Getting Back To the Real You (w/ Stephanie Ike, Amber Riley and Dr. Caroline Leaf)

[Music] welcome to the samer welcome back to the same room on this episode we're gonna piggyback off on the conversation we had with dr karen lineleaf the incredible neuroscientist and best-selling author as well as amber riley the beautiful actress who is best known for her recurring role on glee and most recently tyler perry's nobody's full now we left you speaking about brainwashed are we conditioned to fail on part two of this conversation we're going to be speaking about getting back to the real you and it's going to be practical wisdom you don't want to miss this so today we're going to be talking about how to get back to the truest version of ourselves you know what i loved about part one of this episode is that we discussed about the different ways that we have been conditioned to almost live below our god-given potential and so with this we're going to talk about more practical steps on how we heal and how we get back to that perfect you as a book that you've written um i know amber earlier in the first part of this episode you touched on your anxiety how did you um just to recap how did you get to the other side of it your healing journey what was that like for you well i'm definitely still in it um that's beautiful because anxieties come and you know and and all of that and a lot of my reactions were habitual but i got um i got to a point where it started affecting me physically and and and really actually started affecting my voice um while i was saying i was getting stones and things on my uh my vocal cords was really bad wow and um it was it was literally just because of anxiety there was no other reason that i should have been getting strep or whatever the case or tonsillitis that much i was getting it like every two weeks every three weeks nachos and nachos and it was it was literally because so i had to get to a point where okay this isn't working these this this medication and all of that is not working how do i um how how do i actually heal as opposed to medicaid because medicaid is numbing that's all that it was that it was doing for me so i had to get to a point of um awareness and take responsibility and understand and i was trying to find and understand what was what was actually happening because getting a diagnosis and getting medication doesn't explain anything it's just putting a name on what's happening how did that naturally occur in your body um what do you mean housing i'm saying that even when you talk about to find out what's happening to find out how did this start yeah what was the trace honestly i do not even remember how i found it i found her on youtube i really don't know i can't to this day remember but i i i mean i i'll just say it was a god thing for me it was like that aha moment that i came to um where like researching and understanding wanting having that thirst for knowledge understandings i'm a nerd anyway and i like to read books and i like to watch lectures and like it's just a natural inclination for me to just want to read about things um so getting to that place it was that it was that dealing with it physically um and it affecting my livelihood yeah at this point um and finding finding real help and understanding that it's gonna be a journey and it's gonna be work yeah because it's there's no not fix that's why i say i haven't arrived you know i don't i don't i i can't really i can tell you the journey the journey almost seems to me as the place of arrival that when you're on that journey because i don't think that i don't even think there's anything in life where we arrive to i think that the moment that we begin the journey whether it's healing whether it's awareness um whatever it is that the journey is that point of arrival to me because even just like when we talk about you know the god that we serve he's endless there is no destination to him and i think that that mirrors life that there is no destination at your destination for healing or destination for this you know there's the the fact that you begin the journey is the place of arrival so i love that that it's still a healing process for you because even dr leaf can can someone realistically say that i am at my you know i've reached the greatest place i'll ever be in healing or in wholeness i don't believe they can i don't think just from the i think the biggest thing that can block us is having goals yeah because the goals are like this and then you forget all about the process which is the ongoing thing and i talk about um the perfect you being a blueprint and a blueprint that's you know it's a lifelong blueprint that you're constantly learning to a blueprint being a you know the blueprint of a home or something like that it takes for everything you keep adding and changing and you build it this one you add and so it is a continual thing so it shouldn't be the goal that should be driving us it should be the process that should be driving us so then being anxiety free is not a good goal but going through the process of is drop forget the word gold we're so goal orientated that it's keeping us blocked go go into the process and the process is something that we need to enjoy because the process then is the ability for us to see this endless possibilities the glasses are full there's you know i can there's so much more expectation there's so much more the little tiny each day the tiny bit of progress because even the whole concept of goals or destination it takes us away from being present in the moment until we're trying to achieve this goal and then we lose sense of self and we lose presence and and then it's i think that's where you know these toxic thoughts start coming because then you start comparing yourself to where am i to where my goal is exactly and is this fluid that's this like vacuum in between and then in that process we compare because someone else is doing it differently or you'd make a lousy someone else right so we need to live in the narnis because