The Key to Finding Peace When You’re Overwhelmed, Anxious, or Stressed | Dr Caroline Leaf

Now, Dr. Caroline Leaf, what a privilege. Thank you for being on the Provoke and Inspire podcast.

Thank you, Ben. It's wonderful to be here with you. Yes. So, you are busy. You are in New

York. Is that what you said? You're currently in New York. Just got back from New York, but be on a tour around the country. So, book tour around the country. Yeah.

Okay. So, so what's going on? What What is What is new with you? My book just dropped. My new book um

help in a hurry. Um just dropped this week. So, we've been in a a very busy the midst of a book tour and launch and

very very excited because this work has I've been in the field 40 years and this is my 19th book and um this really is

something I used to do with my patients all the time was to help them to exit those modes where people where you feel

like you're freaking out and just losing it where the rug has just been ripped out from under your feet and you just what do I do in that moment of over

stimulation or people pleasing or you want to punch someone in the face cuz they've irritated ated you or you just

catch yourself in imposttor syndrome. you there's things or you get that shocking text. those moments, how do you

get yourself back under control and how do you get into them into wisdom so that you make the right decisions and choices

and statements and so on in the next moment and then how do you find out if these are patterns in your life and then

what do you do if they are patterns which are habits so that's something that I would do with my patients because a lot of the work I've done is

essentially helping people to understand their thought life understand what the mind is and we I know we're going to

talk about that understand how to rewire using neuroplasttois understanding mental health,

understanding mind management, all these things worked with traumatic brain injuries, two traumas, all of it. And

just being a human and what I found missing um in my writing was the things

I would tell people to do. How do I manage the moment? And Ben, it's interesting because at so many conferences and so many interviews and I

do so much media, one of the mo most common questions are two mo of most

common questions I get are number one, what's the difference between the mind and the brain? And I know we're going to dive into that. And secondly, what do I

do when I'm totally in an anxious, panic attack, stressed out moment, etc. So, this book help in a hurry. I decided it

was time to actually capture that from my clinical research and so on and practical um research, practical surveys

from people, put that into simple tips to help people to understand what's going on in this in the science of the

mind brain body connection and how can I manage it. So, that's a long answer. That's what I've been doing for this last Well, this is what I've been doing

for the last 40 years. Yeah. Yeah. How have maybe this is a funny question, but how have you managed

to maintain your own peace in the midst of all of the busyiness that I'm sure surrounds the release of this book? I'm

sure there's a touch of irony that that strikes you in the hecticness of releasing a book on

not being succumbing or being uh overwhelmed by the busyiness and huriness of the mind. How how have you

managed that? You know, it's such a great question and we and and and I'm sort of laughing and

my team is laughing because we've all consistently said to each other, you need help in a hurry, you need help in a

hurry. It's become such a reality in our lives because we don't just talk and myself, my team, we don't just talk

this, we live this. It really is. It's coming from experience. It's everything

I do is based on scientific research and clinical application. And that's really important for people to know. It's not just something I've made up or drawn out

from, you know, psychology, social media stuff. This is real hardcore stuff that has been scientifically tested and

clinically applied, but we use it. We live this. We we find ourselves saying, "Oh my gosh, now I can see where this

technique is amazing. Oh, I need that technique or so we live this. This is not coming from, as I said, this is

coming from reality." So, yeah, we do. So, we fall get ourselves up quickly. And I think that's the difference. We we

need to live an intentional and deliberate life that things are going to happen because they do. The unexpected

will happen. It's not a sin. It's not a that you're bad. It's not that it's just life. It's humanity. We make decisions.

We have free will. Bad stuff happens. Good stuff happens. The unexpected happens. That is life. So, we shouldn't

be living in this bubble thinking, "Oh, everything must be fine and I can just be positive and I can just pray it away and all that kind of stuff." And then

the bad stuff hits and you think, "Oh my god." And people's it's all over. you know that life is just people tumble and

so if we live what the research shows and it's a very it's a very spiritual concept live your life in an intentional

and deliberate way to recognize that things can happen and are you prepared do you know how to capture that thought

and renew your mind in that moment do you know how to literally build insurance policies into your psycho

neurobbiological network which is your mind brain body network psychonurbiology that's my field of expertise mind brain

body network spiritual body so Do you know how to build like these think insurance policies you take one for your

house your health etc in case and we live like that but we don't live like that with our mind and we need to

because sadness happiness jealousy anger frustration anxiety depression these are not bad things these are emotional

warning signals that give us information and if we get freaked out by them those

emotions that that create such strong sensations in our body we will then get caught in a trap and get stuck and not

make the right decisions and not tap into that incredible intuitive godly wisdom that we have inside of all of us.

