Fix Your Mind w/Drs Les & Leslie Parrot

Hi, I'm Manj. And I'm Ari. And this is Girls Gone Bible. And you guys know, if I'm on this side of the table, that we have really important, amazing guests on. And today we have two people who you guys already know. Doctors, Les and Leslie Parrott. Thank you guys so much for coming back to Time GG Beers. I know. Are there frequent fire moths? Do we get the... That is such a good point. Do we get like a free sob after we get our card change or something? Or yes, yeah. We'll get you a sandwich. Yeah. We are so excited, you guys. First of all, you guys having a good day? You guys doing good? Yeah, we're doing good. Are you? Nice Donnie Wahlberg jacket. I'm loving it. Do what I can. I'm stylish. Yeah, do what I can. You East Coasters. We are here to talk about this book. It's called Bad Thoughts. And it's written by Judah Smith. And I didn't look at it because I didn't know who was written by, by the way. I didn't want to be written by. It is written by Les and Judah Smith. And we're so excited to talk about this book with you guys today because we love talking about the mind and thoughts. Ari and I have both dealt with intrusive thoughts and OCD and unwanted thoughts. And we've struggled up here a little bit at times. And so we're so excited. This is the perfect topic for our people. Well, can I tell you something about the cover of this book before you get into the content? Sure. Because I am very proud of this. So this is rolling your eyes. No, I do the microphone a little bit. So on the, on the, is this on the camera someplace? Yeah. Hey, how come you guys have a, oh, okay, I'm good. Yeah, there we are. So this is Judah and that's me, right? Can you see that? Yeah. Yeah. Well, so my editor, not an art director, my editor said, hey, the art department wonders if you have a profile picture that you could send us. So I said, I don't have one. She said, just take one right now for a placeholder. So I literally, while we were on the phone, she was talking to me and I did a selfie and that's the photo that they used on the cover. And I said, Hey, if you're going to use it, I want photo credits on the back of the book. So I'm more proud of the photo because I've never had that before. You are such a character. It's insane. Hang on. That's such a beautiful cover. So it's Judah's mind with all these like swirls and everything. And then it's basically the relationship almost between a preacher and a shrink. That's kind of the tagline. Well, that's the whole point. So Judah came to me, man, over a decade ago and he said, he and Chelsea, his wife came to Leslie and me and they just said, Hey, we want to do some counseling with you guys. And I said, what's the issue? And he said, there's no issue. And I said, what do you mean? I'm psychologist. I'm used to people bringing problems to me. He said, no problems. He said, we just want to make sure there aren't any problems in the future. And I said, absolutely, let's do some work together. And so we did some marriage work. And it was, and he'd seen, you know, some of his peers and stuff that tripped up in their efforts. And he said, I don't want to do that. And so it was preventive intervention. But as it evolved, Judah and I began to do some one-on-one work together. And after a while, after actually a number of years, he said, you know, this is like changing the way I think this work with you is changing the way I think. And he said, would you ever be willing to put it in a book with me? And so that's what we did. That's the result of this thing. That's why it's called a preacher and a shrinks guide to reclaiming your mind. And so I told him when we were titling this, I said, a preacher and a shrink. It sounds like at the start of a bad joke, right? But it's a preacher and a shrink like walk into your mind. That's really what this book is about. And it's kind of, I think it's the book your brain doesn't want you to read because it's going to dismantle the toxic lies that you tell yourself. And there's five of them that we talk, we can get into this, but the whole concept is to kind of, do you know that your toxic thoughts literally carve a groove into your brain? And you, they just become autopilot. You don't think about them. They just happen. And so that's what we were doing our work on. And I said, hey, Jerry, if we're going to do this, you're going to have to be kind of vulnerable. I mean, it's not typical for a preacher and a shrink. When you're in therapy with me, we're going to write a book and you're going to tell everybody your problems. And it's not really that, but it really is a vulnerable book. And that's how it came to be. That is so cool. This is so special. What else can you tell us first just about the contents of the book? Like how it's structured? What is your favorite part in the way that it's structured? Well, the book, we did this survey of, we first came up with, you know, some of these thoughts that we'd been working on and counseling together. And we did a survey of about a thousand people and asked them how much they see this thought within their own. Thoughts are like, it's like self-talk, right? It's a way of having a conversation with yourself. And it's probably the most important conversation you ever have because it never turns off. It's 24 seven. It happens even while you sleep, while you dream. You just have this conversation that is ongoing and you get to a place where you're not even conscious anymore of what you're saying. It's