if you look at quantum physics for example it really helps us understand eternity and god is eternal we are eternal and love is eternal and i often talk about godness and loveness so that we don't make something that's so big too small to try and fit in all of the boxes but if we go vast and beyond that we realize that if this power of god created prison past and future as that means that there isn't actually it blends so now-ness is very important to me you mentioned the word now-ness we need to live in the narnis because god is in an eternal now exactly let's see all the time i can name it but yes that's a good point when you pray for example when you um think of the future or something like that and you're praying for the future you're praying for your kids or you're praying for something that's going to happen or something you are actually in essence you know bringing the future into the present and the future then changes the past and we have this now this is a very different commodity to a goal of space and time where you've got to walk like this you need to get away from that and we need to need to get more bigger in our vision about ourselves and that's all part of awareness you know it's all part of but we within that we need our little rituals within that we need our techniques within and that's where science is very very powerful science shows us that we live in the nileness but science also shows us that renewing of the mind is very doable that you're very powerful that your brain's brilliant that your brain is only as only as brilliant as your mind is operating in its brilliance and so therefore we need to make our brain operate at its optimal level and that's some of the research that i've done is how if thoughts are real and if we've got to manage our mind that manages everything else what is the result of mind mind thoughts so mind produces thoughts thoughts produce actions so what you said it actually earlier on what you say and what you do you're gonna it's what's in you is gonna come out of you that's coming from your thoughts so if we can understand how our thought builds and if we can then realize that in my awareness and in my gathering this awareness and in my conceptualization all these fancy words and all this now all this almost philosophical stuff what's the practical side of that and that's what i wanted to find for my patients and for people in places including myself my family all the people that i could help how do you do all this philosophical great stuff that people know we should be doing what do you your study and your research especially when it comes to because it's not even far-fetched it's actually simple it's very very simple it's more it's easier than trying to go on well they made it simple it's not simple but her gift was making it you know i agree i agree because it just it when you talk about the mind because we're we think like we know the thoughts that we think about we know the emotions we know the triggers when we're around certain things when we look at certain things and what i love about that is because you talk about how the mind has the power to do for the brain what medication cannot do what and i love that because when you talked about medication just being like like numb you know almost like a numbness but that's what they do and expect their brain to say yeah and i think that you know a lot of people watching this don't even realize that a lot of these you know antidepressants that are actually advertised to heal are causing more brain they're not feeling anything that's a complete and utter fallacy they're not scientific they don't heal they simply numb so that if you're in a really bad place then numbing you may feel better for a season or a time or a week or a day but the addiction that they cause because they're very addictive and the side effects which you would have experienced i'm sure yeah and the withdrawal is terrible and patients are not given enough information about that but that's that's why it continues so it becomes an addiction i mean you have to wean yourself off of it very very carefully no no you will get so sick and you get suicidal and all kinds of stuff i have one story that i always tell people i was on our particular medication and i touched um was doing my hair and i touched a curling iron and i had almost no reaction to it you're joking yeah that's that's one it was hot it was hot my hand burned and i went yeah that's one of the side effects of anxiety completely no reaction to it it numbs you it actually goes it's an anesthetic so it numbs your pain senses so that's one of the side effects that can happen and so really that's just a blanket it's a blanket it's a chemical blanket and it's not helping person deal with the issues but the fact is that something has happened to you or you've created you've got into a toxic pattern one of those two so how do we heal how do we you know what are the practical ways that we heal from trauma okay so what people are doing which is very popular and you mentioned this kind of early on people are very aware of being mindful yes mindfulness is very popular you you kind of said it mindfulness in the sense of being away in the sense of being away in the moment in the sense of calming yourself down that's a excellent but it's only step one you have to go beyond mindfulness you said it in the first episode what next the chemical blanket the diagnosis but what next okay so what i found with my work my research myself my patients and i worked in south africa and if you're aware i come from south africa and i worked for 25 years in some of the worst parts of south africa in where people were traumatized raped abused aids victims victims of apartheid like a trauma like you cannot believe so i had to go in with something that was very simple very practical and i also work with people even my practice in very traumatic situations also with severe learning disabilities and severe you know traumas dementias and adhd and which doesn't actually exist