The Neuroscience of Fear, Failure & Rewiring Your Mind for Growth | The Brain Docs | 5 Questions

0:00Welcome to a new release on the show. This is the five questions to nourish the mind, body and soul. To get to know the person sat in front of me a little bit more and ask them questions they wouldn't normally have. This has become very quickly one of my favorite parts of the interview. Now we are re-releasing these because we released these months ago for our paid subscribers over on my newsletter, The Compassionate Cure on Substack. If you're not a paid subscriber, you will get these months in advance of being part of our community. However, we are now starting to release them. So enjoy. This is more of a personal connection and a shorter episode.

0:39But it really gets into the heart and not into the mind of the person who is sat in front of me. Deanna Isha, aka The Brain Docs, my favourite name I have to say of anyone who's ever come on the show. So I'm going to do our substat questions, the five questions to Nara Shaw, mind, body, and soul. And the only ask that I have for this is that you answer directly from the heart and not from the mind. Because most of us who come on this show intellectualize things very, very quickly. And I love that. But this is more intuitive as it comes from the heart. So are you ready? Yes. Okay. So either one of you can answer first.

1:19We'll see who's the most intuitive at each question. So what is the one thing about both of you that makes you uniquely you? I think for me, the most important thing that I value about myself, and values are critical. I know that we're neurologists and brain docs, but the most important thing about me is curiosity. Beautiful. I've always loved the fact that I'm patient and adaptable. and I think that comes from my background of traveling a lot as a child and being a part of different cultures and communities and so I feel that that is one of my superpowers if you throw me in a situation and I feel uncomfortable I can quickly find a lot of things that I'm comfortable with I focus on our similarities rather than distancing myself from things wow so adaptability as well.

2:18I kind of hear in there as well. Adaptability, patience, and curiosity. What a duo. Incredible. Okay. So you're smashing this already. So the next question is about overcoming resistance because it's a big area of our life and I'm sure you'll know that's really important for our brain health. So what's been the most persistent area of resistance in both of your lives and how did you overcome it? I know it's hard to answer in short form, but let's see if we can try? Mine is a fear-based approach to every task. And fear manifests in so many different ways. Saying no to things, the first word that comes to your mind is a no, or the anxiety that you feel when something new is introduced.

3:03That has been a big challenge for me. And I'm so glad that I have an amazing partner that reminds me or highlights that, oh, you know, this is actually coming from that fear-based pattern that you want to get rid of. So why don't we reevaluate the situation? That has been a consistent, it has been a challenge and I'm getting better and better at it. I'm reminding myself that that's a fear-based approach that is stopping me from being the best version of myself. I connect to that very much. I love that. And I'm not going to change from that because I think that's central, that's core. Our brain has infinite capacity.

3:42One, you know, 87 billion neurons, one quadrillion connections. It has infinite capacity. What stops us after a certain age of learning is fear and all the different manifestations of fear. As much as most people would look at me and think of me as fearless with my back, nope. We all have our fears that stop us. And as we get older, we develop language that is actually fear-based that limits us. So for both of us, and for me as well, paying attention to what fear element is stopping me from growing into that infinite capacity, what we all have. That's amazing. And also when I hear the word fear, I also very closely relate it to the emotion of excitement.

4:26Because they're quite similar as well. Although they're very opposite end of the spectrum, the emotion can be very similar. Very true. Absolutely. Absolutely. So this is quite interesting. So this is around small changes that have a big impact. So what's been the smallest change that has brought the most ease into both of your lives? So nothing huge, but something quite small. This is a wonderful question because I really truly believe in small ripples. They have massive effect. And the smallest change in my life that has had the biggest effect has been my choosing to go outside of my comfort.

5:08And it seems like a small thing. For example, in a party, I'm standing there and the one thing that makes me worried, makes me uncomfortable, I just take a step in that direction. So that sounds weird. Like why would a step make? No, it's that first step. even though it's that first step, it's that first line that you write, it's that first statement that you make, it's that first glance that you gaze, it's that first thing that's outside of your comfort. And it's a small little thing. But guess what? That sets the ripple for that motion that becomes an ocean. Without that first step, I know it sounds cliche, but it's not cliche.

5:57Psychologically, your nose start with your frontal lobe. It serves its function. You don't touch the stove. But guess what? We overgeneralize that everywhere. And if you take that first step and you make yourself that person that takes that first step, that first word, that first uncomfortable thing, that becomes the basis of your mindset. So it's the first step and everything. Yeah. For me, it's being okay with failure. Failure is not failure. It's not this huge, bombastic, devastating, catastrophic thing that happens to you. Failure is data. And I know that the cliche, flip the script, and we hear it a lot.

6:43It truly was flipping the script. And I attribute it to having Dean in my life where, you know, when you fail, consider that as a data point to change. And knowing that you have to make a whole lot of failure if you want to be someone who is significant in this world was so freeing. It just allowed me to continue to participate in things and try different things and not really catastrophize failure. I think that has reflected itself in my pattern of eating, my exercise, my relationships, my motherhood, my womanhood, me being a friend, a daughter. Every aspect of my life has positively experienced that because I just changed that definition.

7:37And we have two teenagers. And the central theme is you're not failing enough. Imagine how freeing that is. You're not failing enough. I love that. When I spoke to Stephen Bartlett, he's actually hired a head of failure on his team. Because he believes it's the most important thing for his company. And it's true. Both of your answers to my one question beautifully coincide. Because I think the faster that you can fail, so you're not scared of failing, the quicker you can put a step forward into the new kind of data point that you want to move out of your comfort zone. So they kind of work hand in hand.

