Speaking of Health - Part 3 - The Hardware of the Soul

good morning to everyone good morning and happy Father's Day and welcome to the well here at STS a because it's Father's Day I have two things that I do for the dads every year on Father's Day two long-standing promises that you guarantee every Father's Day will happen this will happen at the well number one on your handouts there are no blanks to fill in all the answers are given right there cuz dads hate to write so that's number one my promise for all the dads number two every year I start Father's Day with a dad joke very good very good a dad a joke that all dads can appreciate so this is one for all the dads in the room and I will laugh at your dumb joke and you laugh at mine and we'll kind of conspire that way together once upon a time there was a dad who was taking a long walk on a beach out in Los Angeles and it was a beautiful sunny day and he left all the stress of work behind and the kids and their crying and all that stuff in the house at all that was behind he was just enjoying his day the Sun was shining the way there was perfect light breeze and he is walking and he is praying and he feels like he and God are in perfect communion with one another and as he's walking he says god grant me one wish grant me just one wish and here's a voice from heaven that says what do you want he says thinks about it he says I want you to build me a highway from here to Hawaii that I can walk on this road and enjoy the beautiful nature you have created and walked from here or drive from here to Hawaii someday the voice responds that's a pretty materialistic wish don't you think that's pretty selfish don't you think think about all the resources that we'll take for that like how are you making the world better in any way the time the effort the money that's gonna go into making a bridge from Los Angeles to Hawaii think of a better wish but he thinks about it he says okay help me to understand women specifically my wife how she thinks what makes her happy what's going on in her head he hears a boy voice back from heaven that says do you want two lanes or four lanes on that Highway welcome to the series called speaking of health where that joke had nothing to do with anything but like I said that's my long-standing promise for all the dads where we are talking about what it means to be healthy and here's our key thought for this series we're in part three this week and our key thought is that I am one person made up of many parts all of which are connected and all of which belong to God what we're talking about here in this series is about how we as human beings we oftentimes compartmentalize ourselves into physical health mental health spiritual health but in reality we're just health is just me as a person I am made in the image of a triune God Father Son and Holy Spirit and I am a triune being meaning as we say every time we celebrate the Divine Liturgy we ask God to purify our souls our bodies and our spirits don't we say that every time we celebrate the liturgy our souls our bodies and our spirits and those are the three parts of you and the three parts of me we have a body that's flesh that one's easy we have a soul okay which can also be called a mind which is what's inside which is what drives the body if I take the soul out of the body I'm a vegetable I'm a plant I'm a tree but it's my soul or my mind we'll use the two terms interchangeably that drives my body and then the hope is that we as Christians that we have the Holy Spirit inside of us in a third realm that spiritual realm and we need all three to be working together if any one part of me is not healthy then me is not healthy I don't say my left lung is sick but my right lung is okay if my left lung is sick I am sick if any part of me body-mind-spirit isn't right it affects the whole nature the whole person the first week we learned based on this that caring for my body is just as important to God as caring for my spirit that's not how we were raised we were raised to say care about your spirit pray the body stuff that's earthly doesn't matter we don't care about that stuff and we learned no if we glorify God in our body and in our spirit because they both belong to God and caring for my physical health is just as important and my mental health and my emo no health and my relational health is just as important as my spiritual health because they're all connected and I shared a story about myself about how I learned this firsthand last week we went a little bit deeper okay when it comes to the body the soul and the spirit we hear about the body a lot and we hear about the spirit a lot so we're really digging into that second piece right there that soul or that mind and what we learned last week is that our minds are very powerful and that what we learned is that you you can change your brain by changing your thoughts and we made a distinction between our brain and our mind they're not the same your brain is the hardware your mind is the software okay your brain is the violin but your mind is the violinist the violin by itself has no value if I take my brain out of my head and I played it on the table can't do anything but if I put it inside and I let my mind control it then it can function and perform great things most powerful thing on this planet okay is this thing that's inside our heads when it's subject to our mind now the hope is as Christians as well is that my mind is subject to my spirit which is the Spirit of God okay but that's not really our topic here for this week our thoughts that we learned last week by guiding our thoughts we can change our brain we can