It's that are at the core of our being. And so that's why I try and help people to really live that life and we live it

oursel. So the unexpected then wire these things in and that's what I've done. So, when we had situations where

we have a million things happening at once, things going wrong, getting stuck at airports because of travel, whatever,

travel issues and I've got to get to an interview or traffic or whatever, or just so many things happening at once,

we can reenter back and catch that moment before it becomes before you wire

in a mess into your brain. Messy mind, messy brain, messy body, messy life. So, long answer, but yes, with this is lived

experience. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a challenge. Why do you think there's a lagging

understanding between the integration between thoughts and our mental health? Like, and maybe correct that question if

it's incorrect. Do you feel like there is a lag? Cuz I I think in my life, we can not always integrate them or

recognize the connection between our thoughts and our mental health the way we should. And this is clearly something

you've devoted your life to understanding and researching and then making understandable to the, you know,

to the public. Why? Why have we failed to recognize that connection and how important is that connection?

Understanding your mind and thoughts is one of the most important things you can do as a human if not the most important

right because when you understand your thoughts and your mind you understand your superpower literally and I say that with you know just tongue and cheek as

well because literally your mind this this concept of capturing all thoughts and renewing your mind is not something

that you do now and then it is your life force. It is quite literally this ability that we have as humans to think,

to feel, to choose, to to create, to imagine, to um reason, to problem solve,

to intuit it, to have wisdom. This is an absolute underlying driving force of our

us being alive. It's our aliveness. It's 99% of who we are. And then we have this

beautiful biology, this brain and body. But when you die, your brain and your body pretty much disintegrate. within

milliseconds of you, you know, dying, your within 20 seconds of your heart stopping, your brain's already flatlined and starting to disintegrate. And it

isn't long after that that everything just pretty much everything shuts down. Point being is that your mind carries

on. And your mind is the collective term that is used for consciousness, which is the levels of mind, including spirit and

soul, which we can dive into. So if the majority of who you are, Ben, is mind,

which incorporates spirit, soul, and etc. And we we'll break that down and help people understand that in a moment.

Then we should be devoting 99% of our time to mind and to management of our mind, to self-regulation, to capturing

thoughts, to renewing the mind. However, our mind needs a brain and a body. A brain and our body don't think. The

brain doesn't think. The brain's not generating thoughts. It's not generating your decisions. Your brain is simply a

very very complex fancy storage place. Your mind uses your brain and your body.

Your brain and your body are responders, not generators of thoughts and ideas. They are biology. They're 1%. But we

live in a world, to go to your question, we live in a world in the last 50 to 70 years, especially the last 50, there's

been a massive move as we've understood more about the brain to explain everything in terms of the brain. So, if

you're depressed, it's a chemical imbalance. If you are anxious, there's a panic attack, there's something wrong in your your in your brain. If you've got

um up and down mood swings, you've got bipolar disease, there's something wrong with your brain. This is um 95% of the

world's population believe that if they feel any kind of emotion that's strong, even not even that strong, and just

consistent or strong and or both, that something's wrong with them, that they're mentally ill, that they have a

problem with their brain. The messaging from the world is that mental illness is something wrong with your brain, and

that you don't have much hope. You've just got to use some kind of tool, technique, medication, or whatever to to

fix you. But it doesn't even fix you, just to help you get through. And that messaging has create that messaging has

created tremendous disconnect because as we focus more and more on this physical diagnostic model of labeling and saying

it's biology which by the way works for physical things like the brain and the body and the heart and so on brain body

body systems but it doesn't work for our mental experience. Our mental experience is a whole different category. So we've

got this 99% of our mental experience. We've got this 1% of our brain and body

and the the biomemed model works beautifully for the 1% but it doesn't work at all for the 99 and yet we um the

the not we I don't do that but the the general main messaging that's coming through to the general public in all

spheres is that the the the same model of bio the biomedical model if you get a

symptom we label it we diagnose it we find the underlying biological cause we treat it with a medication that model

which works beautifully for biology ology is has been um concept the concept has crept over into mine the mental

health arena. So what works for the 1% doesn't work for the 99% but we're using it for the 99% and that's the

disconnect. So my work and honestly hundreds of us scientists in this field have been

trying to show people that this is not actually correct. It was never proven the biomedical model for mental health.

was never shown to be this success and in fact if it worked Ben I would be happy to use it but in fact it's got

worse. So mental health um has got worse not because mental health is a major

crisis it's because mind management is a major crisis and in mind management's a major crisis.

It will lead to a messy mind that's unregulated which will lead to messy brain because the mind just tells the

brain what to do and the body what to do and therefore messy lives. And so we need to understand mind, brain,

thoughts. What do I do? How do where's my level of control? And that's important.