8:16A hundred percent. They do. This CFO is more important than the other CFO. Chief failure officer versus chief financial officer. I love that. You just don't want to be failing too much in your finances. No, no, no. Yeah, so not to belabor this point. If you're taking life as data, the likelihood of failure becomes less. Well, think about AI. Yeah, data. Such a good point, right? Okay, so health transformation. So this is always quite an interesting one for everybody who comes on this show, because everybody who comes on this is obviously excelling in health. So what's the one health-related change that you've made, both, that has significantly impacted your well-being?

8:59So celebrating incremental success in health, patting yourself on the back if you eat an apple, removing that fancy schmancy couch and putting your elliptical in front of the library or the TV. That's a win. And I think, but truly, it is like the small changes that you make in your day-to-day life. You don't necessarily have to make huge changes. That has been amazing because at the end of the day, you count them and man, you made a lot of positive changes. Is that the ripples that James is talking about? For me, it's the superfood that I've added. It's greens, just greens. We're plant-based, but we never push that because there are all these diet wars.

9:50Why? Why the diet wars? Everybody agrees. we know that if somebody eats a cup of greens a day consistently, their brain is 11 years younger. That's not a magic food. You don't have to go to Thailand or some island off of Fiji to get it. It doesn't have a fancy name. It's just greens. Whatever you're eating, yeah, less processed is good. We don't need to get into all of that. Adding greens to your diet is literally the superfood. The data on that is not questionable by anyone, by anyone. So no need for diet wars. Add greens. And that has changed my migraines, my, my, my, and I know I'm against anecdotes.

10:34I don't believe in anecdotes. So, but I'll give you my, like the number of problems that I had that went away by just adding greens is just bewildering. And by the way, you don't have to, you know you don't have to spend tons and tons of money for this superfood which is just greens gosh i love that okay we're gonna have to talk about this more in the main show i'm holding back um okay so the last question is quite a profound question so it's making peace with the past so what's been the hardest thing for you to make peace with about yourself or your life in general I think we talk about this a lot, especially with the kids.

11:13We don't believe in guilt. Not because it's a soft thing like, oh, forget about guilt. No, it's not neurologically meaningful. Guilt is something that stops you. So my thing is not so much something that I can't align myself with the past. It's changing my mindset that was raised. All of us humans have been raised in a guilt-ridden world in every way. And I mean, that was a very blunt mechanism of control for parents, wasn't it? I mean, we had great parents, but still, there was a mechanism for millennia. It was easy. Fear and guilt was easy. So for me, it's been that shift from not so much guilt or coming in terms of the past is looking at it in even the most painful situations.

12:05You know, my high school times was pretty rough, even though I was a pretty good athlete and that helped a little bit. But I had some rough times. That's a separate show altogether. But looking at it and loving myself in that moment and seeing the growth in that moment and learning from that moment, not so much. And even the mistakes I made, even the horrible things that I might have done. But looking at it in a loving way, that flip actually allows you to love yourself in the bigger context. And that's what's important to me is that it's not so much coming in terms with the past, but loving yourself in the context of all those manifestations is critical because it's actually neurologically accurate.

12:51That's beautifully stated. I think it's similar for me. We spend so much time together, so I'm sorry if the thoughts are overlapping, but just reminding myself that there is no blame. Everything happened because of either genetics or the impact of the environment. And that completely changes my mindset from looking at the past as something that determines my story of myself and as just a point in time. And so I don't ever try to dwell in the past, which sometimes makes me concerned because I don't even remember details of stories and situations anymore. I'm always looking forward to the future.

13:39And I'm really enjoying the present. And every morning I wake up and I have trained myself to think of it as this incredible opportunity to do amazing things. And even if I make a mistake now or an hour later, tomorrow's another day and I'll do better and better. And so I look at myself fondly as this beautiful kid who was living in a complex world and sometimes didn't make any sense. And I've developed so much love for that little girl. I've developed so much love for the stories of my grandfather, my father, my mother, my siblings. And it's all this beautiful concept, even though we had a lot of difficulties and hardships, but the story is beautiful.

14:26And I'm just so grateful for all of it. I could not be happier that you both ended on that because the name of this substack is called The Compassionate Cure. and all of my work is dedicated with nutritional science to self-compassion with the science behind it so you literally and I talk about the neurological changes that happen in the brain so you could not obviously you could probably see the smile that was growing on my face as you were both answering this like I'd scripted you that you knew what it was about. Sarah I know that this is not in the structure, but I'll add. So we have, with the kids, I say, don't make yourself into something, live values.

15:07And one of the core values, one of the first values is compassion for yourself. I love that. We're going to deep dive into that now. It's not on my, it's not on my script, but we're definitely going to go into that because I'd love for you to explain more into the main show. Actually, some of the science that you see happens when we have self-compassion because I think it's the most underrated tool and it's one that we're not taught and we're evolutionary you know more wide to be critical so we really have to learn this I think and it's really important and when we can mirror it to others people find it easier because we can show empathy and all of those important emotions so gosh I'm excited about our main episode thank you you absolutely smashed that and um we're gonna we're gonna go into the main bit thanks so much for listening to hear the full episode there's a link in the description