The Miracle of Changing Your Mind | Dr. Caroline Leaf

jacqueline gladys esther josephine and immaculate live in a rural village of oshwash in kenya in this area once girls reach the age of 12 many of them have to drop out of school because their parents can't afford the cost to continue their education this perpetuates the poverty in this area and also leads to these girls being married off at a young age these five girls have lost one or both parents to covet 19 in the last year and could not afford to start high school this year but crossroads because of your generosity we were able to fund the tuition for four years for all five girls listen to their response when they were told that crossroads would be sponsoring their education we have good news for you through the generosity of crossroads christian chat we are happy to let you know you the girls five of you have been given an educational support through savantar school [Applause] [Music] [Applause] crossroads when you give here financially you make a difference in people's lives all over the world if you'd like to join us in being part of these life-changing stories you can text the word give to 77247 or if you brought cash or a check you can drop that in the offering boxes in the worship center on the patio but thank you so much for your faithfulness these five girls and their families are so grateful for you let's pray lord jesus i lift up these girls to you and i pray that as they enter into high school lord that you protect them lord i pray that they seek you for encouragement and everything they do lord i'm so thankful that we're part of a church that is generous in giving to these girls who are halfway around the world we thank you lord um just for your provision and we pray these things in your precious son's name amen amen wow what an incredible video that was i love yeah crossroads makes an impact here locally but uh all over the world which is so incredible to see yeah and i am think anybody love our church man i love our church we love our church and i love and it's special that we get to be a part of a place that wherever we go lives are being transformed yeah and lives are being changed wherever we go and uh welcome to church this morning my name is steve my name is jess and we're genuinely so glad that you're with us whether it's your first time you've been around for a really long time whether you're watching online we're so excited that we get to be together this morning yeah and this morning is actually super special steve can you give us a quick rundown on what today is going to look like yes today is going to be super special because just a few days ago pastor chuck our senior pastor got to sit down with dr caroline leaf who was in this building just a few days ago can i just say steve i am so jealous when i heard he was going to sit down with her i texted my friends and i was like please tell her i am a big fan i think she's so cool so did they i don't know yeah that's my next question i almost contemplated coming on campus i didn't though didn't want to be weird that would have been a little she's awesome yeah so pastor chuck and dr caroline leaf they sat down with each other they had an interview and we're gonna watch that today and guys it is such a powerful interview they're talking about one of the greatest miracles the miracle of the brain yeah i know for a lot of us in this room including myself sometimes it's hard to distinguish between our thoughts so they give very practical ways on how each and every single one of us can take each thought captive yeah that's good um so i'm excited to see that it's gonna be a really good service yeah so that's you're just gonna like drink from a fire hose this morning and so take notes whatever you gotta do i don't want you to miss a second of it we got to watch it yesterday a little bit and it is that really good and so church we want you to lean in point your heads to the screen pay attention it is that good and take a look at the interview hey everybody i'm super excited for what we're going to get to do today and we're in the whole series on miracles and i believe that all around us are miracles that only god would be the one who makes happen uh but we start taking some of those for granted sometimes but then we begin to look at areas of life that you can't take it for granted and one of which i believe anyway and we'll hear if dr carolyn leaf agrees is the miracle of the brain uh that the idea of the brain is so complex the the brain is so amazing the brain's so wonderful but there's something that actually determines your brain and what your brain's like which is maybe more amazing and more wonderful so today we are very very excited to have dr caroline leaf with us who's written uh two amazing books she's done years of what i would call trailblazing research to get everybody today to understand more than ever how you have more choice and more control over your mental health over your physical health over your spiritual health but most of all so that you can be the kind of person god wants you to be so dr leave i am so excited to have you here thank you so much it's wonderful to be with you and to be sharing this subject with you all your people again okay so uh let me just go ahead and get it out there because it's gonna come out i'm in awe of all the things you've written the things you've taught so i may get a little tongue-tied in the midst of our interview no problem okay cool but you know what i want to go back to your first book switch on your blog that's actually my 17th 18th book but anyway in that book you brought out the whole idea and i loved it that that science is finally catching up with the bible showing us the proof that god has not given us a spirit of fear but a power and love and sound mind and then you talked about the breakthrough in neuroscientific research uh it's confirming daily what we've instinctively known all along so what i want to ask you this because i started thinking about it it seems like you know the whole idea god hasn't given us a spirit of fear so the anxiety we're feeling isn't from the lord but it may be a symptom of what's going on if i understand your research correctly but then god wants us to choose to have um the whole idea of having the power in love and self-control so but it's all in the mind it's it's all in the mind he's given us the sound mind so what do we need to know about the mind that affects the brain okay so i'm gonna flip that one on its head it's a good place to start so i'm going to show it from another angle so basically we and this anxiety depression anger frustration all of those are absolute gifts from god they're not they're not bad at all now i know that sounds crazy why aren't they bad they are signals that are telling us that there's something that we need to pay attention to so when you view them as a signal as a warning signal like an alarm that wakes you up if you view them see them as a