You Can Change Your Brain: Neuroscientist Explains How to Rewire Your Mind & Stop Negative Thoughts

26:57You summarized that brilliantly. Dr. Leaf, this feels like a great time to hit the pause button so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors. And as you've been listening to Dr. Leaf and you're learning how to clean up your mental mess and leverage the power of your mind to change your brain, I'm sure you had people that you care about come to mind. Please take a moment and share this with them. because we all need to know how to clean up our mental mess. And we're only just getting started, so don't go anywhere. Dr. Leaf and I will be waiting for you after a short break.

27:38Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins, and today you and I are getting to spend time together with psychoneurobiologist Dr. Caroline Leaf. She's here today unpacking more than 35 years of her pioneering research and clinical studies and teaching you how to completely rewire your brain using the unbelievable power of your mind. So Dr. Leif, the next question I want to ask you is this. While we're on the topic of your book, when I was reading it, I noticed that there was this whole section about how labeling a mental health issue, You know, for example, when you say, I have anxiety, I have depression, I have PTSD, that that's actually harmful?

28:20As a neuroscientist, what do you mean by that? Oh, wow. I'm so glad you asked this question. The last 40 years, we've had the biomedical model. And the biomedical model basically has taken our experiences as humans and put them into a diagnosis and a label and a treatment. Now that works brilliantly if you have diabetes or heart issues or anything like that. That model is medical. It's a good model. But the mind doesn't work like that because the mind isn't driven by the brain. So that model is based on the fact that your brain is it and your brain produces mind. Your brain produces nothing. Your brain is a responder.

28:58It's a host. And it just does what the mind tells it to do. And if your mind keeps feeding it all the stuff like we've been describing, eventually over time, cumulatively, your body and mind break down. So you become vulnerable to disease. And the research shows that 95 % of lifestyle diseases come from our thought life, 95%. So let's establish scientific fact. The labels of PTSD, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, they are, seem as though they're the same as something like diabetes, but they're not. They're not at all. The word anxiety, and we'll see this when we do the neurocycle and depression, those are not things.

29:33Those are emotional warning signals. They're telling you that you're out of alignment with how you should be feeling. And you need to pay attention, yes. Otherwise, it's going to get worse. So if you put your hand on the stove and it's burning, you can take all the ibuprofen in the world that you want and painkillers. But until you remove your hand from the stove, it's going to burn a hole through your hand. So what we're doing is toxic positivity, labeling, medicating. That's just trying to deal with the symptoms. What we have to do is embrace all the scariness, sadness, darkness of life, and you use that to learn and to grow.

30:09That's essentially what we need to do. So labeling locks you in because PTSD is not an it. It's a behavior. Depression and anxiety are not an it. They're emotional warning signals. PTSD is a behavioral warning signal. What does that mean? It's not an it. It's a signal. So it's not a fixed thing. So when you label something like diabetes, it's something wrong with your pancreas. There's insulin. It doesn't produce enough insulin. They can do a test and they can target a medication. When it comes to PTSD, it's not the same thing. It's not something that you can target specifically with a medication.

30:47PTSD is a big word for a bunch of reactions that we have to adverse circumstances. So whether you're in war, whether you've been raped repeatedly as a child, whether you've been in a tremendous socioeconomic strain, whether you've had a bullying relationship at work, all of that is not PTSD. Each one is its own unique story. You can't just take that hugeness, stick it in a label and say, oh, your brain is broken here. Let's fix it here. It's not about your brain. What is it about? It's about your mind. It's about the experience. So it's about the experience that you've had. So adverse response to adverse experience It makes you normal.

31:24And it makes you healthy. Exactly. And when you say mind, I want to be very, very clear that what you're saying when you say mind is you're saying that the experience that you had that was creating the traumatic response was recorded by the mind. It was programmed into the brain and the body and the nervous system. Yeah. and by labeling it and by focusing on it, you make that experience stay around. Locked in, you're locking it in. It's like putting a key and that's now, and then you're shifting to that and then that becomes your defining. How do you want us to think about it? Because you're a neuroscientist that has success healing traumatic brain injury and also healing other traumas in the brain and the body by beginning with the mind.

32:17So how do you want us to think about trauma, anxiety, and depression? Okay, so great question. So I want you to think about them as simply how you're showing up, as words, descriptions for how you're showing up, as opposed to diseases of the brain. They will impact your brain. We've heard that whole story already from the beginning, how whatever goes in the mind then goes in the brain and the body. And because our brain and our body are not wired for that, the network's not wired for that, it creates a disruption and telomeres and cells and all that breaks down. do we get vulnerable to disease?