Wow. Okay. So for as technical as all of this is, it almost sounds like there's a

metaphysical component in the sense that we have to tell ourselves or we have to

understand the foundational story or or at least if it's not just physical as

you said there's this mind consciousness component has the reaction been to go away from

that because as the enlightenment and materialism and secularism the mind is a

hard thing to explain. from a a rational or consciousness is a hard thing to explain from a rational

materialistic perspective. So is part of this a world view issue in terms of the

way the diagnosis has gotten off track because the fundamental story

doesn't necessarily allow for understanding this mind component and where it came from.

Absolutely. So rational thinking isn't necessarily materialism rational as humans. So just

quickly let's define you said that beautifully by the way rational rational being rational abstract thinking

reasoning etc etc these aren't the domain of the brain the brain doesn't do any of that the mind does it all materialism the concept of materialism

which is a very very dominant philosophy and has such a shaky scientific foundation and has pretty much been

disproved by physics and everything physics doesn't even really support materialism if you really look at

physics and I've spoken and worked with top physicists in the world So I I know

what I'm talking about. So materialism is seeing us as just physical. If you

look at us as just physical, that the brain produces the what the materialist says is that the brain and the more

we've learned about the brain, the more materialistic people have got. It's called neuro reductionism. Reducing

everything down to brain brain brain. And brain doesn't do everything. It only does it does a lot, but not everything.

Okay? It doesn't it doesn't do anything actually. It does nothing. It only does what the mind tells it to do. And it

doesn't isn't the where the only place where memory is stored. Memory is stored throughout the whole memory's in your fingertips. Memories everywhere. Okay.

So materialism doesn't recognize that. Materialism just says if you can't see it, touch it, feel it, hear it, um then

it's actually one of those things. That's the hard question of science. So if you look at things from a a perspective that the brain generates

everything, well then you're going to be stuck. You you you you want to get you'll get stuck. That's materialism.

And then there's a there's a form of rationalism that's stuck inside that materialism that doesn't see the bigger

picture and everything has to equate. So those people will say whatever they don't understand that approach will then

anything that they can't understand anything metaphysical is considered woo woo nscientific the hard question one

day we understand it and the gold standard incorrect gold standard is that once we find the bi biological

underlying underpinnings then it will be a reality. Now, that's totally back to front because even if you just look at

the research that they do to say that they've minds dominated the show. Simple

example, they'll put someone in an MRI scanner. They'll tell them to think about a happy moment um and you know,

let them experience the whole thing and read them a narrative or show them a video or something. So, they're doing

something with their mind. They're doing something with their aliveness. Their thinking is stimulated first. Then they

look at the response in the brain with a MRI or QEG or whatever or a combination

and then they say now listen listen to the illogic they told the person to do

some mind stuff and then they looked at the response in the brain but then they in the scientific papers they'll say oh

the brain made them think that right what came first you know it's like it's

and it's not a chicken and an egg situation this is literally mind came first mind is the creative force

recreate every next moment with the way we process stuff. We think, we feel, we choose. Choose is a is free will is a

key factor. Um, you know that you know the scripture I laid before you life and death, blessing and cursing choose life.

You you choose to get angry with someone. Someone doesn't make you angry.

You choose to get worked up about something. Someone doesn't make you worked up. You choose to get upset about something. Someone doesn't get make you

upset. So, in other words, you have creative power in your mind. Your mind is the force. The mind is to quote Darth

Vader the mind is the force seriously and and our mind has these levels and it's connected to the source and that's

where we need to pay attention and it's it is metaphysical but there is physics to explain it we have electromagnetics

we have quantum physics we have all these incredible ways of explaining it and I'll say one more thing just to support this there is more accurate

metaphysical or um research explaining that the physical um is is limited in

existence. Once you once this the soul goes on forever, the mind goes on forever. The re reality there's reality

beyond this physical life. When the physical body disintegrates, life continues. You continue. There's more

evidence for that than there is for materialism. And that is interesting. And that's what the general public don't

hear about. And that's why I do the work that I do to try and help people experience that because not everyone's

into philosophy. Not everyone's into understanding big words like materialism and reductionism. But everyone can

experience life and if they experience self-regulation which is bringing a thought into captivity and renewing it

on a consistent basis like all day long that's when you'll see oh wow my

superpowers in my mind I can tune into wisdom you know so there's a long answer but yes when we look at it from the

wrong angle we mess things up yeah that's that's so brilliant for and then can I just say one more thing

about this I don't interrupt you but I want to bring it into the church I work in all environments. Um, but in what I'm

seeing a lot of in the church and in any environment where there's a lot of rules and this is not meant as a criticism.

It's meant as a wakeup call. Uh, what I'm seeing is a lot of bias. Literally

the same bias that materialistic scientists have. I see that same kind of bias in the church where there is if you

mention anything like the word energy or whatever, there's oh that's evil, that's bad, that's new age. Energy is what

enables us to do Streamyard and have this conversation. No energy, no cell phone, no no Zoom, no Streamyard, no

lights in church, no, you know, no ability to drive your car. That's energy. You'd be dead without energy.