learning disabilities the correct version traumatic brain injuries so i really worked with extreme populations as well as working with all of us which is all of us um the human condition you know all of us so when i say in my practice okay let me rephrase that to show you to to simplify this sorry i got a bit carried away there was too much information i worked with extreme situations to show you that this technique has worked in extreme conditions but it also works with all of us so there are people that are in extreme conditions not everyone is in war not everyone is in in whatever situation we all have different experiences so i had to find something about the mind and the brain and the mind brain connection that worked for everyone including me okay as being a mother wife and being able to help people and that's where i decided to study the migraine connection and the science of thought and develop all my theories and work around that and essentially we've got to go these five steps i mean it's literally five steps that your brain goes your mind does that makes your brain come right and those five steps are steps that i've built into all my work all my books i'm doing a whole clinical trial about them now i've got an app that's coming out because and it's got many parts to it but the basic core steps involve being mindful being away taking responsibility those are big words so being mindful what is it actually yeah it's gathering awareness it's simply gathering awareness what am i thinking about having the courage to face myself and to look at myself and think okay why am i irritated right now why am i frustrated right now so be mindful of that emotion and then exactly that linking it to the body you said you've got vocal nodules little bumps on your vocal cords and you said something very insightful that was your anxiety that caused that the mind brain connection it is so true our minds change literally change our physical structure our minds are building right now at 400 billion actions per second our minds are making little computers in our brain billions of them at the speed of 400 billion actions per second and faster to hold these words those little things those little protein computers in our brain control all 75 to 100 trillion cells of the body so what i'm saying in english is that every thought every thought i know that's a lot to process so what does it mean it means that your thoughts control every single thing physically about you so when you send that so what would happen it would happen in your case and i mean the vulnerability you showed a tremendous admiration well done for saying what you said because your insight there was outstanding okay so what you did was generate this energy from the anxiety from the anxiety is just the even the symptom as we've been saying so there was something deep down inside and that toxic energy was quantum energy moving through your brain messing up the chemical energy in your brain messing up the chemical energy in your blood and the thing you used the most which was your vocal cords wow got this constant pounding of toxic energy which then created an abrasion you would have used your vocal cords incorrectly and it would have created nodules because nodules are just basically when the vocal cords hit as you know okay part of my training was voice i had to do voice therapy and all that kind of stuff so i know all about that too so basically that's what you did you you literally and now that's not blaming you or making you feel bad or anything you actually took ownership you became aware you did step one you became aware and you then started going to step two without even being aware of it and step two is is the deep reflection about asking and answering and discussing with yourself okay why do i have this anxiety once the pulls the diagnosis this is still in my life so what and i'm telling you that's not just one tree you found you found probably 50. and every and then there's another one and then this branch you realize is that and that and that and that and we see so we see like a tree grows branches and how branches are in a forest connected to other trees in a jungle they're all kind of the the weak so you start to discover what was connected to yeah you start seeing the connections and then you start seeing ah that pattern and that is the lifelong journey so that reflection is step number two step number three is the verbalization of this the actual putting words to this and that's your writing is very powerful because it creates a cognitive organization in the brain a fluency in the brain it forces the brain to kind of get ordered it brings order out of chaos so the third step is to bring order out of chaos via adding words and descriptions and sentences and writing the stuff down the fourth step is to actually then bravely look at what you have found and not to be scared i always tell people to stick that information visually in your mind into a building so here you're doing this i'm aware of this thing i am thinking about this thing i am verbalizing and writing down this thing but i'm not this thing because that's not who you are that's you so you take that thing and you stick it in this big building with all these windows so how do you stick this in your mind so imagine you close your eyes now right now just imagine just visualize a big huge building and see this issue inside there and it's sealed it's one of those windows that's sealed and you're on the outside you're in love you immersed in in god's love you're immersed in a safe space you're safe you immerse in your true identity your perfect you nature the resilience of your mind the powerful mind you do not have a spirit of fear but you have a spirit of love and power and soundness that is the design of your brain that's the design of your body that's that's where you stand so what you do is you objectify the situation so that's not me that's what i've done it's a failure so what it's an incorrect reaction so what i'm not going to let that