32:48So there's an impact, but it's not the cause. So the brain's not the cause. Life is the cause because you, you aren't depression. You are feeling depressed because of, you aren't PTSD. You're experiencing PTSD symptoms because of, so we need to find the because of. Dr. Leif, as a neuroscientist who has been studying the way that you can use the mind to heal the brain and the body. You look at these as responses to adverse experiences in life that can become your default response to life because nobody understands how to use the power of the mind and the programming and energetic force that the mind is to create a different network inside the body that heals the response that you had to traumatic or very overwhelming situations in life.

33:48Absolutely. And that's what you mean by the mind has the power to heal your trauma, your anxiety, and your depression. Exactly. And it's not like they're going to just be replaced. We've got to keep stressing that. We're not just pulling out one thought and putting in another. You're actually embracing, processing, and reconceptualizing. Very different to just pulling a thought out and trying to replace it with a positive thought. You're actually looking head on at that intrusive thought that is associated with that. Or that response that is coming from a traumatic experience. So it's become your response to withdraw or freeze or run or whatever it might be.

34:26Whatever those are, you're looking at the whole cluster. That's exactly where you start. You start with the responses. Those are signals. And along with those signals, as soon as you look at the signal, the run, the anxiety, the PTSD, those - The heaviness of depression. The heaviness, those things. That's how you're showing up. It's a big, broad description of how you're showing up. And once you've got that, what neuroscientific research shows is that the minute that you're aware of something, that's when you start weakening it and you can change it. When something strong and stuck labels lock you in, that kind of concept or stuck in a pattern, it feels like you can't change it because you aren't depression.

35:09You are feeling depressed because of. You aren't PTSD. You are experiencing PTSD symptoms because of. So we need to find the because of. And then we don't need to, as I mentioned earlier on, we don't need to get stuck in the sinking sand of why did they do that to me? You'll become a victim. You won't move forward. But then I need to start, okay, how do I want this to play out in my future? I reconstruct. But then I reconstruct that thought. That toxic part of the thought has now lost salience. It's shrunk. It never goes away because I can remember what happened to me. But it's now instead of being a big...

35:43It doesn't hold power over you. No, it doesn't hold power. It doesn't hold power because you are able to leverage the energetic programming force Exactly. of your mind to go back into your body, brain, and nervous system and flood it with a completely different programming related to the experience, the response, all of it. And there's so much optimism about this. You call this five-step process neurocycling. And I just want to read from your book. This is on page 106 of Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess. So this is what the science means for you. You can transition from just being aware of your chaotic and toxic thoughts to being empowered to catch these thoughts in their early stages, manage them, and improve your overall peace and well-being.

36:35With appropriate mind management training and self-regulation, which is what cleaning up the mental mess using the neuro cycle is all about, you can systematically use your mind to take advantage of the neuroplasticity of your brain to rework and rewire your thoughts. And there's even more. You'll become equipped to prevent the development of toxic thoughts, reconceptualize traumatic thoughts, and change and improve all areas of your life, including managing depression, anxiety, and burnout that can come from chronic and recurrent stress, trauma, identity issues, isolation, sleep difficulties, challenges with exercise and diet, and so much more.

37:20It's incredibly exciting to see, and this is what I really want you to hear, that after 21 days of using this neuro cycle process, check this out, 81 % reduction in depression and anxiety in the clinical trial. 81 % reduction in 21 days, simply using the power of our minds and our thoughts and the energy it brings to reprogram the experience of our life and to completely change and reconceptualize trauma. How the heck we do this because there's five steps and I want to use an example. Sure. So intrusive thoughts, which we now are best friends, right? Yeah. Because it's signaling something to us.

38:10Exactly. And let's say that you're just like got something going at work and you don't have the greatest relationship with your boss and you're having trouble sleeping and you are chronically like feeling like you're going to get in trouble or it's going to be a bad day or you're not doing a good job or you're not going to make your numbers or you're not going to get that thing that you want or it's just, you just hate like bracing. You got a conversation with your boss today. You don't want to deal with it. And you're kind of in that negative loop. It's causing stress. You don't know how to shake it.

38:42How do we use your five-step process, the neuro cycle, in that situation? Okay. Great example. Okay. So first thing is gather awareness. Second one is reflect. Third step is to write slash mind storm, which I'll explain. recheck is the fourth step and active reach is the fifth step. It's not a technique. We're talking about a formula that helps you go from the signals all the way to the thought, to the root, reconstruct and change how it plays out into your future. Okay. So it's gather information. Gather awareness. Reflect. Write, recheck, and then active reach. Yeah. Okay. So first thing before, let's say now that you're about to go to work, the first thing is you need to do a mind-brain-body prep.

