Change Your Brain Every Day - I Gave My Pain to God — Everything Changed with Christine D'Clairo

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

In this week's episode, Dr. Amen is joined by music singer and songwriter Christine D'Clairo. Christine opens up about the trauma that shaped her life, the silent battles she faced, and the journey toward healing. From surviving emotional pain to learning self-worth, this episode is for anyone trying to rebuild themselves after heartbreak, abuse, or loss. Dr. Amen discusses her brain SPECT scan results and a path towards continued healing.   Christine D'Clario's newest book, Healing in the Desert: Finding Your Voice on the Journey from Brokenness to Freedom, is her memoir and guide sharing her personal journey through trauma and mental health struggles, offering biblical wisdom for spiritual healing: https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Desert-Finding-Journey-Brokenness/dp/0830791493

The Bible says you ask and you don't receive because you ask wrong because you just don't know what to ask for. You need to sit with what hurts so that when you ask the Lord, how am I going to fix this? And then he brings people and resources into your life. You don't reject it. Whenever I'm out of character, I have to go and sit with it. Christine DeClario is a Christian singer. Songwriter and worship leader known for her unfiltered honesty. Dr. Amen and Christine discuss the power of religion.

And how it can help heal your trauma. Most people will not enter the doors of an expert because they're too afraid of what they're going to hear and feeling that they have failed in some way to get there. It's the repressed rage that comes out in panic attacks, anxiety, eating disorders. Yes, which is exactly where I was. The lesson I learned in it when I came back was. Every day you are making your brain better or you are making your brain better or you are making. it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. Are you excited to optimize your brain and help the brains of those you love? Do you want to prevent or treat memory problems, anxiety or depression? Do you want to be happier?

That's why I created Amen University to take what I've learned over the last 45 years and help you, have a better brain, a better mind, and a better body. You can take courses like our 30-day happiness challenge, which was shown in research to increase happiness by 32% in just 30 days, or memory rescue, or overcoming anxiety, depression, trauma, and grief, or healing ADD at home in 30 days and much more. We also have professional courses and courses for kids, including Brain Thrive by 25, which was found in independent research to decrease depression and improve self-esteem. And as a special offer, just for our listeners, you can save 20% on your next course. Visit Amon University.com and use the code podcast 20%.

Christine DeClario is a bilingual worship leader, songwriter. She's introduced to me by Danny Goki. I'd love. She's an author whose powerful voice and authenticity have impacted millions worldwide, known for her passionate worship and honesty about her mental health journey, which we're going to talk about. Christine bridges the gap between spiritual devotion and emotional honesty. Her music has garnered hundreds of millions of streams as she's led worship across Latin America,

the U.S., and beyond, known for her powerful songs, such as on her album's Eterno Live or La Nova, Christine inspires healing across cultures. Her album, All That Remains, Hasta Poduber, was born from her journey through postpartum depression, and led to the launch of the Christine DeClario Foundation. Her newest book, Healing in the Desert, went available nationwide on March 3, 26. So welcome. Thank you. I can't believe I'm here.

I've been watching this show for a while. Well, thank you so much. And, you know, we were just chatting about your postpartum depression and anxiety. and almost led to psychosis, so it was pretty serious. Very. And being in the church, you wonder, how do I balance this? And I went to medical school at Oro Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I loved it to Christian University. So I got to learn medicine in the context of my faith.

And there was still that tension. Yeah. In fact, when I told Oro Roberts, I wanted to be a psychiatrist. He got mad at me. He was like, I didn't create a medical school to create more psychiatrists. Because there's that tension between evangelical Christianity and mental health, even though there shouldn't be. I'm on a mission to find out where did the crack start that men. made the church or communities of faith be divorced from the issues of the mind.

When there are so many instances, one of the most admonished issues in the Bible is renew your mind, take care of your mind, watch out what you think. Be intentional about meditating on this. Don't think about that. Focus on this. You will have peace when you focus on this and not that. And for some reason, and one of the reasons why you're, one of the reasons why you're I'm here is to investigate, okay, why can't science and faith cohabitate and glorify the Lord

together as opposed to being at odds with each other? I've never really understood why. Well, and me neither in the sense that, you know, graduating from college and medical school, and I'm also a child psychiatrist and an adult psychiatrist. Nothing I have learned in science has undermined my faith. In fact, it is a lot of the child. always strengthened it. Because if you think we're here by random chance, the odds of that happening, there's no way. You and I have eye contact and we have a relationship and that all that doesn't follow the

second law of physics, which is entropy. Things go from order to diswork. So it's never bothered me. But I think the problem was Freud. And because Freud and others have called religion the opiate of the masses. And many people have over-medicalized science and psychiatry. And, you know, if they say your faith is a crutch, well, faith is not going to be very happy with that. But for me, it makes sense.

We're all whole people. Yes. We have a biology. We have a psychology. We have a social circle. Mm-hmm. And we have a soul. We have a spiritual circle.

All four work together all the time. It's what I learned at O.R.U. And it's what I believe day in and day out. I mean, it's if you eat from the scientific standpoint, a person that's in a bed but his brain dead is considered dead, even though everything else is functioning. From the spiritual standpoint, a person that does not surrender their mind along with everything else to the Lord is in essence dead. So I really want to find that happy medium where we can all glorify the Lord with our gifts.

And it doesn't have to be well, science is not God or God is not science. I think science evidence is that God is great. This isn't by random chance. Absolutely not. the world has a creative design God and our belief, but you still have a brain. Yeah. And it needs to care. And you can have a baby or you can have a miscarriage and all of a sudden your hormones get out of balance.

And even if you are walking closely with God, you can want to kill yourself. Right. And that was my case through and through. So tell me the story and why you. you think we've met? Okay. So, 2018, at my six-week appointment, I was being discharged by my midwives. Everything was functioning perfectly with my body. I had just pushed out a nine-pound baby, and my body had healed beautifully. Within two weeks, I was jumping up and down on a stage, like nothing ever happened. But I felt issues with my brain, but there was a lot of shame

attached to not understanding what was going on with my mind and feeling things that were wrong according to my faith-based formation being sad all the time when I had two beautiful miracles because I couldn't have kids. I got healed by the Lord, had two. I finally have them in my arms, but I'm feeling sad all the time. And then that sadness turned into a sense of self-loathing because I thought that I was being the biggest ingrate. I was supposed to be happy. Why was I sad? And then slowly hopelessness came in because I was like, okay, this cracked me somehow.

And I don't think I'm ever going to be the person that I was. So my kids are going to be raised by a crazy woman. I was so stigmatized. I had no good terms for what I was going through. And so then the thought of suicide came in and I embraced it. because I thought it was the only solution to be able to care for my children well if I was removed from their life permanently, and it wasn't me the damaged one that was raising them.

Glory to God, he intervened, and my midwife, who was highly discerning and very smart woman, she figured out something was going on, in great part because she went through it, and she was able to figure out the small little microsigns, and she did an intervention on me. Took me to therapy, and it was in therapy that I started learning, about my brain. I had done a lot of spiritual work, but I had forgotten that I was faith-based.