throw me let's go i've learned a thousand things like thomas edison about why that's not effect that kills the power of guilt kills the power of guilt absolutely it also brought this in the light now no longer is this down here it's up here the drugs put it down there the scriptures as magic potions put it down there they kept it down there this is now boarded up here now i can do something now i can say okay you're going to live in that window of that house over there you're going to stay in that i'm going to put it down like this and then i'm walking away from you exactly so i'm away i am aware i am reflecting on to discuss i am not going to keep this in me or on me i'm going to put this in there i'm going to verbalize write that down i'm going to look look at this but from a safe space and then i'm going to have a little active action some kind of what can i do today to help me um deal with that element maybe this branch maybe this branch i dealt with today and then maybe that branch tomorrow so what do you mean just like that like when it's an action so now whatever you've discovered in that process i've just described and by the way this process you can do in seven minutes literally you can you take seven minutes like one that's five steps and you spend about a minute and a half and that is what you discuss in the 21 days 21 day brain detox which is in this book here and then i also explained it in my latest book i explained it from a building perspective the same five steps i use in here i use how to build your brain which is an essential part of mental health and then i have an app coming out called the switch app which is in the final stages of production now and that literally on your phone when you're at the gym whatever you can do yeah it takes you through and i build you through a process over 21 days times three 63 days what we don't realize is that it takes 21 days to build a long-term memory it takes 63 days to full minimum to build a habit habits and that's daily consistent and we've been taught that it takes 21 days to change a habit yeah yeah most people by the way most people give up after about four days most people if you look at the research three four days that's why the goals are so bad because we set this goal and we just cannot achieve this goal quick enough so we changed the goal we changed the goal we changed the goal but this is a process i'm talking about i'm talking about a process of five steps that you are actually taking so what i re taught my patients to do what this does what the app does is that seven to 15 minutes a day that you deal with a toxic issue you don't deal with it after that in the day the only thing you do after that in the day is you take step number five which is a little exercise which could be something as simple as each time i say if only maybe that's i worked on that was one of my most recent thoughts that i was working on i used to always say if only i did it this way i don't know if any of you guys do that and then i would torment myself so i would um so if during the course of a day for my little active reach um i would put it in my phone on the app is a little thing that pops up seven and it pops up during the day and i keep it up there for the day and it's um practice your if only today or if you come up with if only capture that and immediately stop it and that is that action or it could be you sing a little song or it could be event in a flower yeah it could be generally your active reach will come out of the process as you do the five steps that morning there will be some little logical okay today all i'm going to deal with is this tiny little thing a tiny and people the thing with goals is that people want to make a big huge splash and that's not going to have sustainability sustainability comes from the tiny changes every day over time yeah and obviously after 63 days you have actually reconceptualized rewired turn that toxic tree which is in the building into a something that's manageable into the healthy and i love what because even when you're in in um switch on your brain you talk about how it doesn't even end at the 63 things like that and that that's that takes away that goal mindset where it's just a lifestyle of what it's the last stop because that's gonna then from that will generate and we all have done this oh well i thought it was if only actually it was that was only one part so then you do another 63 days and another 63 days and that's the lifelong journey it's the lifestyle you know two things i really picked up from what you shared one when you talked about mindfulness it made me i was reminded by the scripture as a man thinks so is he yes and so it's against at the heart of speaking science revealing the word of god um but also amber when you were talking about medication and you were talking in regards to as we were talking about just the different like the numbness and medication and how like the with brain damage that it causes but you can heal by the way yeah this person that's what i wanted to reassure you even with the brain damage like no matter how far a person is that it's this steps that's renewing no matter how severe it is it heals the mind it heals that's why the mind is being healed the mind is being renewed and as you're renewing the mind the mind then puts that energy through the brain so this energy is not something scary without energy there would be no lights in this room there would be no production today there would be no energy be all dead so energy is what is basically flowing through our body and flowing and keeping the world going around because even if you talk about overcoming trauma one of the things that i love that you said was that forgiveness is one of the main keys to overcoming trauma and amber i want to ask you why do you think that because i've noticed that forgiveness is a huge topic in life um when you if you ever ask someone i don't know this is just my um scientific research by stephanie but i find it interesting that majority of people