always there. It's always there. Imagine if you could, before you fell asleep tonight, you could just take a little computer chip out of the back of your head and put it in your laptop and it would tabulate all the thoughts you had for the last 24 hours and simply label them as positive or negative. Imagine if that could be. Especially your self-talk. Your self-talk. Which bucket would be most full for you at the end of any given day? It's an interesting question, right? Well, some researchers at UCLA, not very far from the studio, said let's study that. And they discovered that the vast majority, do you remember the percentage off top of your head? I think that's 92%. Is it that high? But certainly the vast majority of our thoughts fall into the negative bucket on average. Not everybody's, but on average that's how it is. And so anyway, that's what this book is about. So we identified these five very predictable, almost ubiquitous. We have these thoughts. The first one is, you know, all about, says take your last guilt trip and discover the road to grace. The next one is on the disease to please. The next one is on self-doubt. The next one is on entitlement. That's the, probably the topic that is the most difficult to see in ourselves. And not be blind to. And then the last one is all about earning credit to when God's love, which so many of us fall into that trap. That's what I love about this because, you know, most of us, we know our inner struggle. We overhear that conversation every minute of every day, but we feel like it's super personal. And, you know, I think, I don't know if you guys have ever heard of Henry now and are a spiritual writer, but he just said that, you know, what we think is most personal to us is often the most universal thing that everybody identifies with and struggles with. And I think that's what the power of this is. Well, that you guys took the personal stories that came out and then they're universal. We all connect with them. Yeah. Can you tell us a couple of them? Yeah. Can we get into actually all of them? Yeah. I mean, how often do we experience guilt? Oh, yeah, we do. Yeah. Guilt is just a poison in our system. It really is because guilt, first of all, is a selfish emotion. It's like a toothache. When you have a toothache, you can't think of anything else. I can't. I'm sorry. I can't even focus right now because my tooth hurts so bad, right? Guilt is like that. It's self-consuming. It's like taking mirrored sunglasses and taking the lenses out, flipping them around and putting them on your head and looking out at the world. And all you see is a reflection of your own needs everywhere you go. That's what happens psychologically with guilt. And it's such a disguise because guilt feels like it's about the other person. Maybe we feel like we failed or wronged. But honestly, it's more just about our own sense of who we are. Yeah. Are we perfect? Yeah. We call the first chapter, take your last guilt trip and discover the road to grace because grace is the antidote. It's the reward for cleansing our system of that kind of guilt. I had this weird experience, not weird, but kind of an unusual experience many years ago as a kind of a new psychologist. I was just out of graduate school and I went to this conference. It was a serious conference on laughter. Psychologists study laughter sometimes. And so it was a conference on laughter. And it was at the Disneyland Hotel. And so there's this ballroom. There must have been about a thousand psychologists in there. Sounds like a real party. Yeah. Is it just like super smart in the air? How are you doing? Well, let's sit down and talk about it. But if the very first speaker got up and he had kind of one message. That when we came in, there were three brightly colored pieces of cloth on each chair. And we didn't know what they were for, but he started to give this talk and he says, I'm going to teach everybody in your how to juggle. And he was a physician. And he said, not to juggle your schedule as your patients, literally how to juggle. But he did it with all kinds of life lessons woven into it. And the very first one, I want to tell you, he said, I want you before we even begin, we're going to throw these usually scarves because it's really easy to juggle scarves. They're slow. And so he said, but the very first step in learning to juggle is to take one of the pieces of cloth, hold it out at arm's length and drop it. And we were like, what? I'm not going to drop it to the floor, you know, and he goes, we're not going anywhere to tell everybody does that. So everybody kind of let these flutter down to the floor. And then he said, there. He said, don't you feel better? You just got over your first guilt-free drop, right? A guilt-free drop. How many times have you wanted a guilt-free drop for yourself because of whatever happened in a relationship or something that you said that you regret or whatever it is? That's what grace is kind of a, kind of a, a flippant way of saying that's what grace is about, a guilt-free drop. So that's, that's the root. That's kind of the goal of understanding this. By the way, the Bible, do you know who said, let your conscience be your guide? Do you know where that's? No, but I should. You think it was the apostle Paul? Probably. Yeah. I was going to say Paul. Yeah. So it sounds smart. Well, it's not so smart because it was Jiminy Cricket. Oh. See, you're smart and you sing. Oh my gosh. He didn't think of what it was. Bible? But so