I was a faith leader, household name for a lot of people. And I had forgotten that we have to be integrated in all of our parts. I mean, the greatest commandment is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and others as yourself. Well, I wasn't loving myself because I wasn't taking good care of myself, taking care of everybody, but not me. And the mind part was something that I just simply was oblivious to. Not because I wanted to. It's just because I wasn't taught that it was a thing that I needed to take care of. And so my therapist, who is very strong in her faith, but also brilliant at the brain, started slowly, you know, giving me seeds that I was able to cultivate into learning. And I have ADHD, so I hyperfocus and I love

rabbit holes. So when I had a question about it, I was a question about, I was able to cultivate into learning. And I was, I question about something, I would just deep dive into, okay, she mentions the word trauma a lot. What is trauma? So how, what is, why is my body responding this way? And so just trying to figure myself out. What happens when I think about this a lot? Oh, what's, what's neuroplasticity? Then I learned about Dr. Caroline Leaf and switch on your brain. And I read that book and devoured it in like four days. And I learned about neuroplasticity for the first time. Okay. So this actually does align with what the word of God. God says about our mind. So there's more to this than simply going to the doctor and getting

checked out and maybe leaving with an antidepressant. There is more to this. So you're fortunate because most midwives, most psychiatrists, they'd go, you're depressed, take an SSRI. Right. And it's way more complicated. Way more complicated. I'm grateful that my therapist was able to mitigate my crisis with the basics first. She said, we're not going to discard the possible need for medication. But first, I need you to go to the basics. Let's go down the checklist. How much are you sleeping?

Two hours a night. Well, that needs to change. I need you sleeping eight hours within a 24-hour period. And I laughed in her face. I'm like, how am I going to do that with a one-year-old and a newborn? I'm like, figure it out. but if you don't want to die. Did she get your husband involved?

Oh, yes. Good. That was phase two. Because I think getting your family mobilized is so important. Within three months, she got my husband involved. First it was, okay, what are you eating? How much are you drinking and how much are you sleeping? And it turns out, turns out that all of that was out of whack.

I fixed that. And within two weeks, I didn't have the urge to convince it. suicide anymore. So that was a plus. She said, let's hold up on the medication and let's keep exploring this route. It went well. Then within three months, she's like, I want to see what your support system is like. So can be bringing your husband and let's bring in the babies and let's meet them all? And she asked my husband two questions in session. The whole hour went by answering those two questions. And at the end, as sweet and gracious as she always is, she said, well, Carlos, I need to see you separately because you've endured a lot of trauma in your life that we need to heal. And by the way,

I need to see you two as a couple because we've got to fix some stuff between you two that are not necessarily healthy. And that was the most beautiful, arduous journey that we each had to endure. And we have since graduated from all three levels of therapy and learned so much. And we're at a point now where we have these loaves and these fishes that have come out of our process. So how do we give it forth and help other people to find help? And that is why I'm here today because I don't think there is a more impactful voice to be able to educate us on the brain than you. So tell me your goal.

So we'll do that. But what's your goal in coming and letting me evaluate? you and scan you? It's removing another layer of shame, really. Most people will not enter the doors of an expert of any kind because they're too afraid of what they're going to hear and they're afraid of feeling that they have failed in some way to get there. But what I keep finding is most of my mental health tendencies I was born with.

and this would be the first time where I actually see it visually, that there is an actual analysis, physiological analysis within my body that I can see, and I could put the face to the name. But in every other assessment I've had, these are things that either I was born with or trauma built it into me. And I've just turned into this person

that I didn't understand much up until three or four years ago when I started actually not pushing against my own current, but like just embracing who I am and letting me be me and let just let God flow through me as I am instead of wrestling with myself. That to me is a great part of loving myself so that I can love others well. And my goal is for other people to understand that, yeah, sometimes we do make bad decisions, and end up in bad predicaments, but sometimes we don't understand that it's just the way we're wired. And we're trying to be someone else or conform to something else that is not who we are physiologically. And then from there stems so many other things.

And if you never look at the brain, you never know. It becomes this huge sort of black box. But our work has shown it's not a black box and that you can understand it. and make it better. So I had you felt a lot of information. Oh my gosh, yes. And then you talked to our historian. And some of the things I took away from it, complex trauma, which we'll talk about, brain fog, since the birth of your children.

And a lot of women talk about pregnancy dementia, lifelong ADHD symptoms. So I want to learn more about that. We talked about the severe postpartum depression with suicidal ideation. And for everybody listening, because I've treated, I don't know how many people are suicidal, I always lead with, you think people will be better without you. That's a lie, that you would have gifted your children a 500% increased risk of them killing themselves. Wow. Because you're teaching them, this is how grown-ups solve problems.

You do not want to give them that option. And when you're depressed, it's like your brain gets in a tunnel and the tunnel has no windows and no doors. And so all you see is your pain and the pain you cause others. and you don't go, okay, if I do this, what are the generational consequences? So I make sure all of my patients know the generational consequences. And I think it's a very effective strategy. That's genius. I'd never heard it that way.

Because it's like it's not just about me. Yeah. It's about generations of me. and the better thing to do is to find out what's going on in your brain and to balance it. Because with a better brain always comes a better life. Yep. Right? So you've had some panic attacks, some premenstrual irritability,

having five sisters and five daughters. People go, oh, PMS isn't real. I'm like, you don't have my life. And with so many women, when they sink up and, like, it all happens, like, cascading one after the other, a man has no rest. Deja vu, which I found really interesting. You've had a bunch of EMDR. Is that true? A little.

A little. I've had a couple sessions of EMDR, but that's all it took. It's so powerful. I love EMDR, eye movement, desensitization, and reprocessing. one of the most powerful therapies to just sort of clean up the noise from the past. And what we see on scans is when you have complex trauma. Brain is very busy, but EMDR calms it down. Tell me about the trauma.

At the age of five, I survived sexual abuse. and it was strange because the way I remembered I had suppression of those memories because shortly after my father was gravely ill

and then he passed away by the time I was six and a half so not even a year and a half after that my dad passes away my mom remarried rather quickly unbeknownst to me my father already knew he was terminal a couple years before he died

and they had had a discussion. I'm not going to be here very much longer. Let me just live in the house so that I don't miss out on whatever time I have left with the girls. But find a dad for my girls because I'm not going to be around. So they did have an open relationship towards the end. And that's why my mom remarried rather quickly because everything was kind of set in place. So we wouldn't miss a male figure in the house. Shortly after that, my stepfather knew that we weren't going to be in a great area in New York for much longer, so he moved us from New York to Puerto Rico, where it was kind of a safe haven. So all of that kind of snowballed. So it was big trauma at the beginning.