literally perform brain surgery on ourselves and rewire our brains by the way that we choose to think what we talked about last week as how every thought thoughts are not abstract thoughts are real every thought that you think does something in your brain it makes a connection and the more you think a certain thought the easier it is for that thought to come back so the more more you think it'll never change the more and more you'll think it'll never change the more and more you think I'm no good or he's no good or this is gonna end bad or I have no value the more you think it the more you'll think it because every time you have a thought you are widening the highway for that thought to go down in the future and the scary part of this is talked about this last week that the average person has 30,000 thoughts per day those are real every one of those is real and 95% of those thoughts are in the subconscious where you don't even realize they're taking place we can't control the subconscious but what we can do is control the thoughts that we can control the conscious and like I said those will affect those and that's why we looked at this verse last week 2nd Corinthians chapter 10 verse 5 st. Paul may not have understood the neurology and the science behind it but he should understand the truth about it which is that we bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ this is an important point my brain doesn't control me I control my brain I was watching a movie this past week cases movie called parental guidance anyway I've seen this movie parental guidance is a nice family movie okay about how the grandparents okay and then this this generate like RJ my generation and the parents generation is a very funny movie I highly recommend it very few inappropriate points but that's like and in it one of the boys had an imaginary friend okay he's the little boy and he would do all these naughty things then he would say I came from where the Imaginary Friends name was was this name anyone Oh Carl okay Carl told me to do it he would say Carl told me to do it and finally the grandpa was like look you don't you don't listen to Carl Carl listens to you next time he tells you to do this you tell him that's not appropriate or something like that and he kept telling him you don't have to listen to him he has to listen to you and then finally the invisible friend got hit by a car or something like that and everything was fine the point of it is is same with your brain you don't have to listen to your brain your brain has to listen to you we're in control stop saying this is my brain and my brain and my brain and my brain and the thoughts I have no control we have to take control back over our lives like there's two extremes that we don't want to go to either one okay and I'm and I'm clearly pushing more one because I think we go to the other one too much one extreme is is that we deny any problems any mental health problems and we deny any ailments in our brain and we deny any these things and that's for sure a problem but you know the other problem the other extreme is that we say we have no control and we say you know what well I have this problem so therefore I have nothing I can do about it and this is just the way I am this is how God made me and this is just and I say no I say no we are not robots we are not zombies we are made in the image of God and because we're made in the image of God we have a choice we always have a choice and yes some of us have weaknesses in our brain for sure and we'll discuss some of that this week some of us have things all of us have things that make our brain less than perfect we have a choice and there's something that we can do about it what we're going to talk about here today following up on last week second Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 says we are not God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind whatever weakness we may have in our brain God has given to us a sound mind he has given to us a power he's given us the ability to affect that brain and the rest of the body just like the rest of the body I can't say well I was just born with these hips and that's just the way my hips are no get yourself to the gym and do something about those hips like every part of our body we can do something about we can affect it and yes some people are born like I said with different deficiencies or weaknesses but there's no person who says I have no control and there's nothing that I can do about it this is why we can talk about the judgment of God and we don't say unfair because of God who judges us assumes that we have the ability to control certain things and to make choices but there cannot be a judgment of God a righteous judgment of God if there's not the ability to choose which is also called freewill and that's what you and I have because we are not robots what we're doing here today get rid of this idea ok when it comes to spiritual physical mental rid of this ID in all areas that there is sick and healthy oh I'm healthy physically oh no I'm in horrible shape physically probably none of us are perfect but none of us are also zero probably were somewhere along the way and everyone can take steps to get better physically same is true spiritually we don't say well that guy's a priest he's got nothing he needs do and that person is sinner they're the worst person in the world everyone is somewhere on the spectrum of spiritual health and needs to take steps in the right direction the same is true up here when it comes to our mental health and I told you last week get rid of the word mental if you don't that bothers you the brain