messenger you can then get information from them and what we are supposed to be doing is self-regulating taking control bringing thoughts captive and you can't bring a thought captive you can't catch a thought which is where the signal comes from unless you pay attention to the signal so if we are we what we see from our psychoneurobiology mind brain body psycho mind brain body that's that's my mind my body connection is that we actually wired for love which means that we don't have any circuitry we don't have any cells we don't have any go down to subatomic level cells proteins going to the structures to the systems in our brain and our body that are wired for toxicity what we have is we are we are basically wired to experiment to be able to see and learn about life make mistakes and then repair those mistakes and grow so we are wired to make a mess but to manage the mess we're not wired to stay in the mess so it's very normal because we don't all know everything up front now with that in mind this is a completely different and much more hopeful view if we are okay if we are actually okay that it's okay to make a mess as long as we're managing it that means that we need to know how to manage it and what warns us what brings our attention to the need to manage it will be warning signals so our mind brain and body are made and wired for love and for optimism and what what that means is that we made in god's energy wired for love all that stuff means that anything that threatens that survival of love is going to need to be we need to be told about that so our mind brain and body work together to tell us that and that's the that's where the real miracle lies the miracle lies in us not just being robots but us being our mind brain and body telling us hey there's something wrong so when you have despair or anguish or anxiety or depression you can't actually have them because they're not like cancer they're not in it they are a warning signal so they are symptoms of or emotional warning signals that you need to pay attention to and say hey i don't like feeling this anxiety but this is a helpful messenger the minute i see it like that i change 1400 neurophysiological responses and more in my brain and my body to work for me now i access wisdom i access the core of who i am which is wisdom love and wisdom go hand in hand it's the same basically the same thing and scientifically we talk about that being wired for love optimism biases a bunch of scientific words so as i embrace the the signals to tell me about the imbalance that is threatening my survival i can then adjust i can become a thought detective i can capture that thought and i can then rewire and that takes time it takes process it takes effort it takes there's no quick fix and that's where we got to look at it differently so despair anguish anxiety frustration are not bad we've always thought that they bad they aren't they're an absolute gift from god to tell us hey pay attention they are they are a symptom of an underlying issue something is going on in your life so what we should probably do is unpack what this is and to talk about what the mind brain difference is and then this will make more sense yeah you know and i want you to do that but now you've got me thinking about something it's not my notes okay okay would it be accurate then to say uh first of all to someone who has battling with anxiety they're battling with the depression what you're saying is don't see that as bad because now that's just a signal for something that you could change so here's my question is that actually a sign of god's grace in other words the grace of god comes by letting you know something's not right and now you can you can begin to work to use mind management uh taking those thoughts captive to change it would that be right you could certainly use that language i mean that is that is certainly a way of seeing it for sure absolutely because it's an absolute gift so it is grace it's a gift that we have this body and brain which are the physical part of us which is one one to ten percent of who we are and it's driven by the mind which is the other 90 to 99 percent and we it's all been worked for our benefits it's all been aligned but we it's not just that it's going to happen we have to pay attention to what is going on so at our core if we are made in god's image which means we are made of love and we see that in our neurobiology and our psychoneurobiology that everything is for the survival thing that means that anything that threatens survival we need to deal with so if you think of something like the covert virus which we all know about so much about now it's a virus made of proteins as soon as that hits your body your immune system is designed it is it is built to recognize the threat to survival the threat to the wire full of nature so it sends out t lymphocytes lymphocytes macrophages etc to eliminate that a toxic thought is also made of proteins so if we've had a toxic experience of any sort and all of us have had them we'll have them it's trauma trauma is a part of life present past and future and it happens big complex and small different degrees of severity so as we have that complex trauma it is built into the brain and we'll talk about that how that happens in a moment and then that is a threat to survival so it actually looks like a wiry tree made of proteins as does the covert virus now they're not the exact same structure but they both physical structures in the brain and the body that are a threat to survival so if you have a virus in your body the immune system is activated if you have an unmanaged toxic issue in your life that suppress trauma from childhood or for marriage or from adelaide whatever age or you just haven't dealt with something you keep pushing it down and keep doing the band-aid approach if you do that this is real it's an experience it's in your brain you've built that into your brains your immune system will see this in the same way that it sees that a covered virus so it would send out t lymphocytes and b lymphocytes and macrophages to this thought because it's all distorted if you keep this you increasing your vulnerability to disease by 35 to 98 over time it's not going to happen overnight but it's over time so this because this threatens survival and and the covet virus i've given us an example because we all know that's real people don't think thoughts are real thoughts are real they are made of proteins we build them we have this this ability to build thoughts and this is toxic so this creates a warning signal so the way that we've been designed is that all of this groups together the immune system starts responding it sends a signal to all the other systems of the brain and the body collectively our body work together and the brain and the mind and we get this holistic boom of emotions despair anxiety depression and whatever which are signals our body we get symptoms in our body pain in our gut heart palpitations