Big trauma came second with the death of my father. My brain just absorbed the sexual trauma. And then all of the getting used to this new place, new culture, new family, It was very odd for me because I felt like the rug had been slipped from under me, and nobody ever put it back. So I felt like I was never at home anywhere. And then I've had this thing where I'm too white amongst the brown folks and I'm too brown amongst the white folks. So I never fit in. Gosh, I hear that so much. Because I'm a middler.

My father was white European descent. My mom is Afro-Caribbean and very Latina, and he was like very white. And so I have these both worlds within me that I can't shut one off and turn the other one on depending on what part of the population I'm with. It is sort of cool, though. It is cool now. And I know it's a really cool bridge because, I mean, I always have a great conversation started. But growing up, it was hard because I was either too tall or too white or my hair was too blonde or my eyes were too green. And it was, I had deformity in my teeth growing up.

So my teeth would, like, come out of my mouth and, like, couldn't even, like, close my mouth for a closed mouth. Smile. All my school pictures, I'm, like, trying to hide my teeth. So there was a lot of bullying that went down to for years. And so I just grew up believing that I was lesser than because I didn't have a father or because I was damaged goods or because I was just used to being rejected. And do you know that is the mother thought of suffering? I did not know that. I'm less than.

And it's public knowledge. I've been Justin Bieber's doctor and I've been Miley Cyrus's doctor for a long time. And of all of some of the superstars I've seen, I am not enough. And I looked at one of them. I'm like, then who would be? Right. Posture syndrome was real. In large part, social media is dramatically accelerated.

Yes. That not enough because we're always comparing ourselves. Amplification of compare. I'm the second son in a Lebanese family. Oh, wow. For a long time, like Prince Harry, his book is called Spare. Yeah. That's what I felt until I really got it.

His book should have been called Total Freedom. Yeah. I can marry a Hollywood starlet and Princess Will cannot. Yes. I have total freedom to do anything I want where Will's path is, this is your path. Right. And for me, my dad owned grocery stores, that was my brother. He was going to be in the store.

The air. And if you love that, that's awesome. But for me, no way. Right. But for me, it was total. freedom, but I didn't embrace that, right? Initially, you embrace your second as opposed to you're free. Right. Yeah, I get that. I was the firstborn, so all the pressure fell on me. I remember growing up being guilty for everything my siblings did. There was an instance,

and we say it all the time, and we laugh now. We grew up in Puerto Rico, and sometimes we would lose power. And sometimes the TV station would lose power and it would just go gray. Whenever that would happen, they would just scream my name. Christy! What did you do? I'm like, control the TV station. But it was everybody's default name to like yell at Christy. There was a season where I wanted to change my name because I'm like, don't call my name anymore. How many siblings did you have? Two. Two in the household. My sister who's 12 months younger than I and my brother who's seven years. years younger than I. She is mother and father sibling. He is my stepdad's son. And so just growing up in that

atmosphere, not knowing who I was or where I fit in was a common denominator throughout my life. Then I had a really rocky relationship in college. I understand now that all of the love and affirmation that I needed from the male figure of my father that wasn't there, I just thirsted for it in this guy. And I just put all of my love and devotion into this one guy that finally accepted me. It ended very badly. It was highly codependent, a little bit abusive psychologically. And it ended. And when it ended, everything crumbled and all the feelings of my childhood came right back to the surface. So I went through a season of a lot of passive, aggressive rebellion because I grew up in a church. So I was the worship leader. But when I was

in college, I was rebellious and I was doing everything I could that the Bible said I shouldn't do because I was just angry at God. Because if you hadn't taken my dad, then none of this would have happened. How'd you get on with your stepfather? I didn't really love him well until I was about 18 and I started getting some maturity and understanding a little more about life. But I rejected him wholeheartedly. He was not considered my friend. I understand now, I thought of him as someone who came to steal a place that was my dad's because I had a lot of unresolved grief. I bet. And if you tended to attack yourself when things went wrong, it's not uncommon. Yes. is when you're four, five, six, for children, especially for the oldest, they think of themselves

at the center of the world. And if something good happens, they sort of think it's because of them. If something bad happens, they sort of think it's because of them. There's this magical thinking and they feel pain and then rage, but then guilt about the rage. And it's the guilt about the rage that creates a lot of unhappiness because they feel like they're defective or that they're a criminal. Absolutely my case. Check, check, check, check, check. Terrible place to be.

And ultimately the healing is being able to get the rage out. That part. That part was hard. Okay, fast forwarding this story way ahead. I go through infertility, two years of trying, nothing happening, treatments left and right, nothing happening. The Lord heals me simply and beautifully at a prayer service, not for anything I did just because he's good and he wanted to. I get pregnant with my children, have both my children fall in postpartum depression, end up in treatment. my husband and I end up in treatment together.

In that journey, the memories of the sexual abuse, some had already returned to me in my 20s, but during this process, a really big one, which was a rape that happened when I was five, was unlocked. And for me, suppressed memories feel like an egg cracks. Like I can almost hear it. And then these memories just come.

I'm flooding and I feel everything all the senses and I relive it all over again. I have learned the power of forgiveness so I know that an instant act of forgiveness helps me to be free. So I went into that, but then when I came to my therapist and brought her, hey, I just got this memory that while I thought I had dodged a bullet, I thought I was just molested as a kid. No, I wasn't. So I feel like crap because I was thinking that I didn't have it that bad.

But now these feelings of I am damaged goods are backed at the surface. And I thought I had already dealt with that. But now I feel really angry. Because now this sense of protecting my little ones is kind of manifesting, but I don't know where to put it. And then she very kindly explained, yeah, your system. is wanting to integrate. Your five-year-old that was wounded wants to heal and wants to reconnect with who you are now, which is the grown-up.

And the grown-up kind of becomes a kind of a parent figure and a protector to that little one. And that's what your system is trying to reconcile. Let's explore it and let's walk through it. But I remember she was role-playing a little bit with me in session and she said, what would happen right now if the first person that ever molested you, which is what opened the door for all the other things to happen, what would happen if that man was in the room right now? And I transformed.

I turned into this murderous lady that wanted to like, I would like grab him by the head and I would hurt him so bad and I would snuff the life out of him and I would just watch him die. I would love it. And I'm like, whoa, what was that? That is not me at all. I am a little anti-violence. I don't like that kind of confrontation.

There's nothing about me that would do that. But that's what comes up. If somebody would have done that to your child. Exactly. That person would show up. Mama bear was like coming out. And we were approaching the end of session. Our next session was scheduled for a month

after. And she said, okay, okay, that's good. Your homework today is sit with it. You need to sit with that rage. And I said, what? Excuse me, lady? What are you talking about? She's like, yeah, sit with it. Like, I just told you that if a hypothetical person that's probably already dead would be in this room, I would kill him in a very horrendous way. And you're telling me to sit with those feelings of rage? Like, I don't, I don't want to feel. rage. And I said, rage is wrong. And she said, well, who told you that rage is wrong? Who told you that anger is wrong? And I said, well, it's not a very Christ-like feeling. And she said, hmm, so are you calling God wrong? And I said, wait a minute, lady, let's not go into theology

here because I'm still mad. And she said, yeah, because God feels anger. and he feels rage. And it's in the Bible. And he created you in his image. And now you have rage for an injustice that was committed against you. The problem is not the rage. The problem is where it needs to be. It's a suppression of rage.

