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YOUR TRIUNE BRAIN! · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, everybody.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: How you doing this morning?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited about what we're working on.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: We started last week talking about your plastic brain.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: This week, what I want to talk about is your triune brain.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that your brain is a trinity.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And all I mean by that is, and all researchers mean by that, is it's helpful.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is oversimplifying to some degree, but it's helpful to think of your brain as existing in uh three functional components or areas that have specific jobs that they do.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to talk about that.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we talking about all this?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the deal, guys.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I want to help you change and I want to help you experience real freedom.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: What is real freedom?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Freedom is freedom that you don't have to you don't have to clench your fists to walk in it.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: When you're really free, you know, John 8 36, if the sun sets you free, you're free indeed, or actually.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, real freedom is where you you act in the ways, you react in ways, you think in ways, you make choices in ways that uh are in line with what you believe is true, fair, legitimate, and moving you toward what you want in life, what God wants in your life.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So if true freedom is the ability to make good choices, feel more often what you want to feel, and I just say that carefully because life does knock us around a bit.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal freedom is when you you get to where you do that without having to you know think real hard and strain, well, I'm gonna do this and I know it's the right thing, and oh my gosh, it's hard.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's not freedom.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you gotta do that.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if your tendency is to make bad choices in a certain area of your life, well, then white knuckle it to make the good ones.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not freedom.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Real freedom is being able to direct your life in the ways you think it should go and want it to go without it being like, oh.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, real freedom and lasting change, they kind of go together because lasting change is, you know, I used to make bad decisions in this area, I used to be codependent, I used to be, you know, boundary violating or unable to set define and defend my own boundaries.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I used to have anger issues, whatever.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, real freedom means God and the people around me and myself have worked together, and I've had breakthroughs, and God shifted things inside of me, and I'm able to act and react, think and do and feel, and it and it's not as hard.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: It takes time.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: But lasting change means that that's done in a way that I don't have to keep revisiting it.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like every week I've got to you know re-enlist in that war.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: We can literally think of it like climbing a hill as as we're working on the change process, but then once we get to the top of that hill, in some areas it is like coming down the other side.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the trick is there's another hill because there's other areas we need to work on.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm trying to say to you today is this I want you to learn how to experience and enjoy real freedom and lasting change.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe, as I've been at this for 40 years now, I've learned lots of things spiritually, I've learned lots of things uh in prayer and my own journey.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've learned picked up lots of tools for my toolbox and engaging with God and others to experience greater freedom.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the deal, guys.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've also learned from paying attention to the contemporary and recent research on things that have great impact on understanding change.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why we're landing on the brain.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the brain.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we talking about the brain?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, guys, everything you think believe, think, feel, and do, one way or another passes through, excuse me.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, sorry about that.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you believe, everything you think, feel, act, and do, and therefore the results you get in life, BTFA, remember, believe, think, feel, act equals are your result, uh, has to do with your brain.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I want to talk about briefly this morning, and and maybe get into a little deeper next time is you have a triune brain.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: You have a plastic brain, meaning it can change, more so than we thought, say, 40, 50 years ago.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: But you it helps to understand you have a triune brain.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's helpful, I've found, in my own life and in counseling, to think about that your brain has three kind of functional control centers, you might call it.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And very important thought, it's not like they're this big happy family, and they, oh, is that how you want to go?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll support you.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: They actually kind of compete for control, uh, especially in different settings.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So let me give you the three of them.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then, like I said, this week and maybe next week, we're gonna talk more about this.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this is like, oh, well, this, you know, you're not talking about my problem.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, indirectly, I'm talking about your problem, your challenge, your opportunity.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the deal: if you understand the brain properly, number one, you're gonna have more grace for yourself.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be able to say, oh, wow, that's why that area is a struggle for me.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I can know what to do and not do it, which is scripture.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 7.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: The thing I want to do, I don't do, the thing I don't want to do, I do.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: All right, why?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And some of it is because of the way your brain's designed, because of the way your brain learns, and because of the way your brain functions.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: All right, three parts to your brain.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And again, this is definitely oversimplifying, but uh it's in agreement with most of the contemporary research that's out there.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the uh the the most basic part of your brain, we call it the reptilian brain, back of your head, top of your spinal cord, and it develops in the womb, inside the mother.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: The reptilian brain develops.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: What's its job?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is important stuff, it's what we typically call the brain stem.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I promise you this is important because we'll use it as we get going later.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain stem influences everything going on inside of you, particularly pertaining to sustaining life.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: The brainstem, the reptilian brain, they call it, uh, regulates breathing, your eating cycles, your sleeping cycles.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now think about this.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Inside the mother's womb, you're waking up prompts and cycles, you're crying, you're urinating, bowel movements, everything.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Your life-sustaining functions are managed, if you will, in your brain's stem.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, why is that important?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain's uh we'll call it lazy, but what we what I really mean is your brain desires to conserve energy.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, what it likes to do is package information in in scripts, you might call them, and store them the deeper the better, because like your breathing, your heart rate, etc.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Eastern religions, you can learn to get down there and manage some of that.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth of the matter is, most of us, those kind of functions are happening way below the conscious level.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, why is that important?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because things can happen in our life, traumas and different things, that can disrupt the development of those functions.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Just think about something as simple as um sleeping.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, imagine a mother with a child in her womb, and life is chaotic and traumatic and and and horrible, uh, and it affects her life rhythms.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't see why it's a stretch for us to understand that it's probably gonna affect that baby in her womb's rhythms.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: As her brain stem, the baby, him or her, is developing its rhythm, it's gonna affect that child's ability later to uh regulate its sleep rhythms.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna sit there and scratch our head and do all kinds of craziness looking for a solution when it it may be hidden in a place that's can be a little tricky to find.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, time's an issue, don't have any left.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um what I want to talk to you about is these three parts of the brain.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it important?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because some of you do things that afterwards or during, you look at it and you say, Oh my gosh, why am I doing this again?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And in the third part of the brain we're gonna talk about, the thinking part, you know the behavior's wrong, but you keep doing it.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably being triggered in one of the other two parts of your brain.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And why is that important?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because it affects number one, how you understand it and therefore how you give grace to yourself and others.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, it affects how you set about changing it.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, that's what we're about real freedom and lasting change.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna dig into the brain for the next few weeks, and uh God's gonna use it to help us, I promise you.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: It has helped me immensely in my own life and in my work with other people.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Alright?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Love you guys.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Later.