many people think, so many people think that's from the Bible or something, right? Let your conscience be your guide. But it's not. It's from Disneyland. Disneyland. Yeah. God would probably say let the Holy Spirit be your guide, right? Yeah. And the, the whole, we don't come pre-packaged with what to feel guilty about. We learn what to feel guilty about. It's a human experience. From the church we were raised in or the home we were raised in or what our parents said to us. Yeah, I might feel guilty about being late and you might not, right? I mean, that's just silly example. That's literally us. Yeah. Yeah. I dwelled for the whole episode. I couldn't even function because I was 30 minutes late on accident. Whereas I could, I could, I could be a couple like 10, 15 minutes late. She knows how to like, but you do know how to like let go where I have a really hard time of letting go. And we'll dwell for weeks. Weeks? I've gotten so much better. I can't... It can be consuming. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. This episode is sponsored by Glorify, the number one Christian daily devotional app and literally one of our favorite ways to connect with God throughout the day. You know those days when your mind just won't slow down? You sit to pray or read and suddenly you're thinking about your to-do list or what's for dinner? Yeah, same. love the Glorify app. It helps us pause, breathe, and actually focus on God. Glorify helps you spend time with God in a way that feels easy and meaningful. Their daily devotionals only take five minutes and you can either read or listen whatever works best for you. Each morning I start with the verse of the day. A short devotional, then daily walk with God. It grounds me before I touch my to-do list. Whether it's first thing in the morning or right before bed, Glorify gives us a way to pause, reset, and come back to what matters most, his presence. Whether you've been walking with Jesus for years or you're just starting to explore your faith, Glorify makes it easy to draw closer to God, anytime, anywhere. Over 20 million people use the Glorify app and I can totally see why. It's helped us stay centered and keep God at the heart of our day. Visit glorify-app.com slash ggb right now to download the Glorify app for free. That's glorify-app.com slash ggb to download the Glorify app for free. Glorify-app.com slash ggb. The Bible does talk about a different experience, similar to guilt, but different. There's an alternative and Scripture calls it godly sorrow. And guilt is all about the past and godly sorrow is about the future, how things are going to be different. Right? And instead of punishing yourself, godly sorrow propels you to be a better person. And guilt is self-absorbed. I am not what I should be, whereas godly sorrow is about the other person. It's been offended. Right. I want to set this right for you with you. It's about you, not me. Well, this is so interesting because guilt is so many negative emotions are just so selfish. Like guilt is so selfish. I love what you said about how when you feel guilty about something, it actually doesn't even have anything to do with like feeling sorry for the other person. You've just turned inward and now you're hating yourself because you didn't match up to what you hoped you would. Yeah, but it's not mature. It's not health-giving. My favorite verse, I think in all of Scripture, it's Romans 8, there's therefore now no condemnation for who those of us that love Jesus. Right? And no condemnation, that's guilt is all self-condemnation, self-punishment. And the whole... To answer your question, you shouldn't feel guilty for feeling guilty. Yeah. Yeah. It's just that you should feel like there's a window of grace. I can step out of the door. Yeah. Right. Like being in therapy, I had so much guilt and going back to when I'm a child, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is why I feel this way. And it just, it's insane. Yeah. That's why I say guilt is homegrown, right? Your conscience comes programmed with whatever was put into it. It's not from the Holy Spirit. It's not from God. And so we learn what to feel guilty about. And some of the things that we feel guilty about are the result of false guilt. It's not true. We shouldn't be feeling guilty about something that you're feeling guilty about. So yeah. So that's what this whole first chapter is about, is to free yourself from that self-condemnation. Because you're stepping into grace. Yes. I feel like I have in the past, because I have really overcome like guilty conscience and mine also, both of ours comes from like childhood stuff. And I feel like you guys would know this oftentimes, that's bread and born in an environment of like a blame system. Like your parents blame you, your siblings blame you, everyone's just blaming each other. So you learn to just feel guilty all the time. And I think for me, the past, you know, however many years of my life until I started doing this work, I would, it would make me feel good about myself to feel guilty, you know, whereas like it's righteous or something. Yeah. And like, I'm, oh, I'm a good person. I felt that for so long. Like I am a better person. I've done something that's hurt someone, but I'm a good person because I'm beating myself up so badly. So it's almost like this self-protecting thing. Whereas you meet Jesus and then he allows you to the gift of grace where you realize like what you said, no condemnation, you don't feeling guilty does nothing for anybody. It doesn't fix anything for you or the other person. So I love that we talk about that. And you hold on to it long enough. It petrifies, it turns into shame. So you don't just feel guilty about something you've done, you feel guilty about who you are. And that's really toxic. Yeah. Oh, let's get free from guilt. That's amazing. Do you think that guilt and obsessive compulsive thinking are the great question? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Because, you know, that OCD is complex, but there is a facet of it that is if I just do it perfectly, everything will be okay. Right. Which God heals because I growing up had major obsessive compulsive thinking to the point where like I was so tormented in my mind, replay situations over and over, lived with an immense, yeah, ruminate all day, immense amount of guilt. And I have been healed so much from that where I never thought I would be healed. I thought I'd have to live with this for the rest of my life and be on medication. Yeah. What a beautiful testimony. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Uh-huh. Grace of grace. Yeah. Wow. So that's the first bad thought, you know, is that this idea of thinking that guilt is something that I need to carry around. Wow. I don't. So that just freed so many people because I think we all, yeah, have a misconception about what guilt is and yeah. No condemnation for those of us that are in Christ Jesus. So the second one is about the disease to please. Have you ever suffered from the disease to please? Have you ever been a people pleaser? Yes. Yes. So the disease to please. How do we do this? The disease to please. I think I have all of those. We all do. That's the truth. We do to some degree or another. But the disease to please is all about being, we all want to be accepted. We all want to be loved and so to do anything that would risk that to be rejected by somebody is scary. And so in fact, it was the very first thing that Judah and I, when we got into this work that he was just, he couldn't say no. He just could not set a boundary. He couldn't say no to anybody and he. And he would be the first to admit that. Oh, yes. Well, he admits it in this book for sure. And, you know, so we work on curing his disease to please. But what happens is, when we have this disease to please, we are no longer authentic. We're living in pleasant bill. Everything's just fine. And we bury everything that's negative and anything that is, you know, possibly going to cause friction. We just want to kind of sweep that away and just keep it pleasant. And that you can't have an authentic relationship because it's only this deep. And so, you know, we've talked before about how conflict is the price we pay for a deeper relationship. And conflict is something that people that suffer from this disease to please abhor. Right. Yeah. And I think we've also talked a little bit about the power of attachment styles. And when you're anxious about attachment, it feels like if I displease you, I will lose you. And that's part of what makes us suffer from this disease to please. We have to be, you know, to have a real relationship. There has to be vulnerability. And vulnerability sometimes is scary to the other person because you're saying stuff that they don't want to hear. And if you suffer from the disease to please, you don't do that. What do you do? You wear a mask. You become something that you're not. And so you act like everything's good when it really isn't. And so it just becomes a pseudo relationship, a false relationship. I love this because there is a story of Parable Jesus told about the disease to please. There are the brothers and the dad asked two brothers, will you do this assignment for me? And one of them said, absolutely, I'll do it. And the other one said, no, not going to do it. But the brother that said no, thought about it later, went back and did it. And the brother that said, yes, out of a desire, reflexive desire to please just didn't fall through because too many yeses didn't come from authenticity. And then Jesus said, who pleased the father? And I think that's what happens to us. We just reflexively want to say the right thing, but our heart might not be in it. We might not be capable of it. And so it doesn't turn out to be a genuine act of love. Yeah, absolutely. Every relationship that we have starts at a really surface level, just when we're getting to know somebody, right? And it's impression management. We're trying to look a certain way, come across in a way that they'll like us, right? It's shallow. It's very shallow. And a pseudo. And how you do it, like the conversation you might have with somebody in the church foyer, you know, that you just see every once in a while, how you doing? Oh, great. Hey, how's that golf game going? Oh, it's fantastic. How about you? Oh, it's good. We ought to go together sometime. Yeah, let's do that. Right. Okay. See you, man. That's it. Right. That's just, it's just an inch deep. There's nothing to it. It looks so friendly and nice and warm. Yeah. But let's say that same person, if you got in a car and drove from Los Angeles to Boston starting tonight, how long would it stay at that pseudo relationship? Not if you're real, right? If you have the disease to please, it stays there clear across the whole country, right? But eventually, if you're a real person, you go, Hey, I'm not crazy about this music that we're listening to. Can I change channel? You know, or, uh, Hey, do you