deal with offense majority of people deal with hurt deal with unforgiveness in the industry do you is that something that you commonly see where unforgiveness is a big thing and why do people struggle with forgiveness um i think forgiveness is just a big it's a big issue in general and it has a lot to do with how you how you've shaped and formed your identity a lot of times and a lot of us shaping for my identity as victims you know because it justifies what justifies what happens to you when you can say that person did this to me and now i you know react this way again taking the responsibility out of your actions because this person did a b and c now i can do d you know um forgiveness and forgiveness is it's a hard it's one of the things that i really had to work through um because no it wasn't your your fault you know and you're dealing with what it is that you're dealing with but like i said my trauma was my responsibility so now i have to do what i need to do to move forward in my life because that person is you control that reaction that person's gone that's yeah you control that reaction yeah they're gone and yeah i didn't i couldn't put it that way but that's what you were essentially doing because you know scientifically um basically it there's a principle in quantum physics called entanglement and all that means is the most logical thing we all connected everything all humanity is connected that is how we are designed love connects us as human as humans and in quantum physics if two particles are pushed apart by thousands i mean they've pushed apart very very far apart if one turns this way the other one will immediately turn that way einstein used to call this um basically a ghostly action and a distant kind of thing what it means essentially with forgiveness is that you are still entangled if someone hurts you and you are then still thinking about that you are still connected you are still they spin that way you spin that way they jump this way you jump that way so there's a puppet connection so by forgiveness wow there's the marionette do the marionette you've been played so therefore when you forgive you cut the strings so it doesn't excuse what the person has gone has done to you because what they've done is wrong but they've got to deal with that it's not for you to fix them yeah it's for you to deal with your reaction or you're going to be a horrible person that's quite frankly forgiveness keeping that unforgiveness makes you better but it makes and you cannot hide it no matter how much you think the person that's irritating you or the persons whatever that it's connected because again that thought is real in your mind it's real and it's generating energy it's generating that connectedness so forgiveness does create the disentanglement you know i i think that even when we just continue this conversation on forgiveness i always wonder um because okay let's say for example in the church you know we talk about forgive and forgive and forget and things like that um but i do believe that forgiveness goes beyond the commandment because again it's dealing with when you talk about how everything our actions are produced by our thought life and so there has to be a change of perception about the person or what they did and we may not understand why that happened in particular you never understand why that happened but i do believe that how we perceive their actions is what ought to change because when god says you know forgive as a commandment it's almost like that commandment is coupled by some form of revelation about life and you know in one of the things that i experienced when i was i came i was probably like my early teens or maybe 12 or something like that so my father was murdered and we then realized at i think i was about 11 or 12 or something like that that my an uncle of mine who i was very close to was the person that um orchestrated his death oh my gosh that he sent assassinated to you know murder my father and when that came up i was like what what just happened because this was an uncle who was very close to me and it was interesting because at that stage i felt almost as though god was showing me how he how he views things and how he perceives things and so i never had any resentment in the moment and i was it bothered me because i was like god i want to be angry i want to be angry for my mother because my mother is broken and she's crying and i'm like why am i not angry it feels like this is not even my natural emotion it feels like you're doing something here and as i prayed concerning it and what he spoke to me about was that it was almost like he was teaching me that for me to hold anger against him was to hold a truth about him that was that it to hold an idea about him that's not true and he said your uncle did not kill your father jealousy killed your father and i find that fascinating because when you talk about the different steps in healing that at a point i believe it's step four where you disconnect yourself with the toxicness where you say i am not what made me toxic i am not that and i think that when we start perceiving people that way that yes you hurt me but what hurt me is not the true version of you what hurt me is not the highest version of you because one thing god said to me that stuck with me for the rest of my life was that no one will ever hurt you from a place of love or from a place of wholeness which is that perfect which is the perfect human nature for love exactly so i think that even when we talk about forgiveness that i think it's very it's a very it's very difficult for people because either we're trying to understand why they did it and understanding why they did it from the mindset of that is who they are exactly why are you that way and your perspective you can't get into your head and so we react now in this state of bondage because even when we recognize the bondage we're in we still we blame we still point the finger and say you put me in this bondage you made me like this but i do believe that when