we get changes in our behavior and we get changes in our perspective but that's not who we are and this is the key which kind of wraps everything up that's not who we are and we've got it at the core of who we are of these incredible people wired for love you can do something that no one else can do your identity is one of pure and utter beauty but you've got free will you you can think feel and choose and and and you can make wrong choices and terrible things can happen and that affects how we function so so when we show up with anxiety and depression etc as a signal it's not a bad thing it's okay you're human it doesn't mean you've got a brain disease doesn't mean you're evil or bad or you've sinned or you all of the stuff that just makes people feel terrible what it means is that some you're showing up like that for a reason there's something going on and here's the reason and what you have to do is capture this thought and you can only capture it by looking at the signals from the signals you can capture the thought then you can deconstruct and reconstruct and that is renewing the mind that's capturing thoughts renewing the mind you know all that kind of stuff that's that's the there's a whole science behind it see i love how you bring all the science to show like a romans 12 that we are to renew our minds and and be transformed by the renewing of our mind um but i guess i'm jumping on this because um i've met with people more than once who suffer from anxiety or depression and they feel like they're cursed by god and it's a curse that that's happening to them but if but if we change the perspective you're saying and go no no no this is a loving god giving you a gift to show you and that's not even who you are but showing you you know a way to you're showing up like that if something happens to you if you lose a loved one or you get raped or you get abused or you go through it may not be such huge things but there may be other any kind of toxic interaction with the world is going to affect how you function and it that it becomes a part of your brain it gets taken into your mind into your brain so your mind shows up in your brain and if it's toxic it becomes a toxic wired protein if it's healthy you build a healthy tree so thoughts are real things they occupy mental real estate as we listening now as everyone's listening and watching my words are sound waves these visual images are electromagnetic waves as well so all this physics is is taken in it's part of our it's this is taken in by our mind mind is first cause mind then converts that and puts that into the brain so this experience we're having now is being put into the brain by our mind mind is external and through the brain and the body and then it as it hits the brain and the body it causes a genetic change in the brain at neurochemical change etc and proteins are made so all the words that we are talking now are becoming vibrations inside proteins growing branches and that's what we do now we're literally growing this conversation into our brain at 400 billion actions per second now this is a healthy conversation if you have a toxic experience the same thing happens the mind is experiencing the and it converts into this toxic tree inside the brain but the proteins are not distorted so instead of it being healthy there's inflammation there's all kinds of distorted chemical flow neurochemical flow and that is volcanic and that is disturbing the natural white for life survival mode so to tell us to pay attention to fix these because our brain is neuroplastic and our brain is run by our mind our brain can't do anything on its own if you did your brain does nothing so mind is the power that drives the brain but if this so if you're alive and you keep these your brain is relying on you to use your mind so your brain mind and body combine together to send these signals and that is grace that is that that's the real depth of the miracle that we actually can take all of those signals and these four categories and then go and unpack this and deconstruct it so you can rewire this out of our brain and so anyone with anxiety depression you can't have it it's not a you can't if i had five people in front of me that have anxiety you can't say that you've got clinical anxiety it's not an it what you can say is that you are experiencing the emotion of anxiety it is so real it is it is so real that it's 99 of what you're experiencing in this moment so if you're feeling anxious it's 99 of your experience if you're feeling depressed it's 99 of how you're feeling nice you can't ignore it it's something that's very important but it's not a disease of your brain it's not that you've sinned and done something bad it's that something has happened and you therefore need to use that as a clue to be a detective to find out what so science is one of the most spiritual things out because science is there is god giving us the knowledge of how to it's the how to of creation in fact science comes from the word skura which means knowledge and god is the source of knowledge so love is wisdom god love knowledge those are all the same package and science is how we unpack that so what i've researched for 38 years is that is the science behind how what is a thought what are memories how do we change the brain with the mind what is the mind what is the brain what's the relationship so how do you get when once you recognize there's this pattern in my life that i'm in the state of despair i'm feeling depression i'm sick all the time i can't do it my creativity's gone what whatever it may be that you can actually take that and think no i'm not a big sinner and go through that religious storm i'm all bad and whatever rather say no that's not who i am who i am is wired for love i'm showing up like this because of no one chooses to do anything that's going to hurt others unless they are coming from a place of hurt so you've got to go back to the source so even that doesn't mean you've got to put up with other people hurting you because you've got to recognize that you need to protect yourself that's what boundaries are but then but you need to also at the same time recognize that those people aren't aren't out there to wipe you out intentionally it's coming from their own pain it doesn't mean you need to suffer from them it means you need to remove and protect but at the same time you need to recognize that that's not wired for love and that's not someone choosing to be bad because they want to be bad it's choosing because they it's based on traumatic experiences does that make sense oh it so does yeah no it so does and i feel like as a believer someone who loves the lord that you know and not being judgmental that's you know how many times does the bible say don't judge don't judge them including not judging yourself right but when you hurt me my natural response is judge and you're saying no stop set a boundary so you don't get hurt yes but also try to understand you may be