Change Your Brain Every Day - Is Happiness a Moral Obligation? With Justin Wren

Episode Date: November 21, 2019

In the fourth and final episode of a series with MMA fighter and author Justin Wren, Dr. Daniel Amen and Justin discuss the impact emotional trauma can have on a person, and what happens when you hold on to the hurt. They also touch on the benefits of EMDR therapy, self-care, and why happiness should not be seen as merely an option.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your 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 nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We're here with my friend, Justin Wren, Fight for the Forgotten book,

website, foundation, and you're hearing the amazing work that he is doing and it started for you really out of pain and one of the things we saw in your scan was trauma emotional trauma actually published a study on 21 000 people showing we could see the difference between emotional trauma and physical trauma now as a boxer you have both but um or as a fighter and and you can see the pattern of trauma from the bullying and that gives you passion but holding on to the herd you don't to. It's one of the things we've learned. And there's a specific psychological treatment for trauma called EMDR. It stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. And I love it. When I first started doing the work we do, it's outside of the box of standard medicine. And in 1996, I gave the state-of-the-art lecture in medicine to the Society of Developmental Pediatrics.

It was a huge honor for me. And I must have really pissed somebody off because they reported me to the medical board. It's like, he shouldn't be doing the scans that we do. So I got investigated for a year. And I was completely freaked out by the whole thing because they could take my license, which means they could take my livelihood. I've spent all this time to become a doctor. And I had an EMDR trainer, Jennifer Lendl, who worked in my office.

And one day, I just walkedl, who worked in my office. And one day, I just walked in her office when I was free. I'm like, can you help me? I'm completely freaked out. And she did one session with me, and the anxiety went away. It was stunning. I mean, and I'm like, you know, I'm going to do the best I can. And if they don't let me do this, I'll go work in a grocery store.

I mean, I was just like, OK. And you can see the trauma pattern in my brain. But the next scan I got, it was gone. Wow. And then I did a study on police officers who were involved in shootings, all traumatized, all off work. They all had the diamond pattern in their brain. And after an average of eight sessions, they all went back to work. Wow.

And so if you're, and we talked about being in a brain damaging sport or a brain damaging profession like firefighters or police officers, there is help. And fun for me, yesterday started a six-month training program for the Newport Beach Police Department. We're going to create a brain healthy police force and the chief of police, he's phenomenal. I love him. And what I said to them, and you know, this is that it's not the weak person that asks for help, that it's the smart person. It's the strong person who asks for help. So just imagine you own a business and the business is troubled and you deny the trouble.

Well, what's going to happen? You're going to go bankrupt. It's going to fail, right? It's the smart person who goes, who's the smartest person I can find? Let me have them as a consultant and that way the business can grow and thrive and you can do what what you want so you're a fighter you're strong you're somebody people look up to and you're going i need help. And that's so freeing for the young people who know you.

Yeah. Well, I'm so grateful too with everyone. Even when you say EMDR, my counselor, Sean McGuire in Oklahoma City, he suggested finding you and coming to you. He really pushed on it. And I said, maybe I'll go to Atlanta. He's like, no, you're going to LA, Costa Mesa. And anyways, he's done EMDR on me a couple of times and there was really legitimate marked change afterwards. And I know I probably need to do it more, especially with my diamond pattern in my brain with the PTSD. And it's helped my wife as well. And so I'm just so incredibly grateful to you and the work of Amen Clinic because I've just been here three days, but I've heard about you guys since February and now it's October. So I've been watching all the podcasts and seeing how you're helping

have this brain warriors way and create brain warriors. And now I'm one and I want to bring that into MMA. I want to bring that into MMA. I want to help that with kids that are being bullied or the pygmies. How can we just take better care of ourselves? Because what I've learned from you is that self-care isn't selfish and you've got to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you put it on others. And I'm someone that loves to give, give, give, and help as many people as I can. But what I've learned is I'll end up hurting myself

in the process if I don't take care of myself first. And so- There's actually this great video by Dennis Prager, who's a commentator, but he has a video on how happiness is a moral obligation. And he says, just think about being raised by an unhappy mother. What's the impact generationally on that? I mean, it's chronically stressful for the children. So taking care of your brain, taking care of your mind is literally a moral responsibility. It's not selfish. It's selfish not to take care of

yourself because then our negativity leaks to our marriage, to our children, to our parents, and so on. So the investment you've made in yourself will pay off over and over again. One of the questions I have, maybe the listeners have, is when you were suicidal when you were young and even tried, what brought you back from that? Honestly, you've met my mother now, Terry, and she's saved in my phone as best mom ever. That's her name.

And the thought that stopped me was, what would this do to my mom? And so I didn't grow up with an unhappy mother. I grew up with the most positive mother one could have. And I really needed that. And that was God's gift to me going through those incredibly hurtful, bullying moments. And then what brought me back

is having a sense of purpose to live for that my life matters if I can leave this world better than I came into it. And if God can use me to bless the mess out of people because he came and loved the hell out of me, how can I do that in a way that doesn't push people away? I don't, I don't want to judge people away. I want to love

them in and, and just say, Hey, your life matters. Um, and so discovering that my life matters, um, really, um, changed me and it doesn't mean I don't struggle and that I'm, I'm not a jacked up person from, from time to time um but uh i just yeah i think it's just you know when you struggle and we you and i talked about it i want you to be curious not just furious um because every time you struggle you have memories in your head of all the pain right right and so anytime you get close to, like you just have a bad day because you didn't sleep well, it triggers a chain reaction and all of the pain can jump on you. And so if I can get you to be curious about the down times, not furious about them, and then go, so what happened?

And often it's around sleep. It's around not eating good food. For some people, it's around drinking and dropping their frontal lobes. It could be you believed every stupid thought you had. We talked about killing the ants will happen less and less. And that's what we want. And as you teach other people about what you've gone through, I always say you have to live the message to be a good messenger, right? The first way to help other people

is to be authentic, that you live the message, right? If I didn't live the message, if I went to Whole Foods and people saw that I put a whole bunch of crap in my basket, they would like, oh no, I don't believe it. Or if you didn't go to Whole Foods,

you went to somewhere else. Oh, no, Whole Foods has plenty of crap. Oh, yeah, they do, yeah, for sure. Just it's more expensive. Wow. What thoughts do you want to leave our Brain Warrior audience with? So you mentioned my book. And the way that I first, I signed my book now,

Live to Love, Fight for People. But how I originally started in signing it was live to love, love to live. And I think I had it flipped backwards or oftentimes people in our culture, it's all about self-gratification and you just want to love your life. And I think if you first live to love. You will love your life. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a balance. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, you have to take care of yourself. Absolutely. But when you are. But live to love yourself too and live to love others and uh i think that's what jesus said love your neighbor as yourself that sort of implies both of us are important justin rent uh fight for the forgotten uh his book and you can get the book anywhere on amazon amazon barnes and noble on our website, all the proceeds go to the cause.

All the proceeds go to the cause. And watch his TED Talk. Just Google Justin Wren, TED. It will blow your mind in a good way. Thank you. If there's one thing you learned during the podcast, write it on any of your social media sites and hashtag

BrainWarriorsWayPodcast. Go to BrainWarriorsWayPodcast.com. Leave us a review, questions. Tana will be back next time. Stay with us. Thank you. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're considering coming to Amen Clinics or trying some of the brain healthy supplements from BrainMD, you can use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or a 10% discount on all supplements at brainmdhealth.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.