That's where I was. I would not let it out for the life of me because I was afraid. So then it turns around and attacks you. Exactly. And I was literally. literally being self-imploded by these feelings that weren't, I was not letting them come out. I had a dam in place and I would not let it flow because I had understood that feelings were either evil or good. And you wanted to be a good girl.

Absolutely. I had to be. I was on a platform every week in a different country preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ with a smile on my face and saying, singing pretty songs. What did Jesus do in the temple? Exactly. I had just put that in a bag burner somewhere and I didn't want to address it because I didn't want to trigger something in me.

But the best thing I could have ever done was spent that entire month sitting with that rage. In some of the MDR sessions I do, people die. Wow. Because I'll take them back to like I'll have your mind get on a train and go. go back, bring your adult self with the child to that event. And if the anger could come out, where would it go? And doing it with the eye movements, the MDR, it just helps integrate it. It helps process it.

But you've got to feel it and not feel bad about it because if someone was doing that to your child or to someone you love, there is just no way you'd be okay. with that. And it's the repressed rage that often comes out in panic attacks, anxiety, eating disorders. Which is exactly where I was. The lesson I learned in it when I came back was I said, okay, I sat with it. And here's what I learned. I had pages in my journal of things that were just big revelations to me. And she said, well, that's exactly what I needed to happen. needed to be able to sit with it in the silence so that the only thing that you heard directed you and guided a path to where it was being birthed from. Because if we're going to be biblical about it, the Bible says you ask and you don't receive because you ask wrong.

And you ask wrong because you just don't know what to ask for. And she says, you need to sit with what hurts so you know where exactly where it is so that when you ask the Lord, heal me, guide me, how am I going to fix this? and then he brings people and resources into your life to fix it. You don't reject it, but you know exactly, pinpoint exactly where it is. And so that was a big moment for me, and it gave me tools to always figure out, whenever I'm out of character and my feelings are a little too much on my sleeve, I have to go and sit with it.

And that's not easy for me because I'm very hyperactive. I'm twitching and jumping and figuring how to do something out like inventing something or creating something all day. So sitting in stillness is not something that comes natural to me, but I have to practice the discipline. So I wonder if the ADD, so let's talk about ADD for a second. Yes, please. I have so many questions.

If it's ADD or if it's trauma. It could be, I think it's a little both. Your dad dies. You're molested. You move. There's instability. Mm-hmm. One thing I've learned after looking at nearly 300,000 brain scans is this.

Your brain is involved in everything you do, how you think, feel, act, and connect with others. And here's the exciting news. You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better. That's exactly why we created Aeman University. It's where we teach you how to care for your brain using science-based strategies rooted in neuroscience, not guesswork. You can explore courses on everything from memory rescue and concussion recovery to insomnia, autism, and so much more. If you're a coach clinician or someone who wants to help others, we offer our elite brain health coaching certification course where you can become certified in teaching brain health and even qualified clinicians can earn up to 50 continuing education.

education credits. If you want to take control of your brain and your life, goodamenuniversity.com. So tell me why you think you have ADD. Okay. The two and fro, everything catches my attention at all times. I am constant. There's two people in my brain at all times.

There's the real me that's all over the place. And then there's like mom to me. It's like, okay, look this way. Then I'll look that way. Okay, now stop looking at that and look this way. I have to be parenting and like coaching myself the whole time. And it works to a certain extent. But growing up, I had issues being still in the classroom. I remember parent teacher conferences. My mom would always be told she's great. She's bright. She's bright. She's brilliant. But she can't stay still or she can't be quiet. Or she got in trouble again because she didn't obey and she didn't do. what everybody else was doing. That was a constant. So you're hyperactive. Extremely. Restless. Very.

But also an overachiever. Because I strived on, I want to get all these answers perfect. And I want to do it in record time. And I wasn't so much competing with anybody but me. Oh, I did it in this amount of time before. Let me see if I could do it better. So there was always this like this hit and play with myself. And if you had a half an hour of homework, how long would it take you to do?

15 minutes. Usually the ADD people, it's two and a half hours. And when it came to reading, it would be the two and a half hours. Reading was hard? Yes. The letters would get jumbled up. Oh, you have something. We'll come back to this called Erlund's syndrome.

Uh-huh. Do you know what that is? I've heard about it. Yeah. I'm halfway through that rabbit hole. It's a visual processing issue. And when we look at your checklist, you had a lot of those. I don't doubt it.

Which makes people look like they have ADD when what it is is they're sensitive to certain colors of light. And blocking them out, all of a sudden they don't look like they have ADD, which is really interesting. How's your organization? Horrible. I want to. I want to when I go through these frenzies in which I organize everything and I can't leave the room until I'm done. And it'll last a whopping 48 hours. Because to me, if I don't see it, it doesn't exist.

And for instance, I have to lay everything down on a counter that I need because I'll forget that it's there. And then lo and behold, a few months later, I have three of the same thing. because I thought that I lost it and I had to buy it again type thing. So not natural. Organization's not natural. It's not natural to me. You're on time today. Are you usually on time?

Yes, because I'm married to my husband. That is total credit to Carlos Caban, my husband. He has a very strict policy that being 15 minutes early is already being late. And he has helped me curb that time of time management is not something that comes natural to any of the women in my family. But I'm so glad that he is my companion. He helps me stay. I only love women who have ADD, right?

My wife and I did a whole PBS show on ADD, and my first wife just could never be on time. And so I lied to her constantly. It's like we have to be at the airport at 11, when really we didn't have to be there until 12. But, you know, and then I'd still have to be mad at her to like, I'm like, chronic stress for me.

And my wife now likes to be there early. We have that effect on people. I'm so sorry people who love me. I am sorry. I apologize profusely into eternity. So. I love my hyperfocus. I love being able to sit with something and this happens.

And it's tunnel vision. If you're interested. If I'm interested. You're not interested. If I'm not interested, I lose. all power of will to see it through. It's like it becomes a black hole that I want to stay away from because I think it's going to suck me in and I'm going to cease to exist type feeling.

So procrastination, unless you love it. Unless I love it. And I do force myself to do stuff. Which is why I always tell my ADD patients do something you love because then your brain will let you do it. If you think this is going to, you'll make more money doing this, but you don't like it. do it because you're not going to make more money doing that because you're going to end up being fired. Yeah.

It's a sense of overwhelm. Like, for instance, emails or answering, you know, the mundane text or any simple thing that's just not interesting to me. It feels like an amplified sense of dread. Like almost I can't do it. And impulsive? I have worked really hard on impulse control because when I was a lot younger, I had rage issues, and in one of those rage issues, I almost killed my sister.