hurt and you may be hurting and so i want to i don't want to start by judging you i want to start by wondering and asking good questions why would you be that way exactly why are you not moving where god would want you to be because you're wired for love and that's brilliant and but you can't do that until you've looked after yourself so you have to because when we're in a high emotional state we will say and do things that we because we triggered that we don't mean and that can make the the relationship worse or the situation worse so it's always important and this is not selfish this is pure wisdom is to remove yourself as much as possible even if it's me mentally maybe you may not be able to physically but to put that armor up and to get your own healing sorted out why was i so triggered by that situation why was i so you got to find out whatever you do is because of a reason if you're doing good stuff the reasons right keep growing it but if you are doing anything that's affecting your peace of mind and that is hurting other people that needs to be checked you need to look at those signals you need to read them you need to be a thought detective which is renewing the mind capturing thoughts i'm just using the concept of thought detective to do that and you need to go through the process and there's a very clear distinct process to do that yeah in second grade the intenses were to take every thought captive every thought every and we build every year around about eight thousand to ten thousand a day and we are each thought is informed by seven to eight every few seconds so in this conversation that we have in 45 minutes we would have made a million cells per second times 45 minutes okay to work that out times 60 times 45 we would have have so much genetic changes in short and long term genetic changes that's unbelievable we would have had every few every few seconds we would have had this for every 400 billion actions per second were taking place to convert what we're saying through our mind into our brain our mind showing up in our brain and it's showing up and being built into these networks as that's happening that's instructing every cell of your body to change your dna so that's why when we have a trauma or any experience we feel it in our body and our brain brain has data body has the as the somatic experience of it and then mind puts the whole thing together and creates this holistic experience reading all of that in this moment we can manage that by being very self-regulated so bringing all thoughts into captivity means that you need to bring all ten eight to ten thousand thoughts that you build that are informed by an additional seven per second so anything from the numbers are insane but it could be anything up to 20 30 000 thoughts that are going through your head in one day a combination of building a combination of as you're building you're being informed by existing memories that's a lot can we do it yes neuroscience shows that we can do this every 10 seconds so we can be constantly in tune with wisdom which means with the spirit of god as we awake like right now in this conversation we can self-regulate so mind management is a self-regulation process which is pray which because pray is continuous communication with god so we are supposed to be all day long checking out how am i thinking feeling and choosing in this moment as i'm speaking to you i mean this is easy we're having a conversation that both of us are enjoying but go from here and maybe someone sends you a bad email or you have a disagreement with a loved one and let's be real this is life how are you going to manage your mind in that moment and then also look at the patterns in your life all of us have patterns patterns come from traumas toxic patterns come from toxic traumas and whatever we built into our brain is how we show up what you say and what you do is not coming from just random events it's coming from a combination of what you've built in your brain but you built for this not for that so when these come in we get signals to tell us hey change that to this reconceptualize deconstruct and reconstruct embrace to do that you can't judge and reject and sound bad i'm evil i've sinned and all that stuff that's not embracing embracing means coming to my fold i control you i see that this is not who i am but i am showing up as x y and then you go through that systematic process so what i've done over 38 years is look at all this and this is a lot to say in these few minutes and understand that this thought is made of memories and this you can see that this thought's got lots of branches and it's got a root system as well like all trees have roots and branches so the roots is the origin story in the case of our discussion now this is a little plastic thing but we all know that if this was a real tree it would have a root system so the root is the source in this conversation now we are the everything that i'm saying in our discussion is going into the root system the brand and that's all the memories so this thought tree is made of memories root memories branch memories the root memories are the source what is the experience at this moment the source is our conversation that's the everyone's building that but everyone's building this part differently this part is the interpretation so you are unique you're different to me there's something you can do that no one else can do so you are uniquely interpreting what i'm saying so this part is the interpretation of what you've said of what i've said and what if so in other words this is different for everyone now this is healthy but if it's toxic we have to find the source in order to deconstruct it but you talked about the idea that we need to um look at each person's story and look at each person as an individual so i really got the impression that our brains become very unique to who we are or our mind is very unique to who we are which shapes our brain to be very unique exactly so it's almost like my brain and your brain are our fingerprints we're very very different totally like that so we've got the same basic structure yeah but across the brain there are 200 specializations in addition to all the basic structures and stuff of the brain which there's a lot of so this is 200 specialization within that there is complex circuitry and that circuitry changes all the time which is neuroplasticity why is it changing because you are alive and you're experiencing life so all day long while you're awake you're you are changing your brain by building these things in some of them are a mess because that's just part of it and if you capture the mess by capturing it quickly transform it so you capture and you change then you can change this back into the some of these some of those so all day long we're building hopefully more of these than these but some days you build lots of these and then there's some from the past that you've just never fixed have been there 20 30 40 