39:24And that you can do, there are so many different ways. So is this the like gathering awareness part? No, this is before that. Okay. So the first thing is to just prepare yourself neurophysiologically. And that you can do anything from a visualization to a breathing, to a meditation. You don't even have to close your eyes when you meditate. But one that really does work is a 10-second pause. There's a lot of science behind the 10-second pause. What is the 10-second pause? You can use, you count to 10, you do 10 breaths, but you can do it in any combination you want. So let's say, for example, you're feeling really angry and you feel that, and you think of the boss and you want to get that anger under control because that's the predominant like, oh, I'm so mad that I have to.

40:01Then I would recommend something like breathe in for two counts, hold for two counts, and then breathe out for six. But in the first three of the six, you say let, and the second three of the six, you say go. So it's in, hold, and then out. But as you count, and I'll count to six and you can try it. As I count to six, you're going to say, let go. In the sixth part. So let for - To myself. To yourself. Because I'm breathing, so I can't say it. Yes, you can't say them. So you're breathing. So - Okay. In one, two, hold one, two, out one, two, three, four, five, six. In the one, two, three, you say let, and the three, four, five, six, go.

40:45This is let them theory. I mean, it's like literally lines up with your let them theory. That oxygen isn't just breathing. We hear so much about breathe, breathe, breathe. You've used 10 seconds. 10 seconds is very significant in terms of the conscious mind. The conscious mind works with little bursts of 10 seconds. So the non-conscious mind works with an infinite speed. The conscious mind can only handle like one little conversation at a time, which is like a 10-second little burst of activity. So what you do is you keep your conscious mind in its zone, which is a 10-second zone. So you don't overwhelm.

41:18So it takes the overwhelm away. An unconscious can handle everything. And you can do it once or up to six times. So 60 seconds of that just to get yourself. So that's an example. So the 10 second breathing method that you just taught us that works for the conscious mind. Yes. Which kind of pulls you into the moment. Into the moment, yeah. And that allows you to then do this five-step process. You're now focused. Any moment that you feel negative thoughts, a negative emotion, a response that feels like a freeze or an odd edginess. You do the 10 second breath. And then how do we do the neuro cycle?

41:56Okay. So gather awareness is step one. Four sentences you ask yourself, what am I feeling? And you answer, I am feeling. And it may be one or two words, frustration, anger. Nervous. I'm feeling nervous. There you go. Then you say, where am I feeling this in my body, bodily sensation? And so maybe shoulders are tense, or your heart's beating faster or you're sweating, whatever. What are my behaviors? What am I saying and doing? What am I about to say and do? I can feel my face contorting. I can feel myself building up to snap or whatever. And then the fourth signal, what's my perspective at the moment?

42:31How am I looking at the day in this moment? It's going to be a lousy day. I can't handle this. I hate this. So you just gather awareness. So you very, very calmly stand back and observe. You're self-regulating. You are taking control. You see, what makes us feel terrible is all of this stuff just coming at us. It is so messy. It's just like all over the place. And then I don't know how to gather the thoughts because they're all over the place. But now I'm grounding myself by asking, how do I feel? And it's organized. It's not just random. It's very, very clear what your brain, mind, body, mind, brain, body network means.

43:06Okay, so it's what do I feel? Yeah. Emotions. It's where am I feeling that in my body? Yes, body sensation. It's what am I doing or behaviors in response to it. And what is, there's something about my face. Perspective. Perspective. So let me say that again, because I want to make sure that the person listening gets this too. How am I feeling? Where am I feeling it in my body? What are the behaviors, the thoughts and the kind of actions? And what's my perspective or thought about this? How am I looking at life? How am I looking at this? Let's talk about - Negatively. I can tell you right now, if it's bothering me, it's like death day.

43:41for me. There we go. So perspective is like putting on a pair of glasses. Gotcha. And if it's all broken and shattered and whatever you can't see. So what is your perspective? Life is lousy. Life sucks. Life, so it's an attitude. It's not a thought yet. Nothing ever goes my way. I'm going to be alone forever. I always screw up. Got it. Yes. It's always going to be like this. That's what you want to capture. So what you're doing is you are objectively in a very kind and compassionate and loving way, because this is okay. You got to kind of start out by saying part of that mind brain body purpose to say, it's okay to be a mess.

44:10All of us are messy. Most of us walk around for most of the day, not happy, just going through the motions of life. This whole thing of trying to be happy all the time has also been a disaster. It's really made people feel worse. So part of that first mind-bren-body prep is to really bring in an attitude towards yourself of kindness and compassion. And it's okay to be a mess. This is not Mel. This is - Well, I think if you even have the presence of mind to collect yourself and do the 10 second breathing, And now you're gathering information instead of running yourself over mentally. Exactly. You are being kind to yourself.

44:43You are, but you have some - And what I find like nine times out of 10, when I do this, it's the same thing. I've done something wrong. That is the core thing that it comes back to for me. And I think as people start to use your process - You find that - You start to find, it's like, I'm not good enough. I'm not lovable. I'm always alone. Like that kind of, for me, it's like, I have done something wrong. So once you've asked these four questions and you've gathered the awareness, The second step is reflect. What do you do? So reflection, if you think of a reflection, you look at yourself in the mirror, you see the reflection of yourself.