we start to perceive it differently that revelation unlocks our ability to say you know what i've hurt people too i've i've i have been the cause of someone's pain the same way you're the cause of my pain in this moment and when i realized that i was not my brokenness i was not my toxicness i was not my dysfunction we should apply that for to up to the lives of other people very good that's very good because you actually then what you're doing is you're not giving that toxic energy the power yeah whatever you think about the most will grow you're keeping entangled so if someone if that person did say that your uncle started if you still alive or not but let's say that okay so wherever he lives it may be far away it may be close but let's say he lives 10 000 miles away if you still harboring the bitterness and you still you'll feel that pain inside of you when we when we have unforgiveness towards someone you can feel it in your body your body acts as we have these things called discomfort zones in our bodies which are physical reactions that our body have has like alarm bells to warn us that's something that we must pay we must become aware something's not right so with forgiveness um when we're not forgiving that our alarm systems in our body will go off and if we keep that our body will break down so we will get illness in our life so our own bodies will get physically ill or mind will be affected so forgiveness is a protective and this is not selfish it's basically a protective factor for you physically it's not excusing the other person's behavior because that's not justifiable what that person's done to murder someone out of jealousy is not something that's right but that's not something that you can carry as a burden and unforgiveness is a burden that we carry and it's toxic and it's breaking down the brain and the body so when we can get that in our mind it goes along with you change your perception you don't understand what they've done is wrong jealous is wrong murder is wrong um but you can't get in that person's head yeah because there's a bunch of reasons behind all of that and that's just something you can't really deal with that's that person's issue and i think when we don't forgive what we're doing is keeping it and scientifically that's what you are used there's an invisible thread between that toxic thought and that person when they think about you the marionette's happening the puppets happening that energy is now pouring into you think of the energy thing that's toxic energy from that person that you haven't forgiven you've kept it you've kept a pathway open literally and that's what scientifically happens that's what quantum physics shows us and that's why people that teach on quantum physics and the quantum physicists themselves will say key issue about quantum physics is love and forgiveness and we have to as human and humanity its ability to choose is basically what quantum physics is so there's one of the most fundamental sciences that is teaching and showing us the most fundamental of principles which is forgiveness and love that is beautiful i actually want to read there's something you shared in your book on forgiveness and i want to just read that a bit and this is on this is you know think learn succeed and it's on page 70 and you said that we are often told to forgive and forget the wrongs that we suffer but it turns out that there is scientific truth and gut logic behind the comments saying research shows that the details of a transgression are more susceptible to being forgotten when the transgress the transgression has been forgiven i find that fascinating because we often say that well i can forgive but i'm not going to forget well you remember you remember what happened to your dad you're never going to forget yeah so you're not forgetting in terms of the blanket the jesus the numbing thing but what you're doing is you are kind of disasserting forgetting that that terrible trauma of the pain so this thing has been reconceptualized and you've changed so that toxic has become so even there's the tree that's not that it's a happy tree it's a sad tree that your dad was murdered by your uncle that's very traumatic but it's been reconceptualized as something that's now um the truth is that there's you've disconnected you're not going to absorb it into your system you're not going to let it affect your life yeah and you're going to disconnect from them so they can't pull more toxic energy into you and then that's when we now release them into into god's hands into love to actually hopefully they will then identify what they did wrong and get themselves right because otherwise they're pouring more poison out on others but if we so absorbed and caught up in that terrible pain and we're not forgetting and what we're supposed to forget to answer your question is you're supposed to forget the toxicity yeah we're supposed to remember the whole thing that's what you forget that is what you're forgetting you don't ever forget it yeah because you you have the memory of it yes but you think the negative exactly and this is that's right and you know if you've still got it because you'll get that ah yeah and i've still got it i always felt like that phrase was more of an attitude do you know what i'm saying toward it like you don't treat the person or or say saying i forgive but i won't forget it's still you holding on to it it's still holding on to it still you holding on to it but saying i forgive and i for i forget it's giving it away and that's and that's it it's more i feel like it's more of like an attitude that it's not mine i'm not i'm not owning what it is you're not owning that pain you're not owning that trauma that's the other person because when we actually verbalize that we still want control yes like when we when we use those phrases say well i'll forgive i'm not gonna forget so we want control of that situation so we haven't really forgiven exactly so when you forgive and forget you've really disentangled you still remember