years and they're manifesting in relationships and traumas and all kinds of stuff and so all of that that is happening and we can drive that process you you're not fixed this is the beauty of how we are as a human now your specializations aren't the same as mine and the brain is limited in size and so that even though there's tons of circuitry in here and you keep building new networks the way that i see life and the way that you see life has been specifically designed built so that i need you you need me we enhance each other there's no competition between you and i there's no competition between humans if you look at it this way because if you can do something that i can't do by me celebrating you i build your uniqueness and i'm benefiting and we see when you do that your own intelligence increases but we live in a world where it's you know even between churches my church is bigger than yours and this one's there and you know it's competition kills people it destroys the brain it destroys our peace of mind but if i see you as nothing but a phenomenal human being who is built to do something that i can't do whose brain is specialized for you and mine is for me i can't have your specialization you can't have mine my mind the gravitational fields and spiritual nature of my mind is unique to this brain this brain was built for that mind for your brain was built for your mind your body was all works together in this uniqueness so every time we experience something adverse in our life and we build that adversity into our brain we are going to get warning signals from this uniqueness inside of us that's saying hey you've stepped out of alignment give yourself grace give yourself kindness because when you kind to yourself you can stand back and you can observe yourself and you can tell yourself okay i'm not a bad person i can't be i'm hating god's image i'm amazing i'm phenomenal but i'm making a mess for some reason okay and i'm and i'm doing this for some reason and so then you can unpack that you have this power to shift in this to live in messiness and wisdom at the same time that's we have i talk about the wise mind and the messy mind the wise minds obviously you're made in god's and made in gods and made in god's image the love image and then it's plugged into to god so when you get intuitive when you get deep when you do the the nervous cycle that i've developed which is i believe a very efficient scientific tool that is spiritual you can actually tune into your inner wisdom which is then plugged into god's wisdom and then you can self-regulate and capture these thoughts and fix them the ones that happen in the moment and the ones that are sitting there for long periods of time and that's how we should be transforming and that's prayer and it's a very unique process for each person but there's steps we all can go exactly there's a system so that it actually creates physical change in our brain exactly and um we take that we do what it says in second corinthians we take those thoughts captive especially the toxic ones yes and then we put them in obedience to christ so now that before we get to the process i think it's so important you and i talked about this ahead of time people i think want a shortcut they want to get there in two days they want to actually they want to get there in five seconds yeah in a ted talk or at the end of the year yeah i i always get amazed at people who are experts and they saw one ted talk yeah i know you're crazy but it actually you actually have the science to know it takes 63 days right cycles of 63. so what we've seen a lot of in the in the kind of floating through internet and so on is that it takes 21 days to build a habit there's millions of programs out there 21 days to build a habit but it's not even science and so few people have done research in this area that thought that that idea was put through by a surgeon many years ago in the in the early 60s as just a thought and it's based on good facts it's based on a certain level of fact and that's it let's say for example you get a blister it takes around about three weeks for the body to produce the stem cells for the blister to heal and if it's a big cut or a big damage to a body or a bigger sickness it takes multiple cycles of 21 days so it does seem that the healing process in the body takes works in these cycles obviously and this is what the surgeon was seeing in terms of surgical healing and just i mean just watch this if you get a cut watch how long it actually all damaged in your i heard my leg recently in i'm a fanatic at orange theory and yoga and all the hot yoga and that kind of thing and i hurt my leg and it took it took three cycles before i actually got that my my healing of my leg to it was a full nine weeks before it was healed so that so that principle of three weeks but what i wanted to see was that how long does it actually take for behavior change and so that's a very clearly minimal three cycles of 21. so in 21 days what will happen is that if you spend deliberate and intentional time around about 15 to 45 minutes a day of deliberately and intentionally reading the signals to deconstruct and reconstruct and we can talk a bit more about that in a moment what you'll find within 21 days is that you'll find this thing and you'll start seeing your interpretation which is the top part you'll start seeing your distorted processing and you'll start seeing the origin story of why and as you start doing that you this awareness starts weakening the protein bonds in the brain so it's changing the genes in the body and in the mind there's a shift and that combination then by within 21 days would then enable us to deconstruct that and reconstruct it into something that we can actually live with that will give us peace in the midst of care so you can't change the fact that for example you're abused but you can learn how to live with how you want to be in the future so maybe that abuse is stopping you have decent having decent relationships and you just can't seem to be stable you don't want that you want to be in a good relationship so you need to deconstruct this to take its power away energy's never lost energy is transferred so we deconstruct to take that energy and we build a healthy new thought now this is tiny it's not big at all it looks very small but it's beautiful compared to that this is now gone i have this okay yeah yeah this now is now what is my is what i want to be this is now part and this whole thing that i've described is the narrative i'm talking about for for you for you to come to me and say i'm feeling very depressed and for me to just say you have clinical depression has a medication is totally dishonoring and totally taking away just giving you a disease label that doesn't help you one but it's like getting a gift that there's nothing in it you open the gift are you all excited because i'm getting a gift so there's a bit of relief with the label but there's nothing in it much