45:14There's also the concept of a reflection of light through a prism. If you shine a white light through a prism, it comes out with, yes. So there's depth and there's reflection. So you're reflecting on how am I seeing myself in relation to those four questions? So you keep very organized, don't jump all over. So you say, you reflect on why am I seeing myself this way? And what does it mean? So you look in the mirror and you go deep And you use the WH questions, the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, the how. Okay, so how do I do that? So why am I feeling like this in this moment? Why am I specifically feeling it in my stomach?

45:46Is it always in my stomach when I feel this? Where is this happening? Is it only happening at work? Is it happening before? How often is it happening? Is it happening every day or just now and then? So you just start the process. You're not going to solve it all. But it's very specific. I'm looking at myself in the mirror. I'm reflecting back and I'm going deep. Who, when, where, what, why, how. Got it. I don't have to answer all of them, but what makes sense to one. Now, those two, three steps, people are pretty good at the meditation, the breathing, all that stuff. They're pretty good at saying how they feel, but that's when people crash.

46:18Well, it's sort of like people who go to therapy for years and years and years and just get good at talking about their problems. But don't ever move to the solution part or the attacking the problem. Exactly, there's no moving forward. So how do we do that here? Because we're now becoming aware of the thing, the cycle that you're normally in, which is very important to separate yourself from it. Yes. And you're doing it in a way where you're calm. Very organized. Very calm, very organized. The next part is write. What am I writing? So now what we do is we go to, so I've got all this stuff come up.

46:48I've got my whole network's now activated. I can change. Now you're going to a writing mind storm phase. So I'm adding the word mind storm on because that's in the - Write a mind storm. Mind storm. mind storm. Gotcha. So it's easy. So this is like the tsunami of trash and garbage and toxic crap that's swirling in my brain. Related to what you've just done. Okay. I hate my boss. I've made another mistake. I'm about to get fired. I'm a loser. I'm never good enough. Exactly. All the stuff you threw out at the beginning. Mind storm. That's what you do. So what we did was we calmed, we gathered awareness very specifically, four questions, four answers.

47:23We reflected and started the who, what, when, where, why. So now you're very organized. Notice I keep saying we're bringing order out of chaos. Very specific. When you do that, there's all kinds of neuroscientific things happening now that has shone the light on that network. So now that network's got lots of branches. So that's what the third step's doing. It's pulling up all this stuff. And how do you write it? What am I writing? So you can, words, phrases, whatever. So this is where it's good to get a blank piece of paper, draw a circle in the middle. Draw a circle in the middle. Okay. Literally door circle in the middle.

47:53Okay. And this is what I call a metacog. It's a big - A who? M-E-T-A-C-O-G. Metacog. Metacog. Okay, I got a metacog circle right here. What am I doing with it? Looks a bit like a concept map or a mind map, if anyone knows what those are. No, I don't. Okay, nevermind. You start in the middle. Yeah. Not over here and work left to right because that limits your ability to think in a broader way. Oh, okay. So what am I doing in the circle? So all you're going to do now is you're just going to write what you think the thought of a hate boss. You're going to write their hate boss. So you write what you think is the sort of, what is the thought you're working on?

48:30What is the thought that's bugging you? It's I hate my boss or whatever. Or I'll never be successful. I always screw up. Like I'm always getting passed over. I'm never going to make the money. I want you to get more specific than that. Okay. Because this is not in life in general. We're going to go specifically to the example you chose. So this particular example, we're not going to go broad. This is the mistake everyone makes. All of us. This is not pointing fingers at anyone. We all do this. We go, whew, no, no, no. That's why my mind's a mess, Dr. Leaf. Because I go all over the place. All of us are.

49:01We're all a mess. Okay, so you're now got a work problem and you have a lot of stress around work. And so you're literally going to stay focused on - That, because that's what you want to solve now. Because you woke up this morning and that's the problem that's worrying you right now. That's your intrusive thought. That's your best friend. That's what's popped up. Dr. Leaf, this feels like a great moment to hit the pause. I have a ton more that I want to dig into with you, but let's hear a word from our amazing sponsors. And while you listen to the sponsors, take a moment and share this incredible, life-changing research with people that you care about.

49:33Dr. Leaf's work has helped millions of people clean up their mental mess and take control of their life. And this episode could absolutely help somebody that you care about do the same thing. And don't go anywhere because Dr. Leaf and I I will be waiting for you after a short break.