health ok every one of us is somewhere when it comes to our brain health that we're not perfect we're also not a zero on what we need to do is figure out how we can take steps to get this guy working at an optimal level so today what we're gonna do is only talk science today a little bit at a very very very high level like I'm not gonna insult your intelligence and make you think that I got this stuff understood but what we're gonna do is at a very high we'll try to understand some of the different parts of the brain and this could be like people study five-six years to understand this stuff where's gonna go very very high level because it's Father's Day so we're going hardware today we're gonna talk about the hardware of your soul which is your brain and we're gonna try to see what the different parts of the brain that God has given to us what each part does not each part but these particular parts I'm gonna talk about and how we can help get them a little bit better shape okay last thing we talked about the negative side we talked about the ants the automatic negative thoughts and we talked about how we need to get those things out because those things are like stopping the bleeding okay if you remember last week I compared your thoughts to the water supply and the ecosystem of you so last week we talked about how to stop the pollution but now we stop the pollution how do we now build up the supply that we have and purify what's in there and make this thing healthy stopping the bleeding but now like the physical therapy to get back into shape that's what we're looking at here today and the first step to getting in shape is understanding how your brain works we're gonna talk about three parts of the brain and like I said I'm not gonna insult your intelligence to tell you I understand this I'm gonna tell you I read a book okay and I read a couple different books and I'ma summarize very high level and a lot of grouping stuff together just some of the different parts of the brain the first part of the brain is the CEO of your brains called the prefrontal cortex that's the most important part of your brain that's the front piece okay that's the part when you're looking at the brain from your head on that's the piece that you can see and that makes up in human beings 30% of your brain on average which is a very high ratio in chimpanzees and apes is 10 to 11 percent which shows that God made us okay something special about this part of the brain this is the CEO of the brain this is the guy who calls the shots this is the internal supervisor this is the guy the most developed part of our brain who allows us to think about tomorrow today okay most animals don't think about tomorrow today they think about today today and tomorrow tomorrow but we're able to think about tomorrow today we're able to make plans we're able to follow through on those plans we're able to try to get ahead with this part of the brain is also responsible for is helping us to resist 10 patient helping us to think long term not just short-term helping us to think like I alluded to a minute ago a moment on the lips a lifetime on the hips or forever on the hips or whatever it may be this is the part of the brain that says don't send that email you're gonna regret it tomorrow this is the part of the brain that says no don't eat that it's gonna make you feel bad in the morning so when this part of the brain is is functioning at an optimal level you make good choices you're organized you are forward-thinking and you also are able to learn from past mistakes now with every one of these parts of the brain I'm going to show you some characteristics of when there is unhealthy activity in this part of the brain okay an unhealthy could be too much activity this part of the brain is firing too much or too little okay and when you have unhealthy activity in your prefrontal cortex you see it right there short attention span impulse control problems lack self-control lack perseverance trouble learning from past experience poor judgment chronic lateness disorganization struggles to connect actions with consequences so here's what I'm trying to say I'm gonna show you three parts of the brain I'm going to show you the unhealthy parts of it and you should probably be able to identify hey you know what this part is my not my strongest part okay and this is the part where I may struggle and you may think that you know what you're just a disorganized person but maybe there's a biological stuff that's happening that you can do something about okay maybe there's more to it than necessarily meets the eye prefrontal cortex is where you talk about ad D attention deficit disorder falls into here now when we say ad D we use it as a excuse to not pay attention we say it in a funny silly kind of a way you know my wife is talking about this logout a B D so I'm just that's my excuse to I don't want to listen I don't care okay that's not real ad D attention deficit disorder means when this part of your brain okay your prefrontal cortex responds to intellectual challenges by shutting down by decreased activity so when there's a challenge intellectually a decision that needs to be made and something that's causing stress this part of the brain decreases its activity what do you think have when you're CEO of your brain who makes decisions lower his his activity at the moment where there's a decision in front of you you're probably going to make poor decisions and you may say I'm just you know he's an impulsive person or he's not disciplined or he just can't focus but maybe there's more to it than meets the eye right here that's why treatments for a DD