better is for me to say what's your story this is how you're feeling at the moment let's find why let's get your story so everyone's story is unique and everyone's everyone's experience is unique but so this is telling the story now it takes you 21 days more or less to kind of get an inkling of the story and get a little bit of hope that it's going to change and to get to a point i'd like to be like that but it's still very small and tentative and it has to compete with the trillions upon trillions of memories inside thought trees that already exist from a certain point in the room to now because every day you're building eight thousand to ten thousand so you have trillion so this is tiny there's lots of big trees in this forest of your unconscious mind if you don't stabilize this what happens is that you in your mind will feel okay that's how i was this is how i know i can be but there's a chasm between the two i'm not doing this i don't know how to apply then there's guilt and condemnation the devil's stopping or whatever people use to and then their blame game starts and people get victim mentality and that's not healthy it's coping but it's not a healthy sustainable coping mechanism so what you could rather do is directly and intentionally continue to capture the thought and grow it so you've got to grow and stabilize so if you spend five minutes a day that's all it takes over another 42 days it's another two cycles of 21 you will grow this a day by day 63 you have this yeah and when you've got this you have you have an energy force you have a bunch of new memories you're growing into more and more ways that you see yourself just playing out into your future and now as you triggered in your life instead of oh people always leave me i can't form a relationship which was this and here i want to have a relationship now i can have a relationship i can get in there and as things happen in the relationship i don't freak out and think i'm a terrible person i just plow through the issues in the relationship that's the difference and that takes cycles of 63 days and sometimes more i mean chuck i've had patients that have had such a severe trauma such complex trauma they've taken up to two years which is multiple cycles of 63. so 63 starts the process and then i know you're going to ask me this question so i'm going to jump in and give you the answer people are going to say well i don't have the time or that takes too long you even said it before you can't even get them to go 21 days let alone four days most people get to four days yeah that's true that is true and they just kind of and so you will never really move forward you will be frustrated because you even four days will start showing you insight into change so here's my argument for that your mind never stops you can go three weeks without food three days without water three minutes without oxygen you don't even go three seconds without your mind working if you're alive your mind is working through your brain and your body at night your mind is what you dream with your mind's still going your mind is is regenerating it's fixing the thoughts that you built during the day during the day you're building your thoughts so your mind is working all day long to build thoughts you wake up with your mind you eat with your mind you get dressed with your mind you in this session this discussion with your mind you go to your workout you go your mind never stops so therefore if your mind never stops you may as well manage it that's my argument because if you don't you live in a mess and a mess is burn out overwhelm exhaustion frustration it's not worth it it's worth taking the time one thought at a time and just turning your life into a life of continually going through these cycles 15 minutes a day while you're getting ready in the morning press play on the phone i have an app called the neuro cycle app it'll walk you through the process you don't even you can just listen and do it in your head while you're getting ready in your car maybe driving to work you can make this part of your lifestyle because this is really the science of how we can capture a thought and transform it by the renewing of our mind i'm giving the science and the how-to of it how can we not this is your mind's a mess and then your life's a mess yeah the whole time you're sharing i'm thinking about the incredible promise if anyone's in christ they're a new creation the oldest past week all things have become new yeah and what you're saying is when you connect with god yeah you're creating new yeah you're creating new which is what you're supposed to do a million new cells every second yeah yeah and you control the quality of that and then they make your brain those cells make everything in your body these are cells so the way you thinking is driving every single cell in your body and you become new you become new but here's what i love because you know you're able to say not just as a believer but as someone who's researched this it works 38 years of research 25 years of clinical practice i still do research yeah i publish i mean this is my life this is this is what i've done for 38 years yeah a career of helping people really helping people and i think that when i sit with someone and i i want to let them know i want everyone watching to know this will work it's not even a question it will work but you've got to be willing to take 21 days 21 days 21 days and then maybe carry on no not maybe definitely so as you finish one thing you carry on so it says if you look at the what it says in this in the in the scriptures renewing is a present continuous yes it is capture all thoughts so every single day you are guaranteed to make multiple messes so therefore all day long you need to be managing your mess and you've got patterns that you need to fix that from the past so we need to it's trauma information trauma informed we are making traumatic choices big and small so that argument you have with your spouse that may not be a mess you're not going to end up in a divorce it may just be a little tiff but that still creates a level of trauma in both of you and needs to be managed so otherwise it influences the rest of the day because in that five minutes that you've had that five times 60 times a million that's how many cells you've just messed up yeah you see and that accumulates over time but if i catch it if i capture all thoughts so the instruction is renewing capture all thoughts for the rest of your life that you're living you are thinking thoughts you are supposed to be renewing so this is an all day long process so what i'm advocating is learn the system do the daily work the daily 15 to 45 minutes is to do the trauma work which we all need so you go from one thought to the next let me tell you once you do one thought you'll find the others you can be in this you can do say if you take 63 divided by 365 i think it's seven that you can do more or less per year it's almost seven that