the situation but you've forgotten that pain um you've forgotten that all the negative toxicity that surrounds that particular concept yes what would you say is the power of perception because i know in in your book you talk about how perception um how we perceive things has the ability to create yeah it's pretty much your perception will determine um the success of your life you pretty much it's pretty much built around you so basically like you take the example of forgiveness if they're in the situation with your uncle evan may that situation shifted from being one of this is and this is terrible pain that i've experienced but because of the forgiveness you've reshaped and changed your perception you're looking at it differently so this perception goes along with reconceptualization yeah where there's a new way of viewing it and it's a freedom way of viewing it it's looking at it from another angle and that angle is looking at it from love and and love then is allowing that issue that situation that person to find the healing that they need so that they don't perpetuate that same kind of pain so it's a different it's a reconceptualized look it's a redesigned look the shift of perception so even as we talk about perception um amber i'll start this question with you have you ever experienced maybe even just with people of about holding on to what they categorized as a mental illness based on a a gene or based on it being hereditary um that their mother dealt with this their grandmother dealt with it and so by nature or by biology they have to deal with it that perception i like to yeah i i definitely have heard people say you know it's hereditary or it runs in my family or you know whatever the phrasing is but um even for myself actually i had to change my perception of what i was dealing with in order to arrive to where i am right now yeah and that can be that can be really hard it can be because um the things that are spoken over you or the things that you speak feel like you're a reality and so when you try to change your perception sometimes in your mind you can think okay i'm in denial you know i'm in denial of what's actually happening when what's actually happening isn't reality so shifting your perspective and it's a hell and it was a healthy shift yeah you know changing my perspective was actually healthy for me which was crazy for me to be like no i have anxiety disorder and this is why this is happening because you feel like you're understanding what's actually happening in your body but nothing is getting better so so so you actually don't yeah um but yeah perspective perspective changing my perspective is what started the journey yeah and i and i think um it'd be tough for people it may be a tough tough pill to swallow because you now have uh started a different journey and sometimes it feels like starting over you're starting from square one um and the journey the journey is harder but i'm i'm now i'm now taking better steps to getting better as opposed to um my other perspective was i just gotta get through it i just got it yeah i just gotta get to work i just got to get through work and because that's right along the way and i'm literally doing this yeah wow back and forth back and forth creates tremendous that increased your feelings of anxiety related to panic but if i change my perspective which changed my trajectory if i stopped doing this and i just turned and went this way pathway is clear now i can you know now where i can go so what you did there was you were looking at your your life through this diagnosis if you look at your life through this this is your perspective this is your view and it's toxic so and yours happened to be okay i've got an illness already you were suffering now you get told you have this brain disease which makes you which doesn't even exist but you didn't know that maybe until you as you said you read my work but so you've got this model in your mind this perspective that i'm sick i'm anxious i've got this disease um and that perspective blocked you just but you changed your trajectory you picked that one up and you said okay no this is not the case i can actually control this and you put on a different view so perspective is a view and when you have that view it causes tremendous damage inside your brain and your body and it makes it really hard to physically function you lose your energy you feel physically that your physical body will increase symptoms of depression whereas that you you still got the same issue and fix anything yet but your perspective has shifted you so your mindfulness the first step your awareness of that's the wrong perspective you shifted to that now you're looking at like two that suddenly your brain responds and different energy flows different neurotransmitter combinations flow you into you you activate genetic switches that now increase your resilience so now you and you're easier to just be around and it's easier you're more receptive you're hearing things you're very blocked in the zone we're very not very open in that zone so a whole lot of scientific stuff is happening in your brain and your body with your decision with your mind there so that brings me to the perspective of what you were saying about the genetic component the hereditary component there is no scientific basis for saying that it is hereditary wow there's no gene there's no bio neurobiological basis for mental illness because mental illness doesn't exist what we have is trauma makes us suffering exists that's very real and that is hard and that is tough as we keep on saying so therefore what they've spent billions of dollars is trying to find the neurobiological correlates in the brain to say okay if you've got that kind of pattern in your brain then this is why you're doing it but just a recent study came out of yale telling us that there is no normal brain because we were completely unique and we all so basically we can't that perspective is incorrect we can't see the hereditary side because it's not scientific