usually involves stimulants to try to wake in this particular part of the brain up and cause more activity especially when there's a decision that needs to be made I'll read you a case study from this book here by dr. daniel amon healing the hardware of the soul he talks about a guy who had a DD okay and again in the real sense his name is Bryan Bryan a 44 year old three times divorced physician had moved from town to town clinic to clinic he was socially isolated and spiritually adrift although he had a high IQ he was frequently fired from jobs for disorganization insubordination towards his superiors and thoughtless behavior towards his patients he was often late for appointments and he frequently did not get his paperwork done on time he made the same mistakes over and over job after job stuck in self-destructive patterns that could be traced to his childhood he joined churches but very rarely followed through on his commitments as a child he got frequently and frequently got into trouble with both his parents and the law he had trouble conforming his behaviors social norms we look at this person and say undisciplined not spiritual bad person not serious about work not serious about his spiritual life this is how we would diagnose this person many people told Bryan he had a character problem they told him he was self-absorbed and passive-aggressive he came to see me after being fired for the third time in one year as part of his evaluation I ordered a spec study to evaluate brain function that was the imaging that we talked about to take a picture of his brain and see which parts are overactive under active overall he had very low brain activity in the prefrontal cortex as a child he had a near drowning incident and was unconscious for two days I concluded that his overall poor brain activity was likely due to oxygen oxygen deprivation I knew Bryan's problem listen carefully I knew Bryan's problem was not his character the problem was the organ that controls character has brain we say that one again I knew Brian's problem was not character the problem was the organ that controls his character which is his brain the hardware of his soul his very essence was severely damaged even though he could still walk talk and feed himself he was clearly brain damaged and in need of treatment rather than judgment with the appropriate therapy Brian's condition improved although it may have never may never be optimal because of the damage to his brain with improved function allowed him to remain in the same job relationship in church for many years spiritual problem or maybe brain problem tell you another story also written in this book about a Catholic monk named William and William was a Catholic monk for several years and he saw that he had this problem which which he couldn't focus and he was always distracted and he read doctor a man's but about a Dede okay which by the way if anyone thinks that they struggle with this ad I would highly recommend that book okay I think it's called healing a VD or something like that and he read that book and he realized you know what this is me so he went to go see dr. Amon and he did the evaluation and things like that and what he told him was that he had trouble experiencing in prayer he couldn't follow through on his commitment he was always procrastinating he would stand and pray because he's a monkey this is supposed to be his job but he couldn't focus more than like two minutes in prayer he even confessed to daydreaming during people's confessions he went to see the doctor dr. Amon did a brain scan noticed low activity in the prefrontal cortex and he treated him accordingly and the treatment was medication along with diet changes along with therapy and after those three I'm gonna read you exactly what he wrote right here William said for the first time in my life I can stay focused in prayer my whole life felt I felt inferior because I couldn't meditate on God or stay focused on my prayers and even his churched noticed a marked difference in him they said he was more present more available what happened here you solved a spiritual problem by investing in your brain health see how that works that's the CEO of the brain two parts the next two parts are to that kind of grouped together okay they're not like touching each other necessarily okay but they both perform similar functions they have strange names anterior cingulate gyrus basal and the other ones the basal ganglia I call them the gear shifters and what the gear shifters are is these are the parts of your brain that allow you to shift from one activity or topic to the next these would allow you to be flexible what allows you to adapt when these areas are working properly you're able to see options you're flexible okay you're able to see okay this door closed but now we can go to this store or now I'm doing this but now I need to shift into this you're able to move from activity to activity a person who his gear shifters are working properly probably had less trouble adapting to his college roommate than others probably when they got to a new job with a new role they were able to adjust for someone who may not be able to adjust they're probably able to get along with different types of people versus the my way or the highway kind of guys these are people who don't struggle as much to let go of grudges they hold on to stuff a lot less unhealthy traits would be the exact opposite worrying anxiety rumination holding on or hurts from the past stuck on thoughts obsessive stuck on behavior compulsive by the way okay when we say like OCD obsessive-compulsive disorder falls into this part of the brain and