So that was kind of like... I'd say more about that. Yeah. Yeah. It was dramatic. I'm sorry, Linda. I've apologized before, but I'll say it again. I was maybe 13, 14.

I was already into puberty. My hormones were crazy one day. My sister was teasing me. My parents were not in the house. and she was teasing me about something I don't even remember, but it was something I didn't want to do. She was like, well, you better do it. I'm going to tell mom.

I'm like, well, you can tell her, I'm not going to do it. Just leave me alone. Well, I'm going to tell mom, you hit me. And then she's going to hit you. And I'm like, but it's not true. And she's like, well, then do what I'm saying. And I'm like, but I don't want to. And then she started poking me on my shoulder.

And then when she did it the third time, I just snapped. And all I remember was like a giant force took over me. And I grabbed her by the hair. And I just whacked her against the edge of the bed. And I hit her right here with the edge of a very solid wood. And she just passed out. Oh, wow.

And her face went blue. And I thought she died because for almost felt like two minutes to me like she wouldn't come back. and I thought I killed her. I already, like, catastrophized everything in my brain at that time. I'm like, okay, I'm probably going to go to Juvie. I'm going to end up in jail. I just killed my sister. My parents are not home.

There's nothing I could say that would ever fix something like this, and I just lost my best friend, like all that in the span of, like, a minute and a half. And that was so strong a trauma to me that I'm like, I'm not putting my hands on anybody ever again. and I'm just going to hold on to my impulses. Oh, so the rage later that your therapist wanted you to feel, you're already defending against the rage. I was like, no, I'm not.

I can't do that because bad things happen if I let rage go. The next time I let rage go was years later I was already married with Carlos, and I was so overwhelmed by something that I grabbed something from the wall, and I just threw it and it just shattered to pieces. And then I saw the visual of like broke. It was one of my favorite wall arts. And I just snapped. And it broke to pieces and beyond repair.

So to me it was like, if I let rage go, bad things happen. I can't trust myself with being angry. And then it was like, nope, control your impulses. You cannot. You can't let anything out that way. So you see a couple of incidences of impulsivity. but is it the story of your life? I don't think so.

Where you say things that you shouldn't say? Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of verbal blah. And then you're like, no, come backwards. Come back into my mouth. I have since learned to pause. I've learned to pause.

And I do force myself to do it. But rehearsing it in my brain helps. You know, if I had tattoos, I don't have any. But one of them would be is it true? Like I don't believe every stupid thing I think. Right. The other one is does it fit? Does this, if I say this or I do this, does it fit the goals I have for my life?

So I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship with my wife. But I have thoughts that don't fit that. And so I don't say them most of the time. I get a thought. It's like, don't say it. It doesn't fit. It doesn't fit. Don't say it. Well, I need to learn that one. I'm on the, is it true? Is it true?

To me is choosing which is the hill I want to die on because what I'm saying is truth and factual. And like, don't say it's not true because I know, I research this and I know this is the right answer is usually where I lean. And I do practice something my mom taught me when I was very young because I had an issue with my tongue. You say whenever you're going to say something that feels like it's coming out too fast, just do this. Bite your tongue, make an awkward smile, and breathe. Well, and then go, does it fit? If I say this, does it help me?

That's good. Does it help the situation? It's such a good thing. I'm taking it to do. With the temper and the deja vu. I want to learn more about deja vu because I saw it in your history. So deja vu is the feeling you've been somewhere before, even though you never have. Yeah.

Tell me about that. I feel it all the time. It's frequent. I want to say it happens between five and ten times a year-ish. And I don't know what to think of it, but I do notice it happens a lot whenever I'm at a crossroads and I'm transitioning into something or I'm growing into something or I'm doing things that I'd never done before. I've liked to think of it as signs that I'm going in the right direction because this feels familiar, even though I've never been here. But I've never really understood where it comes from or why it happens. But it does feel – it's happened to me.

Yes, it has. That I have dreamt stuff. So we're going to look at your temporal lobes because often it's a sign of an electrical storm in one of your temporal lobes. Now, sometimes it can be a spiritual thing. Yeah. But spirituality tends to happen in our temporal loaves. And, you know, if God's going to communicate with us, there's going to be an area of your brain where that happens. There's a psychologist from Canada.

And he noticed when he would stimulate the outside of the right temporal lobe, people would have a religious or spiritual. experience, they'd actually have a sensed presence. They would feel the presence of God in the room. And so does that mean the brain makes up God? Or did God create a mechanism for us to feel him? Yeah. So I would choose the latter. Same.

But anyways, deja vu so interesting. And it's happened that I've had dreams that I have lived later. I have both my children. I have dreamt them in exact moments. Exactly. I knew their faces before they were born. So there's also that prophetic spiritual gifting that's in there. And sometimes with deja vu, I don't know which is which.

Could be one, could be the other, but I don't know. Interesting. So interesting. So I always think of people in these four big circles, biological, psychological, social, spiritual. And if we look at some of the biology, I have an acronym I like a lot called Bright Minds. You want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it. We have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors.

Okay. And Bright Minds. So B is for blood flow. Low blood flows. Number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's disease. and for you, you have some risk factors, sedentary. I need you to figure out how to exercise more. Walk like you're late, 45 minutes, four times a week.

Or what Tanna and I do, my wife, Japanese walking. We did it this morning. Three minutes normal, three minutes fast. Three minutes normal, three minutes fast. Do that five times. So it's half an hour. And if you only have 20 minutes, go one minute normal, three minutes fast, and do it five times. The sort of burst walking is so good for your brain.

Okay. And then you should be lifting weights because the stronger you are as you age, the less likely you are to have problems. And so, and women go, oh, no, I don't want to lift weights. It's not all big muscles. It's like muscle is much more compact than fat. So I would, I just want you to think more exercise will help you so much. And that makes sense because my grandmother, I am very similar to her physiologically. My father's mother, she died of dementia.

And you don't want it. I do not. I saw her decay and it was very sad. Yeah. The hour is retirement and aging. You're still, at least compared to me, very young. And it's just about new learning. Whatever you can do to do things new and differently will be helpful for you.

I is inflammation. Have you had lab work done recently? I have. Can you send it to me? Yes. I'm going to email you my slides. And I'll ask you to do that. In your family, you have pre-diabetes and heart disease and substance abuse.

all that means is every day of your life, like I have heart disease and obesity in my family, but I don't have either, because I'm on a heart disease obesity prevention program every day of my life. And I really have to watch what I eat because it's just so easy to gain weight with my body. But that's so important to me. publish three studies that shows your weight goes up, the size, and function of your brain goes

down. And I'm like, oh, no, I'm not, no. So being at a healthy way is critical. I had no idea that weight affected the brain. Yeah, I didn't either. And when I figured it out, I lost 20 pounds. Because I'd always sort of been a little jubby, and I'm like, no. Yeah, I'm starting tomorrow. In view of God's mercy, offer your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, that is your true worship. And so getting healthy is worship. And then Romans 12, too, that's Romans 12.1. To be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you can test to see if it fits God's good, perfect, and pleasing.