Energy is the source. Energy is this creative power. God is the source of all energy. God is energy. And so the church

has these rules and that that that limit people's ability to see beyond. So if

something feels slightly different, they don't question. They just immediately label and judge and all that kind of stuff. So it's to keep your mind very

focused on open. Keep your mind open to wisdom and intuition and you'll find a lot more

peace instead of thinking, "Oh, I'm depressed. I'm the evil. I'm a sinner. That's a bad thing." No. What is that depression telling you? Not depression.

You're not anxiety. Anxiety and depression are absolutely wonderful warning signals telling you that

something's going on in your life. And if you face them full on, you will get that information. Sorry, I just wanted to throw that in as a sidebar.

No, please. I I the more of you the better honestly. Um I've been reading

Miracles by CS Lewis again and it's really interesting because the first few chapters he deals a lot with the

non-materialistic origins of rationality and reason and how you just simply

cannot it's the reductionistic explanation of these things just it falls apart immediately. timing is

fascinating on both of those polarities when it comes to the church and I'm sure the

world and I'd imagine secular colleagues where I'm sure you're very frustrated at their conclusions based on what seems

like very obvious evidence there seems to be at the root of it a core of of

choice of morality of responsibility and I think both polarities tend to get this

wrong so I'd love your input on how much is the secularist motivated not

necessarily by a true belief in a purely materialistic world, but rather a desire

to be morally autonom, you know, have moral autonomy. And and or or or let me

put it this way, they don't want the responsibility that their choices could have impacted the place that they find

themselves in with their their mental health. Where on the other side of course you have the problem where in the

Christian world you know there's no sense of it being something that is just part of a sick broken world that needs

to be dealt with with science and help and medication etc. is choice and the

resistance of it or the overlication of it part of this conversation. Choice is absolutely key because that's

what creates. So choice is what creates. So my it's the act it's the activating catalyst or button or whatever you want

to say for for things to be created. We create we've been given creative power. That concept of secular this and

Christian that or religion that um that's something I I need to clear up because I see this it it doesn't doesn't

matter what you believe. Everyone falls into that same trap. So there's it's not that secularist thinking is this and

Christian thinking is that there's a philosophy that's applied that's different. But the same underlying um

thing of um victimhood um blame the devil, blame your parents, blame it

happens. Whatever you believe in it is a consistent human thing and it comes from the fact that as humans no matter what

you believe there is a um there is this this we have we we we have choice and we can

choose as we operate as as individuals in society. But at the end of the day I can guide you but I can't choose for

you. You can only choose for yourself. So you can no matter what kind of level of support or environment you grow up in, you make your own choices. And those

choices are coming from the conscious mind. And there's different levels of your mind. And the conscious mind is is

awake for simple um hang on I I need to explain the mind. But I just want to make sure that we that that I answer

your question because part of this this answer is going to be to understand the mind. Um it's really important and where

choice fits into mind and what mind actually is in a little bit more detail. But um you your direct question was can

you just re you just well and and maybe I didn't say it very maybe I didn't say it very clearly. I I

think that from those outside of a Judeo-Christian perspective, I feel like the difference

to everything being a physical problem in some part at least from my vantage

point seems to be a unwillingness to accept personal responsibility as part of the reason they find themselves in

the position that they're in. So maybe that is the best most succinct way to ask that question.

No, that's great. Okay. So the personal responsibility aspect it's that's what I was also trying to say and I didn't say it very I didn't clearly say it. So let

me clearly say it that thing of not taking personal responsibility is as strong in the church as it is in the

world. So it is across the board. I don't see any difference nor do other scientists that are in the field with me. Um it's a

human thing to not really look at to look for any excuse. The devil made me do it. Um the this made me do it. It's

my mother's fault. It's that one's fault. It's the society. I mean the fact is that we are affected by everything

that we live in as a human. You live in life. You live in your environment. You live in your belief systems. You live in

your um home that you were brought up in the nurturing. You live in a socopolitical economic environment. You

live in a country. You live in a philosophy in a country like individualism in in United States versus

more community orientation in somewhere like Taiwan or something. So there is all of that is your environment and it's

affecting you as a unique individual. It's coming at you as an unique individual. You have the power, the

ability, the skill, the brilliance to be able to stand back and observe. This is

who I am at my core. This is the influence life is having on me from my

belief systems to the traumas to the good things to the bad things to the everything else. And I can decide how I

want this to affect me and how I want it to play out into the future. And that applies to humans. And that can be

disrupted in multiple ways. It can be disrupted by a very materialistic view

which is one of okay you don't really have any control. I mean there's there's been a lot of popularity around I'm

trying to think of the scientist's name and then it kind of fell out of popularity about the there's been a lot of discussion that we don't have free

will as humans and that there's everything just Sam Harris maybeed well Sam Harris yes