again just like a DD we overuse this we say I'm OCD I'm OCD and we use that in the wrong way OCD okay obsessive means I'm stuck on certain thoughts okay I obsess over certain thoughts I'm gonna die my kids are gonna get hurt I'm never gonna get out of this bad situation and when you get stuck on those thoughts that's obsessive compulsive is stuck on behaviors the people who wash their hands a thousand times the people who check the oven okay I just checked the oven and on top I have to check it again the people would do this a thousand times a day and do this a thousand times a day and gets stuck on checking their email that's a thing okay and they have to check their email they have to check the testing did I feel something buzzing that's a compulsive behavior and that comes from this part of the brain right here okay argumentative oppositional uncooperative addictive behavior panic attacks these are also the people the people who straw in this area the least flexible these are the people who usually commit hate crimes if they do a study when they do Studies on people who commit the hate crimes or acts of like terrorism or racism or things like that it's usually people who have low activity in this part of the brain because they can't see that someone else different than them can be right it's either like me or not like me okay can I be honest to say a confession of the three areas that I'm gonna speak about this is the area that I'm the weakest in this is the area that I would say would be my I definitely have obsessive-compulsive tendencies okay tendencies but we all have something we all have something okay we all have something true story about again written from this book but I I can I've seen this one okay this is I'll tell you a story right now that I'm gonna tell you from this book but I've seen this one several times so I can vouch for the validity of what I'm about to say right here as a person who was angry at God since childhood okay someone who you know their mom was sick and they prayed and they believed in prayer and they prayed and they prayed and they prayed and their mom died and then they got angry at God and everyone tried to encourage and say you know what God has a plan and she's in a better place and you know God knows what he's doing but she this person couldn't see that God has a plan the plan was my mom is supposed to be alive and because the plan changed by God this inflexibility because this part of the brain controls the ability to see that hey wait maybe there is more than one way maybe not everything has to be according maybe like option A or option B but they couldn't see that God messed up God let me down this person eventually ends up in marriage counselors they had a lot of marriage problems the person refers them so it's psychiatrist psychiatrist listens to the story and quickly figures out this person's gear shifters are not lubricated properly this person is not able to shift gears this person got on treatment and after they got on the treatment which consisted of again medication and this would be like antidepressant kind of medication to calm and overactive gear shifters as well as diet changes in therapy this person was able to fully would get past that and restore their relationship with God and now see that you know what there is a different way it's not just this way or that way okay but there can be other options in life those the gear shifters the last part is the emotional and spiritual hubs which again are two parts which aren't necessarily touching each other but they perform the same function which are the temporal lobes which are the part of your brain right under your temple okay this is the part that usually when someone has brain damage physical this is the part that usually gets damaged because it's right in the front and people have physical damage to this area is like seizures and epilepsy okay and that's why you'll see in a second when I tell you what this area does you'll see the connection between this and seizures the other part of the deep limbic system these are the emotional spiritual centers of your brain they give you passion they give you a meaning to your life when these areas are strong they give you purpose and they give use s for life when these areas are weak you feel despair you feel hopeless you feel aimless in life these areas contain quote the emotional flame that fuels our joys but when they burn out of control they fire dark thoughts and cause us to react with rage towards ourselves and others these parts are connected very highly with your memory you know why because we don't remember events we remember emotions you don't remember stuff that you see unless there's an emotion connected to we see thousands of things millions of things what gets stuck in there is when it's connected to an emotion or a feeling that's why again seizures when seizures happen a lot the memory would oftentimes suffer this is also the part of your body or your brain that processes language visual visual cues body language your intuition music rhythm and spirituality I'll come back to spirituality in a second here's what happens when you struggle with in this area and I'll not read that list but you can see it right there but the bottom line here is these are the spiritual and emotional centers of your brain these affect your motivation when you have trouble in this area I don't care apathetic unmotivated don't want to get out of bed in the morning when these areas are functioning properly you find purpose and meaning and you are driven in life now back to the spirituality for a second I'll tell you about an interesting study done