49:57Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. Thank you for taking a moment to share this episode with somebody that you care about. Thank you for being here and being interested in your own mind and learning how to use it for good instead of constantly using it to beat yourself up. And Dr. Caroline Leaf has got more of her pioneering research to unpack. And so Dr. Leaf, the next thing that I want to talk to you about is this. If I've got a mental mess and my thoughts are all over the place and I can easily go from one intrusive thought or feeling - I'm going to give you a trick to do that. Please.

50:28There's a trick. So it's called the thinker moment. Thinker moment? Yeah, as in think, thinker moment. So what you do is you think, oh, I don't know what thought you work on. My mind's everywhere like you've just described. So you shut your eyes, You close off the external world and you switch onto your internal world. That creates a beautiful activity through the mind-brain-body network that enables you to then just allow the free flow of thoughts. In that free flow of thoughts, what you do is you observe that free flow of thoughts and you see which is the one that's popping up the most in this moment.

50:57There's probably 10 things popping up or 20. Which one pops up the most? You know what actually just happened for me when I closed my eyes? What happened? And I don't even like have this issue right now with work. Yeah. But when I closed my eyes and imagined moments in my life where I absolutely hated my job. I mean, I'm talking, I was in my 20s. I was working for this big law firm here in Boston. I had left my dream job of being a public defender in New York City. I would commute in on the train. And like, as the train was like, the closer we got, I just felt more and more of a pit in my stomach as I would walk from the commuter rail, you know, through the blocks, past the Dunkin' Donut, take a right.

51:42I think it was on High Street, H-I-G-H. I would then walk up to the building. I would then go into the lobby. I'd say hello to Ralph, who's sitting at the front desk. I would get into the lobby with every other miserable person in a corporate building, and I'd go all the way up to the 17th floor. And I'd always contemplate that there was no 13th floor in this building. So they must've been superstitious. And then I would get out and I just felt dread. And when I closed my eyes and put myself there, it's kind of cool. All of that noise left. And I literally thought I'm stuck here. Like I have no, there's nothing like, it was this sense of, I am going to feel like this.

52:29I'm stuck. I've made the wrong, like, how did I, like, sort of like, I can't get out of this. And so it became so much deeper. Like you talk about the root, you talk about the program. You've taught us that our mind goes not just upstairs between the ears, it's down to the toes. Like when you close your eyes and do that, it goes a lot deeper because it wasn't about the boss at all. It was about this core feeling of being alone and stuck. And yeah, the dread. Stuck. And what you did was you allowed yourself to tap into your non-conscious. Your non-conscious knows exactly what's disruptive to you in this moment.

53:04All right, now, what do we do next? Okay, so you ask what to write, just. You would write those four signals. What were the emotions? Write the emotions down. What were the behaviors? What were the perspectives? What were the body sensations? What words came up? Just write them all over the page. They can be on lines, in bubbles, just put all over the page. I just had this huge insight about the stuckness. If you have an insight like that when you close your eyes, is that enough? Or do you still need to? Yeah. Everything that you do has branches and I'm starting to realize it's because we're not.

53:34Everything's connected. Yes. And it's also that you're catching yourself in the moment, but you're also doing the work of getting to the deeper programming. And that's why you need tomorrow and the next day. And you're not going to solve it today. You'll get control of the dread for today, but walk yourself through the 10 second pause. Walk yourself through gather awareness. Walk yourself through reflect. Walk you say, okay, let's have a look at this. Okay, Mel, let's have a look at this. Now, is this the recheck part? Recheck. Step four, we're going to reconceptualize. We're going to look at this from another angle.

54:02This is what's happened. What can we do about it now? Not forever, not next week. Now, how do I get through today? This moment, how can I see this differently? Well, today, maybe it's day one. So you might just say, oh, I just realized that because you described in absolute depth about the 13th floor, right up to the 17th and the high street, that your realization there, what I would say with your reconceptualization as you recheck this is, wow, it's imprinted so much on my mind. Every moment of getting to that office, to the 17th floor was pure and utter dread. And every day I just reinforced, it grew more and more in my head.

54:37Wow, that's what's happened. That's enough for the recheck for that day. Just that awareness on day one, tomorrow you can start doing some more on it, but just the awareness, wow, that level of detail, that attention that I paid to that process. It's linked to that dread. It's linked to, I'm in the wrong, I think I must be in the wrong place. I don't have a solution yet. I've got to go to work today. I don't have another job. I don't know if that's the solution. I don't know yet, but it's okay. It's okay to not be okay. So now what can I do? First step, active reach, actively reach for something that you can do to get you through the day.

55:10What if you don't know what to do? Because I think that's the thing, like when you first start this and you actually become present to what you're feeling, which is the first step. What is one thing that somebody who is starting to apply this to interrupt and to work this neuro cycle, which is you actively consciously using your mind to interrupt the negative thoughts and energy in these five steps. What is one thing that you could do as an an example of active reach if you can't think of something. So something really simple is just repeats. It's okay to be a mess. It's okay to feel like this.

