier, Part 4: The Courage to Change, to get us started!Today, we’re going to talk about courage. About how to shake off the fear of change and finally step into the freedom we’re designed to live in.My new book is called Hope is the First Dose: A Treatment Plan for Recovering from Trauma, Tragedy, and Other Massive Things. It is coming out on July 25, but you can pre-order it now anywhere books are sold.Self-Brain Surgery with Dr. Lee Warren is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drleewarren.substack.com/subscribe

Synapses are where the business of the nervous system happens.(Note: this is an archived episode, normally for paid subscribers only but available for everyone for 7 days!)Lately, we’ve been talking about the basics of self-brain surgery to learn how to think about our thinking, and the ideas behind my new book.But this isn’t just some “self-help” or motivational speaker-type thing. Because the vast majority of your life, the decisions you make, the relationships you have, the things you accomplish or strive for come out of how you think: your attitudes, your thought patterns. Everything about how you handle stress, unexpected challenges, and the hard parts of life is determined by your thinking.But the problem is, most of us spend our lives reacting to our thinking, because we never think about our thinking.And the reality is, our baseline thoughts are not very reliable most of the time. Why? That answer is rooted in the science of how our nervous systems are wired. The bad news is that your nervous system has a set of responses to challenges, threats, and stresses, and that set of responses isn’t very specific. In other words, you basically feel the same things in your body when a tiger is actually chasing you as you do when you hear a sound in the next room and wonder if someone’s breaking into your house- even if it’s just the ice maker. Those triggered responses aren’t very helpful when they make us reflexively freak out.But the good news is, your brain can be trained to separate the response from the stimulus. But it requires brain surgery.That’s why I’m always saying, “You can’t change your life until you change your mind.”In other words, if you keep thinking the same thoughts- if you never change how you look at things or the mental framework from which you approach the world- then you’re going to keep experiencing the same patterns and outcomes.And the part of the nervous system that connects two nerves, or nerves and muscles or other organs, is called a synapse. In your brain, there are about 100 trillion of them. Trillion with a T. And when those synapses don’t work right, you don’t work right.Today, we’re going to look at two diseases that affect the synapses between your nerves and your muscles. And I want to show you a little of how the nervous system works, so we can see how important it is to make sure we have healthy synapses.If you want to become healthier, feel better, and be happier, you’ve got to think about your thinking. But sometimes life creates unhealthy connections- sick synapses- that trigger thought patterns and behaviors in us we’re not even aware of.You can’t change your life until you change your mind. And severing sick synapses- breaking down those bad connections life has created and making better ones- is a key to getting that done.Remember Proverbs 17:27-28 in The Passion Translation (TPT):27 Can you bridle your tongue when your heart is under pressure?That’s how you show that you are wise.An understanding heart keeps you cool, calm, and collected,no matter what you’re facing.That’s one of the secrets to becoming Infinitely Happier, friend.Learning to stay cool, calm, and collected no matter what we’re facing. That’s useful during a global pandemic, but it’s also useful in everyday life. And it doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by severing sick synapses. My friend, we’re going to learn how, and we’re going to start today.Hope is the First Dose: A Treatment Plan for Recovering from Trauma, Tragedy, and Other Massive Things is coming out on July 25, but you can pre-order it now anywhere books are sold. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drleewarren.substack.com/subscribe

It’s Self-Brain Surgery Saturday!Look: Life is Hard. But Learning Self-brain Surgery Can HelpIn the last episode, we talked about the basics of self-brain surgery to learn how to think about our thinking and learn to biopsy our thoughts- put a little pause in there between what happens to us, what thoughts pop up- and how we respond, either in terms of how we proceed to think or feel, or in what we actually.Listen: Life is not brain surgery. It’s harder. You can actually train someone to do brain surgery. But you have to live life to get good at it. But you CAN learn self-brain surgery with a little help, and it will help you think better so you can become healthier, feel better, and be happier.That’s why I’m always saying, “You can’t change your life until you change your mind.”In other words, if you keep thinking the same thoughts- if you never change how you look at things or the mental framework from which you approach the world- then you’re going to keep experiencing the same patterns and outcomes.I’m bringing you back some of the tools we first talked about in 2021, but today I want to start by talking about the importance of worldview and the problem of cognitive dissonance. Here’s a thought from Natasha Crain via Facebook:In this episode, we’ll get into the reasons why this important worldview distinction plays into our neuroscience and how crucial it is to be in charge of our thought life!I suspect you wouldn’t be here listening to a podcast designed to help you reshape your thinking if you were super thrilled with the patterns and outcomes you’ve been living with. I know I’m not.It’s time to take control of our brains, the most important six inches of real estate in each of our live, the space between our own ears.Last episode, we talked about how to pre-load some ammo, some good words and helpful thoughts, into our brains and hearts so that when stressful moments come, we’ll be able to call on those good things and use them to manage anxiety.And that is a great instrument, a powerful tool to use in our fight against the learned helplessness of being emotional slaves to our first thoughts. Because the first thought you have in response to something or someone or some memory is so often wrong, or just a reflexive, triggered pattern of thinking, that it’s almost self malpractice to go with it.So, just like in the real operating room, the secret to successful self-brain surgery is training, preparation, planning, and practice experience.Today, we’re going to look at how those four things- training, preparation, planning, and practice experience- play into successfully managing our minds and helping us overcome the issues that continually seem to drag us down.Proverbs 17:27-28 in The Passion Translation (TPT):27 Can you bridle your tongue when your heart is under pressure?That’s how you show that you are wise.An understanding heart keeps you cool, calm, and collected,no matter what you’re facing.That’s one of the secrets to becoming Infinitely Happier, friend.Learning to stay cool, calm, and collected no matter what we’re facing. That’s useful during a global pandemic, but it’s also useful in everyday life. And it doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by self-brain surgery. My friend, we’re going to learn how, and we’re going to start today.Music by Tommy Walker(Music shared on The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is authorized under BMI license #61063253 and ASCAP license #400010513 )Hey, my new book is releasing July 25. Tommy is one of my early readers/endorsers. Here’s what he had to say about Hope is the First Dose.“Dr. Lee Warren has personally gone through the devastating school of loss and come out stronger on the other side of what he calls The Massive Thing—or TMT. No matter what your TMT is, you will walk away from this book with a deep infusion of God’s healing hope!”—Tommy Walker, singer-songwriter and worship leaderSelf-Brain Surgery with Dr. Lee Warren is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drleewarren.substack.com/subscribe