but there's that other scientist that just brought out and his name will come back in a moment his books were all about two months ago um and he was all

over the place but his arguments are very very flawed and and other scientists even that other scientists

have pulled pushed pulled out the flaws and in any of those we don't have free will arguments. One of the main flaws

that is always consistently pointed out by the other side um of philosophers and scientists challenging those ideas um is

that you chose to say we don't have a choice and that's a very core underlying

then there's a lot more as well and then there's just the inconsistencies in science about physical generating um the

metaphysical and so on. So having said all of that, we we've got to recognize

um the essence of our responsibility that our choices have impact and this is where I love the field of psycho

neurobiology because psycho meaning mind or the level spirit spirit and soul and

there's I'll give you the sciency names in a moment and then body which is brain and body refers to brain and body the

biology. So psychonurbiology is mind brain body connection and what we do

with our and the order is mind brain body not body brain mind or brain body

it's mind 99% brain and body 1% and obviously because we live through our

nervous system we set up feedback loops so if I may I would love to just briefly

explain the levels how it works please do and where this whole exiting exiting a

triggered moment works and how we can change and what capturing thoughts. If I could maybe just take five minutes to

explain that or six minutes to explain that. Is that good with you, Ben? Love it. Anywhere you want to go.

Okay. Okay. I think it just help people understand um the concept. Okay. So, I keep saying 99% is mind and brain and

body are 1%. So, brain and body are physical. Here, those of you that are are listening, I'm holding up a model of

the brain. The brain isn't you. The brain is something you control. You are

your mind. So mind is unice, your aliveness, your ability to love, to hate, to question, to be curious, to um

to experience a sunset, to think abstractly, to create, to imagine, to intuit it, all those beautiful things,

to perceive, to see things in different ways, to change, to grow, to learn. That is mind. It is all that stuff. But

there's another aspect to mind. It also drives your physiology. So it drives all

the psychology stuff, but it drives the physiology. So, right at this moment, you are breathing. Oxygen in, carbon

dioxide out. When you're dead, you don't breathe. What controls breathing while you're alive? Mind. Your heart's

beating. What controls your heart beating? Mind. What controls your brain being able to process and wire networks

into the brain and the body? Mind. Mind drives your physiology. At this moment,

you are making 800,000 to a million new cells literally every second of every day. Your mind controls that. The moment

you stop physically living in a physical body, that stops. So mind drives your

psychology, your neurology and your physiology down to the chemicals, down to your immune system, down to your DNA.

So those cells that I spoke about, the 800,000 to million cells that you make every second, the qual those cells build

your organs and your organs build your systems and you make you you constantly rebuilding the organs of your of your

systems of your body. There's these cycles and scientists have even you know managed to kind of estimate the sort of

time that it takes to re rewire network rebuild um organs of your body and all that kind of stuff which is super

interesting. But your quality of the cells which means the quality of your organs which means the quality of your

system which means the quality of your physical nature and your physiology is

based on your thought life which is your mind in action. Well your thought life is your mind builds

thoughts. Your mind builds life into thoughts made of memories. So this conversation is an experience. Your mind

takes this conversation and builds all the details which are the memories of what we saying into a thought and that

is this conversation between Caroline and Ben about mental health or whatever it's about mind or whatever you label it. So your mind does that then your

mind takes makes and it's literally if you can imagine if if I do a circle around me that's kind of what we we

don't know for sure but what we estimate that your particular electromagnetic gravitational quantum field of your mind

is using physics terms and you have yours and I have mine and then we interact so we each have this uniqueness

and it goes through our body as well driving all this physiology and stuff. So and and in this mind zone as you

listen as people are listening to me at 400 billion actions per second and foster my words your words are memories

that are accumulating into a little cloud of energy which is a thought. So we've got these each experience we have

are these little clouds if you can visualize around you and through you and as your as you make them with your mind

as soon as they are as they being made they get copied and put into the brain literally like a little energy flow into

the brain and as soon as that energy flow hits the brain the brain responds because the brain's a responder and it

will respond electromagnetically and chemically neurochemically genetically and that makes something because our

mind makes physical And what physical thing does it make? It makes little proteins and chemicals. And

those proteins hold my words as little vibrations. I mean, this is what we're doing. This is the creative force that

is inside of us. So, if I'm thinking in anger, if I'm someone irritates me in that moment and I feel um the need to

get angry and oh, they make me so mad and and you feel yourself getting all worked up. That's what you put in your

brain. And that protein is not going to fold properly. It folds incorrectly. It upsets the neurochemical balance. It

alerts your hypothalamic pituitary axis which controls stress which is a great thing but only if you putting good stuff

in your brain but you put bad stuff in your brain. So now it's alerted. Oops, there's a problem and it goes into high

alert. Your immune system is activated. Soldiers get ready. Your heart starts pumping more blood. A whole lot of