55:52It's a statement, a phrase. It could be a visualization. And what you do, so it could be something as simple as, wow, I'm actually starting to see something well done. It could be a simple phrase like that. And you could imagine if you like to visualize, you could imagine a beautiful flower. And then what you do is you take the phrase, you attach it to the visual. And then as you go through the day, each time you feel the dread emerging, you're not suppressing, but you're going to deal with it tomorrow. And the reason you deal with it tomorrow is because our physical brain, body, and conscious mind don't have the same level of energy as the non-conscious.

56:24The non-conscious has unlimited energy. So it's always going to be popping stuff up. So it's always going to keep coming up. You can go through this and then just literally, even if you're like, okay, I'm recognizing it, this is a good thing, or I'm capable of figuring this out. Exactly. That's my favorite. I'm capable of figuring. You're reaching for something positive. I can mindset. I can mindset. I don't know what it is, but I can. Somehow I can get through this. I've got two things before. So it is to find something. It could be - I can. I can mindset. I can get through this. I can figure this out.

56:52I can create a different experience in my life. I can use the tools Dr. Leaf taught me. I can. I can use my mind to heal my body and my brain. Exactly, exactly. So you take that and then what you would do is, the key thing is you don't have to put it onto a visual, but you can, is to then every time that you go, as you go through the day, every time you feel the dread emerging and you just, you don't allow yourself to go there, you grab the active reach. The active reach keeps you anchored in the moment and keeps you, keeps that thought up with the deconstruction process happening. Then the next day you pick up where you ended.

57:25Okay, now let's see, what do I feel today? And then you go through the same cycle again. And so you move through. After 63 days, you would have recreated a new habit. It doesn't take 21 days to build a habit. It takes 63. The 21 days is the hard work. And then the other 42 days is much easier. Still the neurocycle. You do it daily, but it stabilizes the thought. And there's an up and down journey there. So for people to realize that if I'm changing a habit or I'm healing a trauma from the past, it's not going to happen in one neurocycle. You need a neurocycle daily. The first 21 days are hard, up and down.

58:00And then the balance of 42 are where you stabilize it into a habit. People are good at intending to change. but they tend to stop around day 14, day 21, day 28 because those are the days where you think, oh, I kind of got this. I've been working at this and I feel okay. But if you stop at day 28, you'll go straight back. If you stop at day 36, you'll start reverting. It's for people to know that in the journey, there is an actual 63-day process to turn it into a habit. It's like watering a plant. If you don't keep adding water, it's going to die. So you've got to grow that network. It has to be grown with energy added daily.

58:35And then once it's grown to a certain point, then you just do it without even, you are thinking, but it's become automatized. Habits are built one tiny bit at a time. You will not solve this on day one. This is a big issue. You can't just leave the job, as you mentioned. You can't just get rid of months of dread. And you're never going to leave the job, though, if you continue to allow your mind to power you with negativity and nasty thoughts. You're just going to become an unhappy victim person who's just victim mentality, nasty, unhappy, hate life, depressed, whatever. And you don't need to go there.

59:07You really don't. But you're not going to solve it in one day. And that's really key. I don't want to hear that. No, no, you don't want to hear that, nor does anyone. So the first 21 days is hard work. It's quite stressful. You'll go up and down. But tell me the good news, that there is amazing news, though, because just like you say, using this simple five-step process and even understanding that you can is a giant step forward. It's huge. But there's even better news here. Yeah, there is. And the better news is that based on your new clinical research and the new, what is going to be mega bestselling book, Help in a Hurry, you have also established based on research that you can in 63 seconds stop yourself from a negative thought or emotional spiral.

59:54How so? Yes. Okay. So it's that point where you feel like you can't do too much. You're going to, you know, just like someone says something to you and you want to punch them in the face. You can't punch them in the face, but you can get yourself back under control. The moments where - Oh, I got an email yesterday that was like, and I immediately felt like I was in trouble and that I'd done, here we go again, the negative, that I'd done something wrong. Here's that intrusive thought again. And it started to spiral. I felt it in my chest. I didn't know how to respond to it. I was slightly annoyed that this person felt this way about something that had happened.

1:00:31It was all business related. And what do you do in that moment? Because we've all had that moment where you literally get a text from somebody and you're like, and you just want to just text back all caps. And how do you stop yourself? Okay, so in that actual moment, the first thing that you need to do is to acknowledge it. The minute you say it, even if it's in your head, or you can write it, the minute it comes out, you take the power. If it's inside, it basically builds up the wrong hormones. It's like when you cry. If you're in grief and you cry, you're actually taking the hormones out that if you kept them in would make the grief worse.