mind if I drive for a little while? Because, you know, whatever. You were so self-conscious about how you were driving last night. Do you have, you have the disease to please when it comes to driving your car? Don't you? Well, yeah, because I know how I drive an LA and it's tough and I felt bad. You've never ridden with my husband. I know you did. It's because we all flinch when we're in the car. Because when we go like this, Ari literally drives over the curb. Ari closes her eyes when I drive and has made me very insecure about my driving. I like lose years off my life every time I get on a car with her. Is that why you met here at the studio today? What? We'll drive together. Yeah. Oh, no. We'll drive together. I can't. So pseudo relationship. If you're together long enough and you get, start to get real, things get a little chaotic, right? And it feels like, oh, wow, what's going to happen here? This is like, uh, this is awkward. This is, uh, there's disequilibrium here. And there's no balance. We don't see this theological issue. I don't know. Yeah, it could be this political perspective. We don't want the same, we don't want to stop the same place for food. Whatever it is, there's going to be something that we don't see eye to eye on. And that little bit of chaos gets resolved generally when one or the other people in the relationship kind of empties themself of their need to change that person. They go, okay, I'm not crazy about going to Mexican food, but if that's what you want, I can do that. Let's do it. Right? I'm going to empty my need to go to Italian food or whatever. You know, I'm silly illustration. Is that bad? No. Oh, that's not people pleasing, right? Well, it depends if that's your lifestyle of doing that, where you never want to exert your own desire and your own attitude or your own views or whatever. That's a problem. That's the disease to please. Okay. Right? I'm glad you made that decision. Yeah, that's a really good- That's not what he's talking about. That's a great clarification. Yeah. What I'm talking about is in order to get to a deep relationship, there has to be some sense of emptying yourself to change the other person. But you've had to risk being authentic for the chaos to even reveal itself. Well, yeah. And by the way, sometimes the things that we empty ourselves of our need to change in another person, like just think of an important relationship to you right now, everybody that's listening to us, think of an important relationship. There's something that you probably are thinking, man, I wish they would do this differently. Right? If you emptied yourself of your need to change that in them, if you offered them a little grace and just went, I'm not going to say anything about how they do X, Y, Z, more often than not, that thing that irritates you has the opportunity to literally become the thing that endears you to them. Oh, wow. It's a weird psychological phenomenon. And spiritual, I think. There's this, I think, a mystical grace component to it. Because when you accept someone, right where they are with their differences from you, their flaws, and you're offering grace and that grace is transforming. It is. I know. Yeah. I have a silly illustration of this that just came to mind. I haven't thought about this for a long time. When we first got married, Leslie, I remember I came into the kitchen and she was cutting carrots. And the way that she was cutting the carrots just was wrong. I am too. I never mean lefties. I don't do things the normal way. But it just looked like, oh man, I just said, you're going to cut yourself the way you're cutting carrots like that. You need to do it this way. Like I'm teaching her how to cut carrots. This is literally me and you. I know. No. It's actually me and R. She would literally be like, I need to show you how to cut the carrots. I would say that. And Leslie wants to please me. So she cuts carrots the way and she's free separate. But then I come back a week later and she's cutting carrots. They're the same old way. Because I would want to do it for you while you were watching. But later I wouldn't be thinking about it. Just revert back to whatever. And so anyway, this went on for a while. And finally, I just kind of got to a place where I just went, hey, that's just how she cuts carrots. You know, that's just, I'm going to empty myself. I didn't consciously say that. But you know what I mean? And the strange thing is that somewhere in the course of our marriage, it's almost like I would be disappointed if she wasn't cutting carrots her way. You know what I mean? Like that's how my Leslie cuts carrots. You know, it's just a silly illustration. No, we do have things like that though. We do. For example, can I say one? My biggest pet peeve in the world, not my biggest pet peeve, but yeah, I guess, was always when I first met Ari, I couldn't understand why. And we practically lived together for the first two years that we were friends until I moved. Ari opens like ketchup or honey or something, but like that just like leaves it there and doesn't put the top back on. And they're way more convenient. It's so convenient. And when I, when I first became friends with her, I, it would make me like lose my mind. And I'll tell her like, I would be like, it's not even my house. It's not even my house. And I'd be like, are you can't do this? Like you can't do this. And I'm not even kidding. Over time, I was just at our house yesterday or yeah, I stayed there last night. I saw