it doesn't exist what we have is an epigenetic factor so yes there can be a pattern of depression in the grandmother the mother and the grandmother and the epigenetic factor how do you what we're seeing is what we call epi genetics epi meaning over and above the gene so the genes have got like a little switch on the outside it's a little chemical switch and that has to be activated to activate the gene and what switches all that physical stuff on is your thinking so thinking makes everything work in your body no thinking no body working so what you're saying is that because you just mentioned that the way we think our the way our the way we think can be passed through the sperm and over yes so it creates um because i know in your book you call it it creates a predisposition it creates a predisposition but it doesn't create destiny no it doesn't create destiny so what happens is that that toxic thought can be something that's coming through that wasn't dealt with in maybe four generations back so there was you they saw a pattern in the family that was leading to so like depression but that's that pattern is physically represented because we create matter out of mind so the thinking of the person four generations back switched on the gene that switched on the epigenome which is the little light switch which switched on the gene which made the thought didn't get dealt with past the sperm and over to the next generation didn't get dealt with got activated oh my my mother's depressed or my father's depressed and that's what happens in our family so that's me so then we activate so by just even believing just thinking activates seeing it seeing it in your environment seeing in your environment so it comes to your sleep zipped up but by you observing a parental reaction or it laughs you know you're growing your upbringing activates it if you absorb it if you say oh well that's just how our family is that unzips and activates or you can say i'm not going to do that this is not going to be for my life i'm going to destroy so you can say this and you go through those five steps over 63 days and you destroy that you literally break that pattern down so there is effect of the point so there's a scientific guide to literally what christians would define as you know breaking generational curses that's what they were talking about spiritual language scientifically and scientific you can literally there's a physical thing that's gone through so it's not a gene that's that's hereditary that you can't control and and it's not automatically going to happen but the predisposition the predisposition is there but it doesn't have to happen because you still control your life so you activate because it's asleep it has to be working and it's only activated by how you think right so the responsibility exactly and if you activate it because that's your your child and you don't know any better and you're activating that thought pattern but as you become more aware and able to control you realize i don't want to be like that yeah i don't want that in and that's enough for you that's the correct thinking energy thinking quantum energy that will go and destroy that thing those switches will switch off and the thing won't have energy anymore and you pull the plug and it starts dying that's literally what's happening so you change that you know what i really love about this and i think even um a place to land this conversation and to wrap it up is in talking about the practical ways to heal there is there has to be a sense of determination where that you want you not so it begins by in part when we talked about awareness having the awareness that i don't have to stay this way my life is not hopeless there is hope for me to change i can live my best life you know accuse the song no problem but that in the midst of that there has to be a sense of determination and i think that that determination yeah and one of the things i believe drives that is self-esteem and that us seeing ourselves the right way or seeing ourselves our identity how we view ourselves because if you if we can view ourselves to know that we can be better to know that i deserve to live my best life then we are motivated to be determined to do the work exactly that we can we we enjoy doing the work and amber even what you shared is so powerful because it has a message of determination and understanding that there is a version there's a there's a higher version of you on the other side of this and the moment you began that process you tapped into that perfect you and so i really love this conversation and just to wrap it up i want us to close in prayer and amber i would love for you to um to pray over everyone watching who is believing that you know i can be better i like this this is not the end for me yeah um lord i thank you for this time that we had together um i pray for anyone that's watching that feels that they want to change their perspective of what's going on in their life i pray that you would help them arrive to the right answers to start that journey i pray that they will not fear a better version of themselves and they will understand that they can live their best life and have joy and have peace and have all the things that you think for uh for us lord and i pray that they won't run away from it um i pray for this time together um that it will be fruitful and there will be a major amazing change in this generation um because of this discussion and this time um in your name we pray amen amen that was beautiful thank you girl that's great thank you [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Same Room

Views: 21,107

Rating: 4.9651308 out of 5

Keywords: Stephanie Ike, Amber Riley, Dr. Caroline Leaf, The Real You, Authenticity, Faith, Culture, The Same Room, Sarah Jakes Roberts, The Potter's House, Mental Health, Therapy, Healing, Health, Mental Illness, Love, Jesus Is Real, Knowing Jesus, Dr. Leaf

Id: 7YIpw9-IgGY

Length: 46min 40sec (2800 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 05 2021