Well, so all, that's like the four circles in two Bible verses. getting healthy biologically, that's worship. Transform your mind and then your relationships are better. It's like, I love that so much. Preach Dr. Eamon. The Eamon Hole 4 is based on those two verses. Head trauma, interesting, 2009, you had a double whiplash. And then I read this and I'm like, how does this make sense?

You broke your tailbone four years in a row. No, four years ago. Four years ago. Okay, because I'm like, why is that? God forbid I have to go through that. Four years in a row, I'm like, that sounds like obsessive masochism. Yeah. Four years ago.

Four years ago day after Christmas. A snow tubing slide at a hotel in Dallas. They had this winter wonderland. I went down with my little girl and the slide had not been mentioned. contained. So there were several divvets with no ice. And then there was this big compacted bunch of ice that was like, maybe this size of a dinner plate that was like a little mound. So it was bounce, bounce, whack right on my tailbone on that mound of ice. And it was instantly excruciating pain and like to feel like somebody had poured alcohol on an open wound on the

inside of my low back. And it pretty much severed the little. tail part off. It was bad trauma. And that, I'm sorry, that exacerbated old injuries. When was the postpartum depression? 2018 was when I was diagnosed. So it was 2022. Not much in the way of toxins, except mold exposure. You were exposed to mold when? When I was 18. Tell me. College. Where were you going to college? Music major, Puerto Rico, the Inter-American University in San Hermann. The practice rooms where us musicians had to spend all of our day in, turns out they had toxic mold.

There was no way to remediate it without funds in order for us to get funds allocated to the Department of Music. We had to resuscitate the Association of Music students. There was nobody who wanted to run, so I decided to run for the presidency. like get political with like the deans and the directives and finally get some funds that we collected amongst all of our peers and come to find out there was no remediation company that would come to it. We had to do it ourselves. So that was a full semester of being exposed to mold every day.

And have you ever been tested for mold? I have never been tested from mold. I know that I have a very, since then, very high sensitivity to like just fungus in the atmosphere. It would not be a bad idea. Because you've not had a big issue with drugs or alcohol. No. Or smoking or anything like that. I never wanted to smoke.

I didn't want to damage my voice. Your brain's a little bumpy. So I think probably it would be good to work with an integrative or functional medicine doctor and just check. But I want you to send me your labs. From a mental health standpoint. your pHQ 9, which is a measure of depression, is a little on the high side. It's not severe, but it's there. Zero to 10, where would you put your mood?

Zero is you want to kill yourself, and 10 is awesome. Seven. Okay, it's not bad. Not bad, but it's closer to five than I like it. I think a lot of it has to do with just chronic stress. a lot of traveling. Sleep is kind of iffy right now. The level at which my children are in their development,

very high demand, but I also have a million other projects running. I'm in a major transition right now, running a nonprofit organization that's growing a lot faster than we thought, but also being in a music career, also being an author, also being in two major tours right now, promoting the book and also music,

just a lot coming together. I feel that my soul is a little fatigued. Yeah. Although I shouldn't talk. What is it? Takes one to no one? Yeah. I'm like, I have a lot going on too.

Your ACE score, adverse childhood experiences, have you heard of that before? No. In a scale of zero to 10. how many bad things happened to you growing up? And you're a seven. Four or more increases your risk of seven of the top ten leading causes of death. Wow.

Six or more, you died 20 years early. But you don't have to, obviously. My wife's an eight. And she's going to live a long time because she's done the work to deal with the trauma. But the trauma is real. Yeah. For sure. Low resistant to infection.

Sensitive to cold, tired, worn out, painful periods. Oh, yeah. I'm going to put you on something called Happy Saffron. Love it so much. We also have something called PMS relief. Anything called Happy, I welcome. It's got saffron zinc and curcumins. It's 35 randomized controlled trials showing

Safron is equally effective to antidepressants. Really? But it doesn't have the side effects. In fact, it doesn't sort of ruin your sex life. It enhances it. And a couple of studies with PMS shows helpful, helpful for focus, helpful for memory. And I will embrace it wholeheartedly. I was on Chloe Kardashian's podcast.

And I was, I evaluated her three, four years ago. And then I never heard from her. And then she asked me to be on her podcast. She took Happy Safran every day for three years. In fact, she holds it up on her podcast. And we completely ran out of it. And she said, it just helped me so much. And I had her brain before and after.

And it was just so much healthier. Yeah. And I've noticed that after. 41, two years ago, my body, which I think there might be hormonal issues there, maybe I'm starting perimenopause and it's one of those long-drawn issues combined with all my stress, not a good recipe. I've noticed like all these signs that people say, well, this could be perimenopause, like hair falling at a lot bigger rate than it did before. joints feeling very sore.

Appetite is up at one hour and then you don't want to eat anything at another hour. Hot flashes, which I never thought in my 40s I could possibly get. I have gotten mood swings, irregular periods. Yes, but they say that everything is within normal range, but I don't believe that. Did they check them on day 19 to 21 of your cycle? there's never been an intentionality for that. That would be a good thing to do. We should do that.

That is so important to get them at the right time. If you just do them willy-nilly, you don't know what they're really supposed to be. I'm tempted to do them weekly and just see every week of my cycle what it looks like hormonally because it's become consistent. And I don't like the way I feel. I have a wonderful functional medicine, doctor. that you might see. Her name's Ebony Cornish. I love her a lot.

Send me. And then trouble falling asleep and then waking up is hard. Which is very common in people have ADD. It's like hard to go to bed and waking them is like waking the dead. It feels like I have an an envelope on my chest and it's like somebody's trying to pull me from like

I'm the Titanic and they're trying to get me out of. Have you ever taken ADD meds? No. I have steered clear of it at the advice of my team. because they're afraid that it'll change my personality. Yeah, my experience with artists is it doesn't, is it helps you be who you are when your whole brand works right.

I have one friend, the biggest ADHD case I've ever seen, that's worse than I am. He took, I don't know if it was Vivance or maybe it was Ritalin. I'm not sure which one he took. They gave him a 30-day run. And he said that he had never been as focused as he was then. Everything in his studio and in his house was like pristine and organized and he was cleaning baseboards with a toothbrush.

But he couldn't write a single song in 30 days. Yeah. So it kind of turned off that creative edge and he didn't like it. So he stopped it. So I have an artist that actually was a truck driver when I first met him. him. But I saw something he drew as like, unbelievable. And he had ADD. And when we treated him, he got a job for Disney making six figures. And he was still as creative. He just finished things. Because before he wasn't finishing anything. And I have another one who's a writer. And he

He likes having 16 characters in his head at the same time. So he doesn't take the medicine when he works. But he takes it in dealing with his wife and dealing with his children and dealing with the stuff he has to do and make his life work. So it's the medicine sort of like glasses and it works when you take it and it doesn't work when you don't. I wouldn't dismiss it. I'm still on the fence about it. But we'll look at it. How to deal with.