you can do per year so you do seven of the big ones per year in doing those you're training and disciplining your mind to then apply the system all day long which is increased self-regulation so that you constantly stand back and observe yourself which is connecting with your wise mind which is connecting to god which i keep saying is pray pray is continual discussion with god so all day long i have got to the point where i can tell you with the research that if you do this you can become eighty percent efficient and more it's of catching all your thoughts literally every ten seconds so from the time you wake up you can catch if you're full you can catch you can also instead of letting that mess persist for an hour or all day you catch it in seconds and you fix it that is true pray because to fix it you have to connect your wisdom and wisdom has to be plugged into wisdom yeah so that's the process does that make sense to me yeah and i and what i hear you saying too is that we the beginning may be more difficult but once you've done it once once you've done it so easy then all of a sudden it gets to be like you know almost secondhand yeah and yeah and what you're because your br mind is moving well you've wired it in you've wired the pattern so as you learn the system on dealing with a toxic issue you're learning the system so not only are you fixing the issue but you're also wiring in the system so all your circuitry in your brain is learning the system so when the more you do it the more you redesign the lattice of your brain you build insurance into your brain literally that that you activate the brain in alignment with love so you as you use the system you are reordering networks that every time you do crash you can draw on that network so the stronger it is the quicker you draw on it the weaker it is the harder it is to drawn it so yes it's very effortful the first few months and but once you get into it you can't live without it and i mean that's honestly i can say if mac and i have a little tiff within seconds we have got it under control because we i'll tell him neurocycle he's got some of you neurocycle my kids will tell us i'll be in a meeting and something throws me on in my head in five seconds our neuro cycle so the neuro cycle's five steps that you can do in this very ordered way daily to deal with the big stuff but you can do it quickly just to help yourself run your day all of it's keeping you self-regulated and managed and so it's a system it's not a it's it's like a vehicle within which you can put all the little things you want to yeah i see it as a very practical way to do what it says in romans 12 which you've been actually alluding to a lot you know the idea of not being conformed to the world would be transformed by the renewing of your mind uh but a lot of people go oh okay well what does that mean well now you're saying here's what it means here's how it is not working around quoting scripture that does nothing you're using god as a genius scripture as a band-aid or as a magic potion it doesn't work like that you've actually got to do it you've actually got to look at my life and say okay i am amazing what's going on that's stopping the amazing let me and give myself the kindness and the grace because that's what god is immersing us in and in love i can fix but in judgment i'm going to fall apart and that's what people are doing and i get thousands and thousands of emails direct messages from people around the world i work with all kinds of different people and whether they believe in god whether they believe whatever they believe and i tell you i see a huge honesty majority of trauma coming from religious trauma where people are saying i love jesus and i'm still depressed i'm a bad sinner and i'm dying and i want to commit suicide and that's a simple summary do you know how many messages i get like that that we so that's why i punt this thing is you are amazing but the way you show up is because of it's not who you are it's because of so fix the big finder because of so that you can change and that's an ongoing lifelong process you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow that's going to upset you or make you make some bad decisions because you will so will i we're all a mess but the beauty is it's okay as long as you manage it see and that's what i love that you're actually saying it's not just seeing the scripture it's actually applying it to your life yeah you know actually doing what the scriptures say exactly otherwise it's just words wow dr leaf i want to say the things you shared today are mind-blowing and there's so much more we want to share with you so much more we want to get to you and we're so appreciative for dr leaf and her husband max stopping by crossroads but i want you to think about this she clearly brought out that in christ you're a new creation and that old things have passed away and all things have become new but how does that happen how do you experience that practically you do it by actually doing what romans chapter 12 says you're not conformed to this world but you're transformed how by the renewing of your mind and it's a miracle from god that you can do that it's a miracle from god that your mind actually becomes new and it changes your brain and the toxic thoughts go away and don't have power and the new thoughts give birth and have life and these are all god-given things that happen inside you and happen inside me at a mind-boggling speed so what you and i need to do is do what it says in second corinthians chapter 10 take every thought captive and now we now have a way to do that we have the background to do it and we have the promises of the bible to enact it and i hope that's true for you and i hope that's true for me and let's experience the miracle of every single day renewing our mind amen amen man that was like eating from a buffet there was so much knowledge there's so much wealth that we got from that and i hope that message really spoke to you and i love what pastor chuck the scripture that he kept referencing in second corinthians 5 17 when he said therefore if anyone is in christ he's a new creation the old has passed away behold the new has come and uh right now i want to give us everybody in this room those of you watching online those of you on the patio an opportunity to say yes to jesus maybe you're here today and you've been finding your identity and your worth in depression and anxiety maybe you're here and you've been weighed down by by so much stress so much guilt can i tell you that god has another life for us to live and because of jesus we could have freedom because of jesus we have hope we could have peace and so i want to give us all an opportunity to say yes to him i don't know what your story looks like i don't know what you came in here with but what i do know is in a room this size there are plenty of people that need to say yes to him and like that scripture says when we say yes to him