in the 1980s by dr. Michael Persinger it's called the god helmet experiment can go look it up and you go home basically with this what this doctor did he wanted to see the connection between the brain and spirituality so he would bring the people in and put a helmet on their head like a motorcycle helmet but it was wired in such a way to deliver like shocks and increase activity in certain parts of the brain these parts of the brain that he said that we determined deal with your spirituality and after inducing activity in people's temporal lobes people reported increased incidences of spirituality and supernatural experiences many people reported feeling the presence of someone else in the room some people said it was God some people said it was angels some people said it was aliens but the people felt another presence in the room so what he concluded is that based on your brain which by the way I totally agree with this this is science I'm telling you experience so I got experience I got no science behind any of it but I see people and I know people he's got science and when you put the two together studying the same person certain people are more wired for spirituality than others certain people are more wired for spirituality than others that's what his conclusion was and I say the same thing now with that said that's not letting us off the hook when I say wired for spirituality I mean the the classic definition that we think of when it comes to spirituality which is they're able to pray for hours and the loves to come to church and sing songs and this causes a lot of problems I see in marriage because usually he is not wired for spirituality the way she is and she determines that he's not spiritual I pray for an hour a day he only prays for a minute I I tell him let's pray all night wondering he don't want to pray all night he's not spiritual he's unmotivated Hittle of God he don't look Jesus he'll love you like he don't love anything and the bottom line is is all of us are made to worship God but not necessarily in the same way okay remember we did a whole series on finding your flavor how we said there are many ways to the way and some people express their spirituality by serving the poor and some people express their spirituality by fighting for the rights of those who can't fight for themselves and some express it by long hours in prayer and some express it by fasting like we express it in different ways but the point is is that not all of our brains are made the same way so ladies let him off the hook a little go easy you know why especially is what they tell us is the limbic system which I said is responsible for spirituality on average is larger in women than it is in men so you know what ladies he's not as spiritually inclined as you are he's also not as emotionally inclined and he also forgets a lot more stuff than you do and there's a science behind them and instead of complaining what we're gonna do is we're gonna do it st. Paul told us do in Romans chapter 9 verse 20 he says indeed o man who are you to reply against God well the thing formed say to him who formed it why have you made me like this does not the Potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor what's the point of this whole discussion this little this little science lesson okay what's the point of all this I said earlier violin your brain is the violin and your mind is the violinist no the violinist need to know how the violin works in order to play music know it pick it up and just you can make music but does he need to know how it works if he wants to master it if there's a problem and something sounds a little bit off he needs to know the inner workings of it so that he can fix it when it's broken or at least address it and he needs to know in order to mass he had to play it you don't even know any of this stuff but to master that's what we're trying to get to you may not understand how your brain works and you can get by and life you were just kind of figured out and you can just kind of bump into people and run into people and whatever but we want to get to the point of health we want to get to the point where we can grow so in order to do that we need to dan what's going inside and properly diagnosing maybe it's not that he's not spiritual maybe the problem is not that I just I don't care about my career maybe there's more to it and maybe we need to invest in our brain health the same we invest in every other area of health so here's we're gonna do okay I know I'm late on time here so I'm gonna go super quick on this last part what I want to do right now is I I'm talking about invest in our brain invest in our brain but y'all know me I'm gonna leave you without a practical structured way to do it cuz I missed your structure guard because I'm prefrontal cortex I'm very strong order and structure okay and I'm the rigid guy it's all I wanted to say like do your best no I'm gonna tell you exactly how you do your best okay and take it for what it's worth if you got a system that works for you like more power to you I'm gonna share a four-step system of detoxing your brain and getting rid of the unhealthy and putting in the healthy and it's based on what dr. amos says in this book but dr. lee caroline lee if I spoke about last week a system that she comes up with but hers is five dr. amos is three steps hers is five steps I came up with four steps to kind of add my own touch to it but more importantly than any of them is based on scripture and more not more importantly but equally as important is based on my experience it's something that I've been doing for the past two years two and a half