Welcome back to spirituality and mental health we've been talking about the will. In our first segment or the first section here. In this section we talked about the importance of the will if we're going to have any improvements in mental health, we talked about how people some people don't believe in free will and about how dangerous that might be to society. And then we look to an ancient song of Psalm, Psalm 77, about a person who was struggling and was going down into depression, but then decided to exercise their will and be began to come out of the depression. Or at least that's where they're headed. And then we read that intriguing word sila which many Actually, in a songbook, kick it up a notch, look at something in a new light with maybe a new chord or new musical score means to think about it.

And we're going to think about now what we've sent through the lens of science. When looking at the power of the will, Geoffrey Schwartz wrote a book called the mind, the brain, neural plasticity and the power of mental force. And in that book, he looked at a number of stages that need to be gone through if you're dealing with what he calls obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD. The Cardinal symptom of OCD is the persistent intrusion of an unwanted thought or an unwanted urge to act on that thought. This is the same thing that happens many times when people are depressed or anxious. They have a repetitive thought that they're trying to get rid of.

But what he discovered was that people can actually change their brains, the mind can change the brain. Now, the patient since it came to him had been given up on by all the other clinicians and physicians they'd seen, they were kind of like the rejects. And as a result, they came to him and they had huge patient records and, and it looked like they had no hope. And this was actually the last hope for them. And he said, Why don't I try to do something? Why don't I try and educate them rather than do other treatments like they had had a version therapy?

Or they said, Oh, you feel like your hands are dirty, we'll stick them in urine or fecal material. And let's see, if you still live Oh, you're still alive. It must be a lie. That's somewhat of a barbaric approach. As he said, Let me try something different. Why don't we just educate them how the mind works?

And so we begin to show them how their brains worked. And he found that 12 weeks of intensive cognitive behavioral therapy just like we use as a part of the outpatient training, just like we use here, at beautiful minds, or you might have heard of wherever you are. 12 weeks brought the functioning of sections of the brain called the caudate nucleus, back within normal parameters. Patients were led through education to re label their obsessions and compulsions as false signals. So number one, they relabeled them. They had a phrase, they would say, That's not me.

It's my OCD. So they would really label things and distance themselves from them. In the New Testament, Paul says, That's not me, but the Send that's within me, I want to do this, but I'm not doing it and would begin to re label things. So that's number one. Number one was what? It was reliable.

That's right. Number two patients were led by education too, to re attribute those thoughts and urges to pathological bent brain chemistry. So it actually would show pictures of the brain the normal control you can see on the left and the obsessive compulsive on the right, and would show what was happening in their brain when these thoughts went on. And so they wanted them to see that Actually the choices they made about thoughts, or the things that were happening because of their OCD made a certain aspect of their brain light up. Number three more. Perhaps one of the most important was patients were led through education to refocus their attention away from pathological thoughts and urges refocusing is what is the power of choice.

It's the action and the use of freewill. And they were shown that the mind can change the brain and are a outpatient we often talk about this choices lead to thoughts, which then lead to feelings. If we allow feelings to lead to thoughts and choices we get in trouble. But if we refocus our attention away from pathological thoughts and urges, this is one of the best ways to go about changing the brain. He wrote in the book mental action can alter brain chemistry. And they actually said that, that when you choose certain things and actually chooses your brain chemistry, it shrinks that caught a nucleus back into the right level.

Maybe that's why they call some doctors shrinks that oh now but anyway, it shrinks things back to where they're supposed to be. Which brings me to a study that they talked about in the book of the silver spring monkeys in Silver Spring, Maryland. I kind of get a chuckle out of that, because I know some people that live in Silver Spring, Maryland, but anyway, so they did these monkeys study these monkeys, and they, they took the monkeys and they cut their afferent neurons are not their motor neurons, but their sense of feeling. So they couldn't feel anything with their appendages, but they could move them they could move their arms and legs but they couldn't feel anything. And of course, this is a famous case that started the PETA movement because people thought they were really abusing these, these primates and I don't want to get into that debate right now, but just tell me what they dislike.

Covered as a result, they discovered that even though they had no feeling, they could still move their appendages just by using their brain telling them to move those arms and legs as your leg ever gone to sleep. Maybe during the day, and you still can walk, you have to tell yourself to do it, even though you can't feel it. And they recognize that the brain can tell the unfeeling limb to move so they could feed themselves, they could do different things. And when they discover that they realize, even if a person doesn't feel something, they don't feel that way they still could do it. The thoughts can supersede the feelings the brain can be changed can change the mind. Now, if that could happen with a chimpanzee, or with a monkey?

Could it happen with you keep in mind that the cat's frontal lobe is 3% of dogs is six or 7%. I know yours might be eight or nine is very smart dog. A monkeys is 16%. But a human is like 38 to 40%. And if a monkey can do it as 16% can tell its brain what to do change its mind. How about you?

