How Self–Brain Surgery Can Save Your Life

Dr. Lee Warren, our friend, is a practicing neurosurgeon of 25 years, an Iraq War veteran, and a trauma survivor. In 2013, Lee found himself desperately lost and in despair after experiencing a parade of traumatic events: serving in the Iraq War (conducting 200+ brain surgeries in 125 days) and returning home with his mental health and his first marriage blown up, developing PTSD, and losing his teenage son, Mitch, in a horrific way. At that point, Lee’s faith and future felt painfully fragile. Hopelessness shadowed his daily routine, and he wasn’t sure if life could ever feel okay again. Then, Self-Brain Surgery^® saved his life. It reignited his hope, rebuilt his faith, and restored happiness he never expected to feel again. Today, when he’s not performing life-changing surgeries, Dr. Warren helps people connect neuroscience to faith for radical life transformation. It is a crazy joy to welcome Dr. Lee Warren to the farm’s table today…

Guest Post by Dr. Lee Warren

My wife, Lisa, and I were having coffee and checking our emails together one morning a few years ago, and I received a devotional that I read every day.

The devotional message was a lesson from Psalm 126: “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy” (verse 5, NIV). The steam from my coffee warmed my face, but inside I felt something warmer that’s hard to explain in words.

An idea was dawning inside me, something that felt like new life being created as the overwhelming truth of that promise filled my mind. I said to Lisa, “It’s really true!”

Lisa looked up from her iPad and said, “What’s true, honey?”

“Like the psalmist said, when you plant seeds even when you’re suffering, you’ll later see the harvest and rejoice.”

“Explain that,” she said.

I almost couldn’t believe it, how so much truth was dawning on me at once.

“We couldn’t imagine having the strength to go back to work after Mitch, our son, died, remember? The pastor gave a message on this same psalm, but its promise felt out of reach.”

“It is worth it to choose a thought that leads to flourishing over the one that triggers a well-worn but sick synapse…”

She nodded, “Of course. We cried all the time, even between patients during those first few weeks back.”

“Yes. But today we’re harvesting with joy. Look what’s happened!”

I started to cry then, the tears that come when you’re remembering something hard that has a different flavor now.

“We were so broken we didn’t think we could even make it through the first day, but somehow, we did. God kept giving us the strength. We never failed to make payroll. Our business, our other kids, and our marriage made it through. We’re helping people all over the world by telling our story. And, somehow, even though it doesn’t make sense because we’re still so sad about losing Mitch, we’re happy again. It’s a different happy, but it’s just as real.”

Lisa thought for a moment, then took my hand. “You’re right. It is a different happy, but it’s deeper too. We’ve been through something impossible together, and we made it. It’s amazing!”

Lisa and I have fought the good fight of survival, recovery, rekindling of faith, and restoration of hope, but we had to change our minds first. We had broken thoughts, and we believed for a time that life would always feel heavy and impossible.

This is the art of self–brain surgery—rewiring your brain with the power of your mind to find mental and emotional healing.

But we learned the truth that thoughts become things and that we had the power, by God’s good grace, to create different things in our lives by creating them in our minds first. And that’s how we made it through, despite sowing with tears. 

So my message to you is this: It is worth it to change your mind, my friend.

It is worth it to choose a thought that leads to flourishing over the one that triggers a well-worn but sick synapse that produces anxiety, numbing behaviors, and the repetition of troubles that begin as thoughts and end up as unwanted feelings or actions.

This is the art of self–brain surgery—rewiring your brain with the power of your mind to find mental and emotional healing.

You are already practicing self–brain surgery with every thought you think, whether or not you are aware of or consciously directing it, and you can make the system work for you. I pray that you will practice this lifelong discipline to heal, help, and make whole the parts of you that are looking for answers. 

“You can’t change your life until you change your mind. And the good news is, you can start today.“

I hope this practice will lead to a higher level of satisfaction and flourishing in every area of your life, as well as in the lives of the other patient-surgeons around you and those who come behind you.

It’s not always easy, but you do not have to be afraid. You overcome fear by training and practice, and you have an incredible gift: God did not give you a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7, nkjv).

Self–brain surgery saved my life… and it can save or deeply improve yours.

You can’t change your life until you change your mind.

And the good news is, you can start today.

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