1:01:07So you're crying out. It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. Okay, so I just want to make it. So something happens, and here's one that everybody can relate to. You get the text. Yeah. We need to talk. Yeah. And then your heart just, I mean, just even that tone, all of us have had that. What has just happened? Oh, no, what am I going to do? So it's in that moment that the first thing you're going to do is say out loud or in your head, this text makes me feel like this. It's the acknowledgement. I have to say it out loud? Preferably, but if you can't say it in your head. This text freaks me out because of why.

1:01:37Oh, we need the because. Yes, you add the because. Why is the because important? Because then you're giving yourself, you're getting it all out and you're giving yourself a reason. And as you start saying the because, you see, oh, maybe it's not so bad or maybe I can handle it because immediately solutions will come. The minute that you acknowledge and say it. Guess why I think I'm like because? Because I think I'm in trouble and I think I did something wrong. Like it literally goes back to the same thing. Then you go a little further and you say, okay, but why do I think I've done something wrong?

1:02:03If you can't answer, well, I don't know why, but that's their perception. They've obviously got a reason. I don't need to take it inside of me. So if you get the text, we need to talk, and then you feel the spiral. Step one is you've got to say it out loud. Literally, this text makes me feel like this. This text makes me terrified because I think they're going to break up with me. Exactly. And then as soon as you've done that, it's out. It hasn't had time to lodge. Got it. Oh, I love that. It's like vomiting. When you eat something that's like, yes, okay. That's what help in a hurry is it's vomiting out the punch of the person in the face, the pressure cooker moment.

1:02:39So you're getting it out. It's the tears when you're sad. You're just getting it out. You're getting it out. And then there's various ways you can deconstruct. So what I've done in the actual book, Help and Hurry, is I've gone through various scenarios like this sort of thing when you get the text in the moment or help them under pressure or help them in back and forth thinking or people pleasing or the intrusive thoughts, all these things that catch us in the moment. And there's lots of different techniques that you can use. And you just choose what. You don't have to use all of them. There's just different.

1:03:05but they all start out with this fact of let's first acknowledge this is how we're feeling. We all want to just push it down. We're in a society where suppression is kind of the name of the game. And that's not what we want to do. We also can't just have it come out and not do something with it. That's why I say when you let it come out, in that 63 seconds is enough time for you to say, wow, I did not expect this text. This text says this, this, and even read the text out loud. This is like crazy. This is making me feel like sick. I can't believe this. I feel like I'm going to get mad. I'm angry.

1:03:41I want to react. I want to say this and even write that down or say it out loud. I want to say these things. But this is not realistic. I can't do that now. I have to function. I have to see the bigger picture. I have to stand back and observe and see the bigger picture of this thing. And then what can I do in this absolute moment? So it's a mini-neuracycle. You're doing a mini-neuracycle. You've actually gone through all five steps. You're gathering awareness of the different signals. you kind of see what it generates. Wow, this, this, this, this, this. You're saying, okay, well, I don't really know what they mean.

1:04:08I'm going to find out, but I need to. And the act of reach would be, all right, I'm going to prepare myself. I don't think I've done something wrong. Or if I have, I'm okay. I can handle this. Whatever they tell me, I can. I can statement. I can statement. So that's the more or less thing. And then these little tricks that you can do. Well, what I love about this example and the way that you described it is it kind of brings us full circle. Yeah. Because when you can't ever control what other people are going to be doing or the text that they're going to send or the things that are going to go down in your life.

1:04:39And when you receive a text like that, we need to talk. That is input. And your mind, which you have taught us, takes that text from the outside world, translates it through energy into your entire body and every cell. Yes. Creating an emotional response. Yes. feelings and thoughts about the thing. And if it is immediately messy, negative, traumatic, scary, overwhelming, now what's happened is your mind has taken something from the outside world and actually turned it into negative energy and thoughts that then start impacting everything about how your body and brain function. And what you just taught us is that if that takes hold in 63 seconds, it sort of now is part of your reaction.

1:05:33It's in the programming. But if you can get it out and literally say, this text makes me nervous because I think I'm in trouble. You design a network because it's still going to go in, but you drive the neuroplasticity. How you're driving, what gets in and what doesn't. And then when you say, I don't like this, but I can figure this out. Or I don't like how I feel right now because of this text, but I can handle this. Like the I can thing now inputs positive energetic programming that reinforces a different network. Oh my God, that's so cool. Exactly that. And then you know what you've also done?

1:06:17You've bypassed the toddler just getting stuck. You've accessed, you've dived straight down into your wisdom. You may not feel it in that moment, but it'll stop you freaking out, saying the wrong thing, responding with a negative email, reacting instead of responding. It'll keep you in response mode as opposed to react mode. So when you do actually get in the scenario where they talk to you, then you're calm. You're resilient. You're not living in chaos land. You're living in non-conscious land. You want to constantly dive in and access the non-conscious. So I don't know what the solution is going to be, but it's in you.