The ADHD feeling that you never really hit the mark and measure up with the current of everybody else and everything else that's going on around you. Because to me, it's extremely frustrating when I get that executive dysfunction of I have to answer all these emails. I have to draw out, I don't know, this business plan or this project needs to be done at a certain day, at a certain time. And I can't make myself get there. or if I sit down to do it, it's like blank and I can't get there. So maybe somebody else should be doing that. You hear? You hear?

You hear? You see it louder for the people in the back? Great executive assistants or chief of staff or someone that does the follow through, right? I mean, you're obviously incredibly talented. And but there's no rule that says you have to do everything. that's Steve Jobs didn't do everything through that

so you took this test for us it's called total brain I love it a lot and you're really good at recognizing faces and you recognize happy faces way more than negative faces people with past drama

that's generally they're generally paranoid but you've worked on it If you get your feelings hurt, give them like COVID. You're under a lot of stress and you're pretty anxious. Your memory is phenomenal. Really? Your focus, at least on this test, is pretty good.

And on the X test you did, it was pretty good. Your planning is phenomenal. This is not an ADD pattern. flexible short-term memory is good way too negative this is not good for you we need to get this better because if you're sort of normal baseline as you're looking for what's wrong once you start every day today is going to be a great day as you go through your day I want to look for the little miracles in the day and when you go to bed every night I want to you to go what went well today. I just want you meditating start at the beginning of your day.

It's okay to be a little OCD about this. And go, what I like about today? What went well? And the bad stuff will show up. Go, I'm not dealing with you now. I will deal with you tomorrow. What went well today. And if you start hour by hour looking for what you love, it'll put you to sleep. And your dreams will be better. What went well. Because I want to move this over here. You are very social. Yeah.

Your cognitive function is quick. Well, that's good. I would be very happy. Brain fog and all. Brain fog and all. Okay, we do a study called spec. And spec looks at blood flow and activity. It looks at how your.

brain works and basically shows us three things. Healthy activity, you have lots, too little or too much. And here's an example of a healthy brain. Here we're looking underneath the brain, down from the top, one side, then the other side. Because you should just be full even and symmetrical, the outside of your brain. You're going to see yours, I want it to be healthier. It's not as healthy as it could be.

Here, blue is average activity. Red is the top 15%. White is the top 8%. Now, if I would have had your brain before you did therapy, it would have been much different. Yes, I'm sure. So here's your scan. Actually, pretty good.

It looks pretty. But you haven't drank and you haven't smoked and you weren't a drug addict and so many art. You know, have that issue. But the only vulnerability is you see these little caverns. Yeah. So, yeah, I think you have ADD. That's what I usually see in people who have ADD. I think so, too.

We agree. You have a beautiful brain. This is a brain that, you know, at least for the next 20 years, you're not getting Alzheimer's disease. And I don't see the whiplash is a big problem. You have a beautiful brain. So if we go back, if we want it to look like this, you have a great cerebellum,

a little chatterbox in your brain. That's part of an area called the default mode network sort of talks to you a lot. All day long. want you to give your mind a name. Okay. I want you to name it so you can begin to separate from it. Like I named my mind after my pet raccoon and I loved her and raccoons have 200 sounds but she was a troublemaker. She T-Ped my mother's bathroom. She ate all the fish out of my sister's aquarium. First of all, pet raccoon. Yeah, for real when I was 16. I loved her. And so when I

heard, I had someone on my podcast, he goes, give your mind a name. I'm like, who would I name my mind out of from my pet raccoon? Because I don't have to take her seriously. I don't have to take my mind seriously. Right? Just because I have a thought has nothing to do with whether or not it's true, whether or not it's helpful, whether or not it's useful. I don't have to listen to the noise. So I want you to be the watcher. Yeah. So just be curious. about what you're thinking. Yeah. Rather than attach.

Because that's where suffering becomes, is when you attach to what you think. Your emotional brain's a little busy. More on the right side. PTSD, and I can see it. It's here, here, and you have a little bit of it, but before therapy, probably happened.

Oh, I'm sure. A lot. I am sure. Of it. So I actually think the most important thing are these little dimples. And the happy saffron will calm this down a little bit. You have a great brain. I'd be very happy with your brain.

It's very encouraging. There's a lot of work being put into that brain. And now we can get you super healthy physically. Like no psychiatrist will ever tell you this. No. If you get healthy physically, mentally you're going to be even better. You're different. So, yes, I think you have ADHD.

I also think you have Erlen syndrome. So I want you to get screened for this. There's a website, Erlon, IR-L-A-N.com, take the self-test. You're going to show up as positive. And then we'll work on finding you an Erlan screener. You said that's visually things change. Yeah. So before the scan, when the medication started kicking in, two things happened.

One, I started seeing a glow around everything that was light in color. And some lines were kind of moving. This is after you injected the medicine. And I normally hear frequencies all the time. I guess it's part of my neurodivergency. It amplified to like double the volume. and everything was like, whoa. So that's this part.

If you think of this is your thalamus, sort of your sensory gateway in the brain, and yours is naturally busy. Yeah. So it probably heightened it. Yeah. Nothing adverse feeling. It just, I noticed that it went way higher than it normally is.

So I think a consult with Dr. Cornish, happy saffron, Erlenz, Scream. I have a wonderful app called BrainFit Life 5.0 that has all sorts of great tools. There's a 30-day happiness challenge, probably a great place to start. And then Bright Minds, I'll send this to you. Yeah. But it's all the different things to. And we have on Brain Fit Life, there's some hypnosis audios.

There's actually 18 of them. For you, peak performance. I think you really like that. and sleep. When people come to see me, they have good days and bad days, but they're not all bad. Right? And then I intervene. You do what I say.

That's really important. I think. And people get better, but nobody just gets better. They're better and then not, better and then not. These are very important because we want to. learn from them. So every day you win or you learn. Yeah. So there's no failing. But so often people go, oh, this stuff doesn't work and they stop. But where are you at your cycle? What did you eat? What's the level of stress? What have you not been able to get done because you're doing too many

things. There's a cool book I'm reading now called 10x is easier than 2x by my friend Dan Sullivan. I love him. And it's like, so what's going to get you 10x growth and what isn't? And you stop the what isn't part. So it's a good question for your team. Is this going to get us to where we want? Or am I just doing another thing that's busy. And anyways, with the trauma you've had in the past, oh, I would hunt for triggers. Yeah. And are you still seeing the same therapist? No.

I'm not. I have her on as a coach. So we talk often. We haven't had a session in a long time. But when you get triggered, when you find that comes up, I still think some EMDR could be really helpful. Yeah. I've been considering it as of recently because.

what I'm experienced with my children is that as they grow, I relive things of that age. Yeah. And they're how old now? Seven and eight. Yeah, and that was a very vulnerable time for you. Yep. And so just have someone, and I would just hunt for the triggers and then work through them. Just unlock.