years now and it's something that as I shared with you guys before has made such a big difference in my life increased my productivity sharper in my mind more focused and able to get more done in less time based on me being able to invest in this system here we go I'm gonna give you all four steps at once okay and then we'll talk through them real quick recognize record revisit reach first I recognize my thoughts I told y'all every morning before I start my quiet time I get into the I drop the kids off at school I get in my office I closed the door and I start my day in silence and even before I pray start my day in silence and my goal is to silently figure out what's going on in there and recognize what thoughts are in my head what feelings are going through my body am i feeling angry am I feeling negative am I feeling discouraged my feeling stressed out my feeling overwhelmed am i feeling like what is going on that's inside me because what's inside is going to come out of me so when I recognize it I'm aware even if I can't do anything about it I'm aware you know what I'm aware that today you know it I'm starting today I'm stressed out and I know when I'm stressed cuz I've done this I know stress can lead to this this and this or I know that I'm discouraged I'm frustrated or it could be happy you know what I'm enthusiastic I'm excited I'm eager I start by figuring out what's going on inside me now with this part your thoughts come from one or two places like I said your thoughts can come from outside of you or they come from inside of you which are the two are more dangerous the outside thoughts are the inside thoughts the inside by far so what you want to do is you want to get to a place of minimal distraction because what you don't want is outside things to bring thoughts in and you think okay that's what's in my head you want to minimize anything that can leave two thoughts so with me I don't like stuff on walls I like bare walls they always say my office like a jail cell okay I like it that way because I don't want anything to distract me I don't want a picture or something that may put a thought in there I want to know the thoughts that are really in there I don't want any sounds around me I don't want any music I don't want anything that can spark a thought now you may be different than me okay I'm not saying you have to do it my way I'm just sharing what simply is my way goal is to isolate anything that can make a noise or ding or has a notification it's not allowed to be in the same room when you do this second I record my thoughts alright and I write it down on a piece of paper I think there's huge power and writing things down on paper you know when you write things on paper it's like pudding it's like making it real it's like giving birth to it it's like putting your brain in front of you and now that it's in front of me I can deal with it I can look at it I can study it from this side I can put it over here okay but as long as it's in there okay its convoluted and it's not clear but they say that thoughts disentangle themselves as they pass through the lips but also through the pencil tips when you write it down so I encourage you to write it down don't skip this step trust me it makes a big difference three revisit my thoughts is when I look at those thoughts now my brain is in front of me like I said I'm feeling frustrated I'm feeling stressed I'm feeling overwhelmed I'm feeling despair I'm feeling how I'm feeling I put it in front of me and now I approach it from God's lens and I look at those thoughts and I say from God's perspective how does God look at this I'll tell you what I do specifically okay because again the goal is to get rid of the toxic put it the healthy what I do specifically is given my thought or feeling for the day I look at it and say this could lead to this so I call it my temptation for the day okay so like for example if I feel overwhelmed and I feel stressed that could lead to the temptation of rush through prayer so I can get to work as fast as possible so now I've identified this thought this feeling could lead to this now it's in front of me right there so now after I do that I come up with this is what I'm gonna do to make sure that doesn't happen let's say I feel frustrated you know with something I feel strated with someone then that could lead to snappy okay little jabs here and there and I can do little jabs here and there so I'm gonna be extra on guard when I'm frustrated I got to be extra on guard against the little jabs against the people who are around me let's say I feel inspired and I feel excited to face the work day well what temptation could that lead to that could lead to work before prank because I'm so excited to jump into my work and to tell so and so and and and some say you know what I'm not gonna tell a soul about this idea until I talk to God about it in prayer right now you see how this works you revisit the thoughts what's in there put it on paper now attack it take the bad ones captive throw them away that's the custom station we talked about last week and then the ones who are still in there remember how dr. Ayman said we talk back to them remember how we talk back to our parents okay and they say they say now you do this every night okay we need to do that to our brains and the brain say you're worthless I think you're worthless okay and the brain say that you have no value I think you have no value and I'll tell you I am a child of God who are you you tell me now I'm a child of God you're an invisible friend what are you talking to me like that okay and it says that you're weak and say no