1:06:53Right. But you can't hear it if you're in chaos. Right. So the 63 seconds is to get you out of chaos. It's great. And get you into that place where you can. It's really great. And, you know, I'm going to come back to this wiggling toes. I think there's something here. I love it too. Because I know you talked about visualizing a flower, but when I said the I can figure this out, I sort of just wiggled my toes. Perfect. You wiggled everyone in the ritual. Yes. But only to basically pull the programming down to the roots here. Exactly. And so I think if you were to do something like you're in the actual conversation, we need to talk and you start to feel the tense coming in because now your mind is taking the energy and interpreting it.

1:07:28You could literally go, you know, I know I'm feeling tense because I don't know what's going to happen. You're thinking this, will your toes and be like, I can figure this out. I'm going to be okay. Perfect. You got it. You get a signal that works for yourself. That's why I give you a million different techniques in the book. You work that out because what people generally will do, what we've been taught to do is breathe. Yeah, we know we're going to breathe. And the breathe is oxygen. But the breathe just shoves down the thing that I'm scared of that's already in my brain. Exactly. And notice that I said earlier on, when you breathe, you must attach the correct cognitive message on top of it.

1:07:56So you are breathing, but you can't in the middle of a conversation, you go and count, you know, or if you get triggered, you know, you can't like the sipping. You can't do that. People will think you, unless you, whatever. I'm going to wiggle my toes. Exactly. You wiggle your toes, you keep yourself focused, and then you just repeat it in your head. You repeat back what they've said. You pretend you're taking notes in the conversation, and you say, they just said this effing awful thing to me and whatever. No one has to see your piece of paper, but you've got it out, and now you redesign the network.

1:08:26You drive the direction, and that's what the neurocycle concept is doing. It's giving you the power to drive neuroplasticity. So Dr. Leaf, if the person who is listening after, I mean, the amount that you have taught us today, absolutely unbelievable. If the person listening does just one thing or takes one thing away from this, what would you want the most important thing to be? I think there's so many, but I think the most important thing is to realize that your mind is not your brain. and that your mind is the 99 % of who you are and that you can change. You can't change your story, but you can change what it looks like inside of you and therefore how it plays out into the future.

1:09:13Amazing. Dr. Leaf, what are your parting words? You cannot control the events and circumstances of your life, but you can control your reactions to the events and circumstances. Thank you, thank you, thank you for just, this is extraordinary. Thank you. You have a real gift in terms of being able to explain something so insanely scientific and intellectual and complicated in a way that I can understand, the person listening can understand. Thank you. I know that people are going to share this with everybody in their life that they love and care about because we all need your work in our lives.

1:09:57And I really, really appreciate how you broke it all down. And I feel very optimistic. And what's super cool is I believe you. Like I really believe that when you understand everything that you just taught us and you truly embrace the power of what your almost 40 years of groundbreaking research has proven, that you can leverage the power of your mind and the way that it's powering your body and your brain and its capacity to literally reprogram the experience of being you. Like how exciting is that? So exciting, isn't it? Thank you for seeing what I'm trying to do and what I've been trying to do all these years and will continue to do till whenever, never stop.

1:10:50Don't, don't stop. And I also wanna thank you. Thank you for listening all the way until this moment. Thank you for really investing time into learning something that is so powerful and to really thinking about the power that you have in the beauty of your mind to heal yourself, to reprogram what it feels like to be you, to make changes. So does everybody in your life. You heard Dr. Leaf say she's teaching these techniques to kids as young as two. We all need to learn this. So thank you for sharing this with people that you care about. And I also wanted to say, in case no one else tells you, that I love you and I believe in you.

1:11:30And I believe in your ability to create a better life. And, you know, I don't know that I've ever felt more optimistic about it now that I truly grasp the power of what Dr. Leif's research has proven to be true. That through the power of your mind, you can heal trauma. You can change your brain. You can change your life. and it doesn't cost a thing to actually do it. Alrighty, I will see you in a few days. I'll be waiting for you the moment you hit play in the very next episode. I'll see you there. I'll be waiting to welcome you in.

1:12:07Oh, let me wait until that goes. It's garbage day. I'm waiting for the big lift up of the dumpster and then they tip it back and then... It makes even more noise. Oh, they're still out there? Sounds like they might be gone. No? All right, let's try it. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God. I've never experienced it like this. Is it construction? Because it seems like construction. Really? It's making so much noise. It's hilarious. Yes. Oh, Shane, are you okay? Oh, do you need to use the process? Good one. She needs a neurocycle quickly. You need a neuro cycle very quickly. I love that. My mouth is like the Sahara Desert.

1:12:53And this is what I call a metacog. It's a who? M-E-T-A-C-O-G. Meta. Metacog. Okay, here she is, Dr. Lee.

1:13:11Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. this is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Sirius XM Podcasts