physiology without going to hours of detail is responding. That's this is this is psychonurbiology in action. So

you with your thought life determine literally the health of those cells that cumulatively over time if you're

constantly getting angry and getting triggered by that political situation that social media those comments and you

don't manage it you don't capture those thoughts and renew the mind guess what you building all kinds of distorted

networks into your brain and body because not only do you build the little networks in your brain that look like

trees but you build you build into every cell of your body and you have 37 to 100 trillion cells of your body The network

travels throughout the brain and the body. This conversations in your brain and even down to your fingertips

everywhere. So if it's chaotic and I don't manage it, I am going to build this wiring into my brain. Cumulatively

over time that drains my physiology cuz God made us perfect. Our body's wired

for love. Our mind is wired for love. Our psychonurbiology is wired for love. But we have free will. So knowing that

we would make a lot of bad choices because you have to because that's how you learn. That's how you grow. You make

a mistake, we take responsibility, which goes to your question. Take m make a mistake. Take responsibility. Don't

blame the devil. Don't think I'm a bad big terrible person. Don't blame someone else. Take responsibility. That then

rewires your physiology. Changes the thing. You learn and you grow. You're on this earth to learn how to learn and

grow in love and reach out to humanity and contribute your gifts to humanity. You're not here to judge others. You're

not here to criticize others. You're not here to get mad all the time. And if you stay mad and in that mad zone, which we

see all around us in this country, all around us in the world at where people get so worked up, you are consistently

battering your brain and your body. Now, what does that do to your mind? Okay. So, your mind, you know, you're

thinking, "Okay, well, my mind's doing it. How do I control my mind?" Phew. We've got three, we've got different parts. So, we've got this one part of

our mind that's called the conscious mind. And the conscious mind is only

awake when you're awake. It's very focused. It can handle one conversation at a time. Like you and I couldn't have

concentrate if someone else was talking to us. That's your conscious mind. It's awake when you're awake.

And it has two parts. It has what I like to call the messy part or the toddler part that is beautiful. Messy in a

beautiful way because you're learning, hungry to learn. Think of a toddler always learning new stuff and making mistakes and and then the parent guides

the toddler. So I'm doing this with my hands. For those of you that are listening, I'm holding up my hands in

like a seessaw and um think of two sides of a coin. Visualize that one side is this messy part that you need to gather

the data and process it. And then the other side of the coin is to guide that gathering and d and processing and then

together a choice is made. So gather all this data in this up down way and make

kind of messy way. The guiding part is to guide that gathering of the data and processing and then collectively a

choice is made. Now all of that is informed by the biggest part of you

which is your non-concious nonscious. Unconscious is when you're asleep. It's a brain state not a mind level. Okay. So

your non-concious inner in your non-concious drives the show. Your non-concious is this phenomenal gift. It

is brilliant wise. Every memory you've ever built into a thought is stored there. It is your ability to reason

logically to think in an abstract way to create to generate to intuitit to get

wisdom and to know when you need to reach out to the wisdom from godness. I like to say godness because I think it

keeps the bigness of God in place and we connect it to the source of wisdom. But

we have to get into our level of intu in wisdom and that's through a process of reasoning and logic and creativity and

imagination and abstract thinking and then we get to intuition. When we hit intuition, we hit wisdom and wisdom says

I need more wisdom and then we set up this pathway that a Christian would describe as talking to the Holy Spirit.

That's pretty much what I've just described. Okay? But we have to do that. So, our messy mind is is very it's very

um it's it's very independent. That's the word I was looking for. Like a toddler is independent. That's why I use

it. And that you need to be because that's how you gather data and grow. But the problem is if you leave a toddler to their own devices, we all know what

would happen. They'd hurt themselves all the time. Okay? So, you got to have the guidance of the parent conscious mind.

And the minute that the parent conscious mind starts guiding that activates the connection between the conscious the

parent or guiding conscious part of your other side of the coin parent mind whatever you want to call it and that

deep intuitive non-concious mind. You could talk about that as being your spiritual level. You could talk about

your conscious mind being your soul and you could talk about your non-concious being your spiritual. That gives you a

nice anchor in the wording that people that listen to this podcast are used to spiritual body. Okay. So in between that

we have the subconscious and the subconscious is like a holding room or a waiting room at like a doctor's office

where you wait for to to go in one at a time. The reason we have that is because

the conscious mind is is slow and um not in a bad way but it handles one thing at a time. The nonscious handles an

infinite it's no limit. It can handle infinite number at a time. So your conscious mind and body can't handle the

power of the nonscious. The spirit's too powerful for the physical body. So it has to be slowed down so that it's

slowed down and only certain things that are major issues in your life that you need to focus on good and bad um are

placed at any one moment into the subconscious. Okay. So there's this big brilliant intimate intuitive 24/7

powerful unconscious, the subconscious which is where things like a holding room and then the conscious mind. So now

what happens is when we start making and then the conscious mind puts all that into the into the brain. Okay. So now if