I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and that's actually the last part reach for my future I throw a dart out there and this is where I am today I'm frustrated I'm discouraged I am but this where I want to get to feeling weak I'm feeling helpless but it's where I want to get to I knew all things through Christ who strengthens me and doesn't have to be a verse but I like to use a verse and I feel like like I'm just gonna struggle with fear my whole life no because he has not given me a spirit of fear he's gonna be a spirit of power love and sound mind 2nd Timothy 1:7 and you say you got no one on your side but if God is for us who can be against us and then you take that you walk around all day and you say you know what life is never gonna change you say with God all things are possible with men this is impossible but nothing is impossible with God you reach for your future you throw it out there you say that's where I'm driving to and you put it on paper and I'm telling you there's a science behind it I don't know the science until I read this stuff but I'm telling you there's a science behind it when you think a thought scientists tell us that when you think a thought it's the same it creates the same connection in your brain as actually when you perform that action so for example someone who is a playing a piano or someone who is a high-level athlete or a doctor performing a surgery or a Salesman about to give a pitch when you sit case studies show that scans show that when you sit and you go over it in your mind and you rehearse it in your mind this is what the elite level athletes okay and priests the elite level okay and you rehearse it in your mind and you rehearse and you can see yourself performing the surgery in your mind and you can see yourself performing the piano thing in front of millions of people or whatever it is when you see yourself doing it you are creating the same reaction in your brain is when you actually do it that's why the ability to think these thoughts and rehearse these thoughts over and over and over and over creates connections in your brain and gives you access to those thoughts later on when you actually need them this is what's called is what an athlete would call muscle memory this is why an athlete will perform the same action over and over and over and over and over and over because he's creating connections in his brain creates a muscle memory becomes easier to do and I'm telling you the same thing when you think it we second do all things through Christ who strengthens me I knew all things through Christ who strengthens me I knew all things through Christ who strengthens me when you carry the Word of God like that around you repeat it to yourself there's power there's power in it and if you don't believe me try it for two weeks then come back and tell me I always wanted to say I'm a brain surgeon and now you can say it because every time you think a thought you literally rewire your brain you are performing brain surgery on yourself and you have a tremendous power given to you and if you don't believe me you read what st. Paul said in first Corinthians 2:16 you know why you have a great power not because your mind is so great but because we have the mind of Christ I'm not fighting my brain with the mind of me or the mind of you or the mind of Einstein of the mind of nobody I'm fighting with the mind of Jesus Christ himself yes there may be genetic or biological imperfections all of us have every one of us but we have a power that is greater than any weakness in this world and that power is the power of Christ himself given to us through his Spirit we have the mind of Christ you may not realize him but you have a neurosurgeon inside there and he is willing to operate he is willing to help you form new connections take old thoughts captive and give you an entire life because we talked about this before and change my brain I can change my life that's what we're talking about here my prayer is that every single person here we would we would not do these two extremes that that I have nothing wrong with me or I have everything wrong with me there's nothing I can do we're not going to either those two extremes spiritually physically we're not doing it with our brain all of us none of us can say no problem none of us can say all problem we all have a choice that we can make by prayer is that God would give us the courage because it takes courage to do this to be able to fight for our brain health and we will realize that we are not victims that we have power we have the mind of Christ given to us and that we would tap into that greatest power which is the mind of Christ let's stand together for a prayer in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one God amen Heavenly Father we thank you but giving us your very spare to dwell inside us we have the mind of Christ we feel weak we feel lost we feel like there's nothing we can do sometimes we feel helpless but we know that we are not helpless we are not victims only but we have you inside of us we have the mind of Christ when I pray that you wouldn't remind us of that every single day that we would tap into that great power which is within each and every single one of us we pray this in the name of your son the prayers of all of your saints here says we pray thankfully our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one in Christ Jesus our Lord for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever amen

Channel: STSA Church

Views: 4,536

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: wWhhgzSHKcM

Length: 43min 8sec (2588 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 17 2018