we're leaving our old life behind and we're saying hey although i'm still going to have to deal with some of that stuff from my past i'm coming up new and i'm giving my life to jesus and my life is going to look different because i'm in a relationship with him and so i want to give us all an opportunity right now and so if you're a follower of jesus would you do me a favor we're going to get ready to pray and let's pray for those people that need to give their lives to the lord right now if you're here today and you've never prayed a prayer inviting jesus into your heart jesus wants to have a relationship with you so bad in fact god like i said earlier was willing to send his one and only son so we could have a relationship and jesus took on the cross so that we can do life with him and so i don't know where you're at today i don't know what your relationship with jesus looks like maybe you're here you need to pray this prayer for the very first time and i'm going to lead you through that prayer in just a second or maybe you've kind of stepped away and you've been doing life on your own you're like man i'm simply just not satisfied i need to come back to jesus so if you're here and you're a follower of jesus can we pray for those that need to say yes to him let's go ahead and let's pray god i thank you so much for who you are god i thank you for dr caroline leaf i thank you for pastor chuck in the interview that we got to have and god we just want you and i pray for people right now that need to say yes to you for the first time or need to come back to you i pray for the person in here that they're literally holding on to their seat so tight they feel like their feet are in cement they're nervous god i pray that they would say yes to you god i pray for the person that came in here and they're struggling god they had such a hard week this past week and they thought man maybe i should just throw in the towel and give up and i pray today that they would say yes to you and they would say that there is a different life a life with you that has peace that has comfort and god i pray for the person here that literally drove by today and i don't know who it is but they drove by this campus they said what is that building and they're here today they don't even know why they're here and i pray that they would know that heaven wants to meet them right now in this moment and so god i pray for those people i need to say yes to you if you're in here today and you've never prayed a prayer inviting jesus into your heart i want to invite you to repeat these words after me maybe you need to come back to him you've like i said you've kind of you said yes to him years ago but you haven't really been taking a relationship seriously maybe you haven't been living life as close as you would like there's an opportunity for you to come back to him as well so no matter where you are as a family i would love for us to pray this prayer together would you repeat these words after me as we invite jesus into our hearts wherever we're at online on the patio or in this building would you repeat these words after me would you say dear god i know that you love me and i believe that you sent your son to die on the cross for me to free me from hurt to free me from pain and so i say yes to you yes to the life you have for me would you forgive me of my sin and make me brand new i want to follow you it's in jesus name we pray amen amen amen and praise god for those of you that prayed that prayer but there's another step the first step is praying that prayer and saying yes i want jesus but the next step is making it known and this is such a powerful time i love this because if you prayed that prayer everybody that's already a follower of jesus we're just gonna stand there we're gonna clap and we're so excited because this is literally the greatest decision you could ever make we've all been there before i've been there before but something happens when you make your way forward and you're saying hey i'm i said yes to jesus i'm making it known and so right now as we stand up and sing in just a second if that's you and you prayed that prayer for the first time you need to come back to him i want to invite you to make your way to an aisle come up here i personally want to congratulate you and give you a hug and then we're going to invite you over here to our living room we're family which is why we want to invite you into our living we want to give you some resources so we could walk with you through this journey we're not going to keep you long at all but make sure nothing holds you back this is literally the greatest decision you will ever make but first you need to pray the prayer and then you need to make it known so can we all stand on our feet and if that's you and you prayed that prayer for the first time you said yes to jesus for the second time don't let anything hold you back come forward it's the greatest decision you'll ever make and all of us are going to cheer and so as the band sings if you need to come forward come forward and praise god for those that doing [Music] [Applause] [Music] his name is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] whose name is [Music] [Music] [Music] his name is jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] his name is jesus [Applause] amen amen can we give it up for what god is doing and man today was powerful and tonight or today i'm so used to doing night services today would you go out of here knowing that god's for you that god loves you and like we learned in the interview today let's take every single thought captive well church we love you so much and we'll see you next week god bless well what an amazing service that was and don't forget if you guys decided to give your lives to jesus you could text 77 or sorry you could text amen to 77247 we would love to get into contact with you guys and just give you guys any resources you might need and uh just help you on this journey as you make what we believe is the best decision you'll ever make in your life yeah and if this message resonated with you or if you need prayer make sure to put in the comment box to the chat section we have a whole team of people reading all of those comments and making sure that they're going to get in contact with you because we love connecting with you yes you guys are going to make sure to hit that subscribe button and stay up to date with all the content that we're putting out because it is a live why don't you tell us about some of that content all right wednesdays at 7 p.m we are live online we're also live at 9 a.m on sundays and then on demand right after that yes amazing well thank you guys so much for joining us we pray that you guys have a great week and we will see you guys next time [Music]

Channel: Crossroads Church

Views: 2,079

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Id: N_H8LgdpheM

Length: 54min 22sec (3262 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021