I'm triggered and worked up and someone's irritated me or someone's um said something and I catch myself in the

people pleasing moment and then being mad at myself whatever those moments that um all of that what was being said

by that person is first absorbed by the nonscious mind milliseconds before you're consciously aware. You won't feel

the time difference but a whole bunch of stuff has happened. your nonscious mind's filtered, neutralized, found that

the the the the me the thought that toxic thought that um this sort of thing

has happened before. It's activated. But not only does the unconscious mind find whatever's linked to what's currently

happening, it also has the solution. Let me stress that you have the solution inside of you. So, it activates the

problem with a solution. Puts that in the subconscious, sends signals via your emotions, your behaviors, your

perceptions, and your bodily sensations. And so by the time you consciously aware, you've already had a bodily

sensation, blood rushing to your face, gut, gut-wrenching, whatever. And um you've already and now you've got all

these you got these thoughts coming up. So you've got thoughts coming up, you've got sensations from your body. And this

is where we need help in a hurry. This is where you now in this state where if

you don't self-regulate, if you don't capture that thought, if you don't stand back into the parent mind, stand back

and observe, which is a skill that we have as humans and need to develop more. Mind management is self-regulation. It

is in that moment learning to okay, I'm irritated. I'm going to stand back and observe. Instead of, oh, these making me

mad, I shift to I am irritated. I stand back. I activate the conscious parent mind. I activate which connects me to

wisdom, reasoning, your intuition, all that good stuff. And now I can say, okay, I acknowledge that that person's

waking me up. I can feel it in my body. I'm going to take a few deep breaths, which is going to signal to send brain

waves to my brain and my body, signal to the different parts of my body that I need to calm down, etc., etc. And so I

get my physiology under control. Now I can focus on the thoughts coming up. And so and and then I can start doing a mind

shift. So in summary, help in a hurry. I give you a process with lots of techniques. So if you find yourself

shifting into people pleasing or if you find yourself getting angry or if you find yourself whatever um thing black

and white thinking, wanting to punch someone in the face, imposter syndrome, all these things that can trip us up,

regret cycles, big one, feeling under pressure, feeling totally stressed out, exhausted. When we have those trigger

moments, we can practice in that 60 seconds. In that minute we can practice

aha instead of being consumed and drawn in and getting stuck in the 1%. If I do

that I ignore the parent the messy part gets more messy and then I create a loop

between the conscious mind and the brain and the brain just does what the mind tells it to do. So now we get a messy

reaction in the brain. We get consumed, we get lost, we get more depressed, more anxious, we fight more, we suppress it

for a moment and then it comes back again and we live in these loops which is just such a waste of time and eventually build up to to illness and

mental challenges and so on. Or I can say, okay, in these next 60 seconds I'm going to stand back and I'm going to

observe myself. I see I'm frustrated, so I'm going to mind hack. Okay, I'm going

to use a mind hack. I'm and I acknowledge Caroline, you're frustrated. That person said something that really upset you. You're going to shift into

people pleasing. So you don't ghost yourself, you acknowledge that immediately gives you power, changes your psychon, neurobiology. You're in

the driver's seat. You can do some breathing which signals and calms down the brain waves and all that stuff. And then you can do a mind shift which is

okay. I choose to be angry or irritated or I choose not to be. I choose in this moment not to be. I choose to go and do

something else for a few minutes or I choose to just keep quiet in the meeting and let them mouth off but I'm not going

to absorb it and then whatever. So it's it's basically the mind hack and mind shift and I explain the process very

care clearly in the book with lots of techniques but that's the basic underlying philosophy and the power that

we have. Yeah, it's almost as if you know we started this with the idea that the mind is of

course integrated in part of the body but it is something separate and part of what the mind is capable of doing is

standing outside of the body and having you sort and maybe I'm not using exact right vernacular but but but what I love

about what you described it's that in some ways the remedy for the mind is

to do the very thing the mind was created to do which is to be able to step outside of the process and say,

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, I understand what's happening here. I'm going to take the situation. I'm not going to allow it

to victimize me, but I'm going to establish rhythms and patterns to better

regulate what's going on here and take control of the situation." And it's so brilliant. The one thing I would say and

and you have very little time left so I I would be remiss not to get your quick thoughts on this before I let you go to

your very busy schedule is I feel like part of the world's trouble is it's unmed from a from the

source and it's unmed from the sense of what's true and so how much of the

ability to stand outside of what's happening to you can be done outside of a grounding in

truth about who I am about where my value comes from, about why I'm here.