Do you think your frontal lobe could actually tell you what to do even if you don't feel like it? Absolutely, if that wasn't true, we wouldn't have an outpatient program. We wouldn't be suggesting these things to you. But this research not only readily revolutionized the understanding for monkeys, it revolutionized understanding for stroke patients and for physiatrist. And for those in physical medicine and, and those in physical therapy, when they're working with people and they just don't feel like doing something but the mind can tell the brain what to do. This is also a sign of emotional intelligence.

Goldman in his book, emotional intelligence said this by the very nature, impulses come unexpectedly and unbidden from the minds unconscious, but once they come, we have a choice to act on the impulse or not, and the capacity to just say no to dangerous impulses, is one mark of emotional intelligence. So, how do they know where this happen? happens in the brain. Journal of Neuroscience looked at this they took 15 right handed participants and they were asked to press a button on a keyboard. And they were asked to choose some cases in which they pressed it and other cases when they stopped just before pressing the button. In other words demonstrating freewill or free won't.

I will, or I won't. And they indicated on a clock when they had intended to press it, but then decided to hold back. They looked at their brain to see what part of the brain lit up when they decided not to guess what part lit up. Now, if you're driving, don't do this, but anywhere, anyone else, just take your finger and put it right between your eyes just right above there. That's the place that lit up right in the frontal lobe. That's where free will and free won't is.

So let's review. Number one, patients were told to do what? That's right. reliable. It's not me. It's my OCD.

Number two attribute. That's right. It's in this section of the brain. I can see what's lighting up. Number three, refocus. That means to use the freewill to refocus.

The thoughts. Change the thoughts. They're not my thoughts, spiritually speaking, people that believe in God says, My thoughts are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are not mine, not yours. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts. One day Peter was talking to Jesus.

And Jesus said to Peter, who the men say that I am, and he said, the earth, the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said to him, bless her, you, Simon bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. So this was a thought from heaven. But then Jesus explained that he was going to suffer and die. And Peter said, don't do that you shouldn't do that. And he looked right at me said, Get thee behind me, Satan.

In other words, that's a thought from hell. You can have a thought from heaven. You can have a thought from hell, but you can dismiss those or you can be directed or corrected, and that's what CBT does. That's what we learn in the outpatient program. And that's why it's so powerful. We don't have to believe everything we think.

So, the fourth step, and this kind of jumped off the page when I was reading this book the first time. It wasn't just relabeled re attribute refocus. The fourth stage was revalued revalue on the basis of truth, revalue, the OCD obsessions and compulsions realizing they have no inherent power, and this revaluation be done on the basis of what truth. But what is truth? Where do we find truth? Many people have different ideas.

The Bible says this in john 1717, Sanctify them or make them holy or set them apart by truth. The word is truth. Well, let's look at the word as we close up today. And we're going to finish off that Psalm, Psalm 77. And this is really Interesting, illustrated on Psalm 77, that we had these I will statements, I will do this I will do that who gave us by the way that power to choose. JOHN 112, as many as received him the New Testament says to them, he gave power to become the sons of God.

Notice that by the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God. In other words, we choose not our will, but God's will. And he gives us power if we do that. It's impossible for us on our own strength to resist evil. But the Bible teaches God gave us power to do that. Now I'll let you read Psalm 77, to close on your own, but I want to leave one last text and a powerful picture from perhaps one of the most famous stories in the world and that's the story of Christ dying on the cross of Christ dies on the cross.

It's talked about in Luke 2241 to 43. And he went through from them about a stone's throw. He knelt down and put rate, this is increasing his willpower. We know this from other studies saying, Father, if it is your well take this cup away from me nevertheless, not my will. But your will be done. In other words, I am allowing myself I'm doing CBT on myself, I don't want to human Lee speaking I don't want to die.

But if you want me to do that, because of the plan and all that, and your will be done, powerful state, not my will, but Thy will be done. By the way, it's a statement that's used also in a all the time, not my will but yours be done. And then notice the next verse, we don't often talk about it. But here it is. Then an angel appeared to him from heaven and strengthen him. When we choose to do God's will.

He gives us power. To do that. Well, how many of you today that are listening, desire to exercise your will in a way that does not cause doubt and suffering and pain? And all those different things, but actually refocuses your mind so that you can walk the way God wants you to walk. Psalm 77 starts, I was troubled, I refused comfort. I complained, I questioned, I was overwhelmed, and I was alone, but then to the power of the will.

By refocusing, it changes and it comes up from verse 10 to verse 20, by saying, I remembered your work. I will remember your wonders, I will meditate on your work, I will talk of your doings. I will talk about how you lead in the sanctuary and with Moses and Aaron and Jacob and Joseph, and I'll recognize that you have carried me through the rough times