Change Your Brain Every Day - Are You Giving Those Close to You Enough Room to Change? With Guy Finley

Episode Date: February 7, 2019

Let’s face it, if we want someone else to change, just telling them that they need to change is probably not going to get results. So what’s the alternative? In the fourth and final episode of a series with Relationship Magic author Guy Finley, Dr. Daniel Amen and Finley discuss how leaving space for objective realizations can be crucial in helping others make better decisions for themselves.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Well, welcome back. And this is our last podcast with Guy Finley, and I've enjoyed this so much. Thank you for doing this with me. He's an internationally best-selling author, teacher, the author of a new book called Relationship Magic, Waking Up Together. And it's not just about intimate relationships. It's really about all relationships.

That how we react sort of matters. And during the break, I was showing him a scan of one of my patients who had decreased activity in his left temporal lobe, which often goes with mood instability, irritability, dark thoughts, and low activity in his frontal lobes, which means he really is not good at controlling what he says. Jerry Seinfeld once said, the brain is a sneaky organ. We all have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that nobody should ever hear. And the front part of our brain is the brake. So if I get a thought about Tana that's rude, it prevents me from saying it.

My prefrontal cortex sees the future. And it goes, if you say this, this is the hell you're going to pay for it. So don't say it. So clearly there's a biology to this, but there's also a deep psychology. Incredibly, Danny. I'm enjoying this so much. Excuse me, if you weren't finished, go ahead and finish what you were going to say. I want to take this to practical things people can do. So the takeaways from the book that people can use today.

Yes. To help their relationships at home with their kids, with their friends, with their coworkers. What would you say are your top ones? I'm going to answer that, but I will kick myself forever if I don't say what I have to say right now. Because you said something I thought was so important.

If I understood, we have a sort of a mechanism tends towards negativity. And then we have this, our frontal lobe, which is supposed to mitigate what that activity suggests that we do. Correct. And that the mitigation is usually, as you said, I think about what will happen if I was to actualize what this other part of my brain is doing. So we're talking about a kind of a war, Danny, in our own brain. And I'm suggesting that there is a way in which, instead of mitigating the activity, we can integrate it so that the whole brain can't act against itself. Nothing whole acts against itself. And the work that I do,

and I know that you do, is about this process of integrating. Now, to answer your question, the idea that how many people have been helped by the discoveries you're making, so that the knowledge that you've gained as a scientist, a doctor, has brought into the world some understanding that wasn't there before, and for the new understanding, new possibilities for the people who will embrace it. So self-knowledge becomes tantamount. And it's the same when it comes to relationships with each other, with our friends, family, partners.

Relationship magic begins with self-knowledge. That's really what this book does, is it lends the reader new understanding about themselves that they have yet to realize lives in themselves. Examples now, when you went through some crisis of some kind, Danny, and we all have, did you change on the other side of it because people were banging you on the head because Tana was saying, be different, be different, be different? Or was it some moment where for whatever reason, suddenly Danny goes, you know what? Wow. I had no idea that that was in me and it was doing to me and

others what it was doing. So then in that moment of an objective realization, a transformation took place in Danny that nobody could have brought about and actually contrary that the more people were trying to control you to bring it about produced the opposite inside of you. People go, you should be different. You go, yeah, well, what about you? Well, one day I see I need to be a different human being. And then when I see I need to be a different human being, something that was disintegrated up here is integrated. Heart, mind come together, and I change. Here's the point and something practical.

If you want your partner to change, give them room to do it. You want the guy at the office not to be the same guy he is that looks at you and you feel disdain from? Give him room to see himself. We give each other no space. How would they do that? Yes, exactly. We give each other no space because when I see you looking at me, we just talked about it. What do I do? I look back at you. Same part of the brain, same reaction, same relationship, no chance. But if I actually understand that the relationship isn't because of the way you are, it's because of what we are, then in that moment I can bring

a new understanding and instead of pushing against you, give you room to see yourself as you are. I see something that's troubling me to no end, and we all have this with relationships. My tendency is to say to you what's troubling me. What if I understood that really what's troubling me, Danny, is what I need you to be so that I can be free of myself? See, if I actually see something like that, I know where the work starts. The work doesn't start trying to change you. The relationship changes by giving you room to change yourself. And how do I do it? By giving myself room to see myself as I am. It's such magic, Danny. You already know this in your own relationships, that this discovery of how I have actually

fermented the very thing that I wanted to be free of and the minute I stopped stirring that pot with this old reaction something new can take place and we can have a new relationship give your partner room to grow do you do any planting do you have any flowers or I know you're doing father yeah we know now because when I was young he had me doing it for okay all right well i get it never turned into a love for me but you understand that i create right i create all the time and the writing i do in the podcasts we do and can you continue to create and grow if the pot remains the same size or does it become root bound becomes

root back it has to have a new pot. That's what we're talking about. Realizing that in order for my relationship with my husband, my wife, the guy at work, the person checking me out of the grocery store, I cannot go into that moment with the same pot. I have to have room to grow and I grow, Dannyy by first seeing what it is in me that wants to squash the growth reactions are growing this is terrible what i'm going to say negative reactions are growth squashers how's that for a highfalutin statement but that's exactly what they are that's exactly true yes the more we understand that the more we will be willing to consciously bear the advent of this reaction and see that it is harmful to me first.

What is it doing to you? Obviously. And then we can begin from another ground. And this is critical because people go, well, how am I going to stop that? We don't try to stop it. We just want to see a little bit of it. The more I can see. So the more you can observe what's going on. The more you can disconnect. That's it. We just want to see a little bit of it. The more I can see. So the more you can

observe what's going on. That's it. The freer I become. The more you can disconnect. That's it. That's exactly right. All right. We have to stop it. What a joy. Relationship Magic, Guy Finley. You can get this anywhere. Great books are sold. And how can people learn more about the foundation. Am I allowed to, if, if a person goes to relationship, magic book.com, relationship, magic book.com, they get the book from any of the major retailers, but they also get a free audio book of me reading this book. Some people like to listen as opposed to read and a couple other gifts. If you go to relationship, magic book.com, you can get it anywhere, but I thought I'd put that in. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you so much for being our guest on the Brain Warriors Way. I loved it.

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