All of these sort of big existential questions almost feel like the re-calibrating foundation required to

put that process back into place and take control of that. Again, I know I keep coming back to the metaphysical side. That is obviously my

area of passion and the subject of this podcast often, but what are your what are your and again, you know, we can

just you can just be like, hey, I love this, but I got to go. You can tell me at any time but thoughts on that before we end here.

Sure. Quick quick answer. So the mind is the biggest part. So the metaphysical is the biggest part of us and so we can

that it's knowledge. Knowledge is power. Understanding the mind not just quoting something not just saying bring all

thoughts but actually understanding what does that look like? That is where our power lies. And so this ability that we

have to stand back visualizing in the conscious mind the messy part's good but you can't get stuck in the messy or you

will stay messy. You've got to act. you got is as you stand back you immediately activate the parent mind. You immediately act activate access to

intuition and that's a skill you can develop. It's mind management. It's learning self-regulation. And um if we

we need to we need to make a choice to actually do that because we can get very sucked into the messy mind brain loop of

the over stimulation of technology information overload etc. So you can just absorb all the stuff but you don't

think deeply about it. We need to stop and say okay I'm not going to scroll through Instagram. I'm not going to listen to all these things people are

saying. I'm actually going to just take one thought and I'm going to step back and I'm going to think deeply. Practice

thinking people don't think deeply enough often enough. Mind management is a skill that is critical and it involves

stand back, think deeply. Don't react. And that's why I hope with with with

this book to just start training that because when you experience the success, I saw this with my patients. I've seen this in research. When you experience

success with just the one little thing in 60 seconds, you can you can change your life. Then it takes around 7 days

to identify a pattern. So if you see, gosh, I keep getting wired and worked up by this the I'm sucking I'm getting

sucked into the social media pattern. It's exhausting me. Um I want to see is this a pattern? So you catch yourself in

the moment. You learn a technique from the from the book and then catch yourself in the moment. The book trains

you how to get into the conscious into the conscious guiding mind and access the intuitive mind. Then then it trains

you how to look for a pattern. It takes seven days to ident more or less seven days to identify a pattern. So I've

given you tables and things but watch yourself. How often do I do it? Where the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, the how. If it's a pattern,

it's a habit. If it's a habit, it's been there. You you took at least 63 days to wire it in. Habits don't build in 21.

They build in 63. So I've done a lot of research on that. I've got books on that. I have an app called the neuroscycle app. I refer to it in this

book. I teach a basic form of it in this book too. It's the underlying principles of how you rewire, how you capture a

thought, how you stand back, capture the thought and rewire it. It's it's the process. The neuroscycles is the

process. You use it in a quick way in helping a hurry with lots of really cute techniques to to help you. And then you

use it in over 63 days in a in a slightly different way to rewire the habit. So start with the moment identify

the pattern over 7 days and whatever pattern is disruptive work on that over 63 cuz it takes 63 days at least from

the scientific research not 21 that's not even science that was just a myth 63 days to rewire a network okay so

there's there's the short long answer but people can find out more I mean I've got my podcast Dr. Leaf show I've got

all I'm on every social media platform Dr. Caroline Leaf. We put up a lot of good posts and things like reals and all

that kind of stuff. Lots of book. This book's available wherever books are sold. And I have drleaf.com is my website. And

my social media handles are Dr. Caroline Leaf. Awesome. Yeah. And we'll put all that up in the intro, in the show notes, and the

links. It'll be everywhere that you can find it. And when this comes out, the book will be out. And I'm assuming they can buy it everywhere and anywhere the

books are sold. Absolutely. Look, I know you don't have time and we're out of time here, but Dr. Caroline

Leaf, thank you. I I've said this before to when someone devotes their life to an

area of expertise and then allows the rest of us to grow and learn and benefit from that. That is a blessing. You are

doing great work. My prayer is that God uses you extraordinarily as he already has but even more. Uh so thank you.

Thank you for doing this. I felt like I answered we went over about one of 25 questions. It's probably pretty common.

Uh but hopefully we can do this. We hit a lot of those. We had great questions and I was aware of them. So, we kind of hit a lot of we didn't get

into the AI thing, but we you hit a lot of of the basic things, but I have a whole if people do want to know my

opinion on AI, I know you wanted to ask me, I have a whole podcast we did recently and social media post. So, they

go to my podcast, they'll find a lot of the things that you want to ask me, I cover in depth in in the podcast. And

this book, I talk about it in the book as well. So, Awesome. Well, there you go. It's the perfect tease. No, and thank you so much for your great

questions and I enjoyed I really enjoyed the conversation. So, thank you. Awesome. Well, thank you and uh yeah, I

hope you have a great rest of your tour and and great success on the book. Thanks, Dr. Caroline. Thank you. And thank you for your kind words. I appreciate them very much.

Thank you. Of course. All right. Thanks for watching Provoke and Inspire. If you enjoyed this content, could you do me a favor and hit that like button? Leave us

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for everything else. That's it. Peace. [Music]