But as long as you like, person, the plan, you'll have good days and bad days. They just won't be. You know, so we'll take it from a seven to an eight or a nine. I love you, when or you learn? There's no losing. No failing. So I talk about ants, automatic negative thoughts.

Which ones do you think you have? All of nothing less than blaming. I'll be happier when. Labeling. probably just a bet. I just, I don't want you to ever believe everything you think. And they should have taught us this in second grade. Yes.

Right? Just because you have a thought, thoughts come from all sorts of places. They come from your parents. They come from the news. They come from the music. You listen. They come from your friends, your foes, your siblings. And just because you have a thought, there's nothing to do with whether or not it's true,

whether or not it's helpful, whether or not it's useful. So whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control, you'll write down what you're thinking and just go. It's true. So here are five questions. I love. Carlos Whitaker did our show. He's awesome.

And he thought he was going to get Alzheimer's disease like his dad. Wow. And so we did the work. This is from my friend, Byron Katie, who came up with this method. Is it true? And he said, I don't know. Is it absolutely true? So these five questions, is it true?

What's a bad thought that runs around your head? I'll fail as a mom. I'll fail as a mom. I love that thought. It's such a bad thought. Yeah, got to love it. It's a fortune telling. Yeah.

Thought, right? You're predicting the worst. Right. So I'll fail as a mom, fortune telling. Is that true? You'll fail as a mom? unsure. I'm unsure. I don't know. Is it absolutely true?

Probably not. Probably not. How does that make you feel? Very anxious. And then how does it make you act? A lot of compensating. Overdoing it, maybe. So one of my videos, I got 50 million views.

And it was, all I said was when you do too much for your children. you increase your self-esteem by steel on theirs. Oh, wow. Where does self-esteem come from? It comes from being competent. And if we, like if your child comes and says, I'm bored, so many people go, well, you could do this or you could do that or let's do this. No, no, no.

Oh, you're bored. And then shut up. Yeah. And go. And if they don't go, oh, I could do this or I could do that, right? The idea is put it back on now. It's what are you going to do about? And then stop because if you fix it, you're teaching them they're not competent.

Oh, yeah. For my older children, I did way too much because I was compensating for not having a doubt that was present. And I'm like, no, I'm going to be a good doubt. But it was, I'm fixing me. Right. Rather than raising a mentally strong child. Yeah. I always want to teach them competence.

Like if my daughter forgot her lunch, nobody brought it to school. If she forgot her sweater and it was cold, even though her mother told her to take it, nobody brought it to school. Because, yes, we could fix the day. but not fix the problem. Right. One day she was doing a group project and she left her part at home. And the teacher called,

knowing that my wife was going to say no. And she's like, please, everybody's going to fail. And I'm absolutely not. Because Chloe will never forget. It will be again. You want them to learn the lesson when the lessons are inexpensive. as opposed to they're 18 and they're in prison.

Yes, yes. That makes total sense. So I'm going to fail as a mother. What's the outcome of that thought is you do way too much? Yeah. Suffering. Yeah. So is it true?

You don't know. Is it absolutely true? Absolutely not. How does it make me feel? anxious and a bit intrusive, how would I feel if I didn't have the thought? Three. How would I act like a good mom, firm and kind? Whenever you question how you should be, firm and kind.

Those are the two words. It always works. And what's the outcome of not having the thought? you're better mom. Yeah. Because you're not being driven by anxiety or guilt. Right. Or uncertainty.

And so is it true? Is it absolutely true? How does the thought make me feel? How would I be without the thought? What's the opposite of the thought? I am a good mom. I'm a good mom. You have any evidence that that's true?

Yeah. give me one. They hunger for being around me whenever I'm in the room and when I'm not. And they say it, Mom, you're such a good mom. And that's where you meditate. Yeah. Because if you meditate here, I'm going to be a bad mom. You suffer.

But if you meditate here, you're peaceful. You're happy. And your desire is to be a good mom. Yep. So the idea is not believing every stupid thing you think. Yeah. Right? Because that's a really toxic.

Yeah. But there's one that won't serve them. Well. Yeah. I'm learning. I'll send you this in the slides. It's so powerful. And if you just did this like 30 times on the bad thoughts you have, they just start going away.

but one thought leads to another bad thought. I say the ants link to each other, and then they stack, and then they attack you. Yeah. This is another exercise. I'll just leave it on the slides, one page miracle, write down what you want. This is mine. And then every day you ask yourself, does it fit? Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life?

this is very important. It's another book from Dan Sullivan, who I love, it's called The Gap in the Game. Are you in the Gap, which is looking at what you don't have, measuring your life going forward? Or are you in the game looking at how far you come? And those of us that are driven to be successful, were often in the gap.

And this is where suffering is. So peace is here and joy. Suffering is here. So for me, I was in the gap so much of my life. Yeah. So rather than I'll be successful when gap thinking, so when I'm 18, when I was a teenager, so I had five sisters.

So it's absolutely. Five sisters and how many daughters? Five, yeah. Wow. God thinks it's very funny. When I go on the Army, because I wanted to go on the Army, when I, three months later, I'll be successful when I get out of the Army. Then he's college, getting a medical school, become a psychiatrist.

Like, it's always, I'll be successful when I publish a book. Well, then I want a New York Times bestseller. And then I want a number one, New York Times best. You see how it's just never enough. It's this hedonic treadmill, which is chronic stress. The better question I'll be successful when is I know I'm being successful when. I'm connected to my wife and kids and grandkids when I'm actively taking care of my body, mind, happiness, and soul. Dennis Prager. Do you know who Dennis Prager is?

I love him. Yeah. And he has this five-minute video, Why Be Happy, where he talks about happiness is a moral obligation. Yep. Because of how you impact other people. Yeah. Love that so much. I'm happy when I'm learning. I'm successful when I'm working on things that excite me. When I'm dealing with you to know whiny people. who take without giving back. I don't like them.

I'm going to say no to whatever doesn't fit. Right? And so for you, be present, be happy. I just want you to ask yourself that question. I'm known being successful when I, and then fill in the blank. Because then the stress begins to. I was talking to someone today,

she said, no and be successful. When my children, grandchildren are happy. And I'm like, no, no, no. Because you just gave away. I think you have to be happy to make anybody else happy. Of course. Can't be dependent on other people's happiness. Love you. You love well. And people go, oh, well, you're only as happy as your unhappiest child. I'm like, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard because I'm not going to allow my happiness to be dependent on their decisions. I want them to be happy. To be Yeah. But no. Then it fluctuates every day because every time they get hungry, they get quite unhappy.

And that happens at least your times a day. Autism. What is? How do you know if you have autism is not one thing. It's many different things. There's so much to know about autism. It's not hard to understand. Hi, this is Dr. Daniel Eamon. I'm so excited to tell you about our new course. Healing Autism, a New Way Forward, that I did with my friend and really autism expert, Dr. Jerry Cartson, L. It's a completely new look at autism. This course is for parents of children or adults who have autism, but it's also for professionals. We hope you'll join us with Healing Autism, a New Way Forward.

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