something open on the counter when I got home at your house at midnight and I go, I love her so much. I love her so much. It's kind of be disappointed. But wasn't it? Yeah. So far. Here's my new thing with Leslie. What is it? You're going to be surprised probably. So we have dark, you've been in our home. We have dark wooden floors and. Oh, I don't think this is going to surprise me. This blonde hair can be. Everywhere. I shed like I'm a. Same. Same. Yeah. You know. Yeah. But I got a, I got a, what's the name of that? Dyson. I got a Dyson. I have a Dyson. Dyson, yeah. Dyson changed our lives. The one with the light on it. Yes, with the light on it. With the light on it. You see everything. Okay, wait, you're talking about the hairstyle, which is good. But he's talking about a vacuum. She's talking about a vacuum. Okay. What is she talking about? I said the faucet bangs. The Dyson. Come on. You bought me a Dyson. Are you really think of us as Dyson's friends? Yeah. Oh, it's like a finger cut. Come on. No, it's like a beautiful style. A dryer. I'm out of my depth at this point. He's Dyson. Yeah. All I know is that when we got this vacuum a month ago, and it has this light, I'm like, man, you need to brush your hair more because I love vacuuming up your hair. Wait, that's so real though. Try not to be satisfied with that what's going on. Lord, please bring me someone that like takes joy in that. That is really sweet. That's sweet. Well, John told me recently his, he told me recently that something that's been really endearing for him because I moved and so I got all new furniture, but I'm somebody who I have to have a piece of furniture and then let it sit in my house for a couple of days. And then nine out of 10 times, I'll return it. And so that's, I'm going to put this in here. At first, at first he was starting to get a little bit because I'd be like, baby, can you please come like, I'm so sorry, this is a big box and can you come bring it to UPS and send it back for me. And the first couple of times he's like, what is like trying to be like, you don't need to do that. You don't need to try out that. Just see if you like it on the website and you don't need to like audition it in your home. And I'm like, yes, I do. I have to know if it fits in the space. And he told me recently he was talking to his friend and was like, yeah, Angela does a lot of weird things. Like for example, she loves buying furniture and then returning it in two days. And I have to walk up her stairs, box it up for her, walk it downstairs and then pay $80 to ship it out for her. And he's like, and I do it with a smile on my face because it's just like, that's her. Oh, that is beautiful. Oh, you know, oh my gosh, she's perfect. Should we call her? Oh my god. That is sweet. It's true though, when we empty ourselves of our need to change each other, which I think it's a deep, I don't think you can do it without the Holy Spirit. I was about to say, yeah, that moves us into genuine. Genuine relationship where you can like just relax. You can just, it's like sitting in a big leather or easy chair. It's just like, this is so comfortable to be in this relationship right now. Because I can say what's on my mind. I don't have to be afraid of being judged. I know you're going to accept me even if it comes out the wrong way. And that's an incredible safe space to be in, but you can't get there via the disease to please. Yeah, because you never risk the authenticity to be accepted in the worst moment. So people have to see your dark side. Yeah. People have to see, you know, parts of you that you don't want them to see in order for you to really be loved. Otherwise you're just wearing a mask all over the place and everybody's just loving the impression that you give. Wow. That's great. Yeah. So that's the second chapter. Cure the disease to please and cultivate authentic relationships. So, all right. So that's the first one. Guilt, second one, disease to please. You want to keep going on this? Absolutely. This is perfect. All right. Come on. I could spend hours on each one like with examples. Try to give examples on them. Yeah. Because for me it helps me. I know everyone probably understands. No. I'm like a kindergarten sometimes. You know what you could do? You know what you could do? Read the book. Yeah. You could read the book. She read the book. She read the book. That's right here. Everybody's picturing your capless, your capless containers and your boxed up furniture. Oh, yeah. Such good examples. Yeah, you're right. We took it good. So, chapter three is extinguish self-doubt and rekindle your courage. Extinguish self-doubt. Give us an example. So, self-doubt. Well, have you ever doubted yourself? Yeah. We all do, right? Yeah. And we have feelings of insecurity and helplessness and like, I don't think I can, there's nothing. What can I do, right? And we lose all sense of our courage. Have you ever heard the name Martin Seligman? He's a psychologist, probably the most influential living psychologist these days. He was like the president for a while of the American Psychological Association. That kind of influence. Big time psychologist, University of Pennsylvania. But just as a graduate student, he did this groundbreaking study that sounds a little cruel, but I'll explain it's not. It had to do with some dogs. And during the time you've heard of BF Skinner, behaviorism, is that no, no, no. No, we probably don't know most of the people you guys know. That's right. I wish we do. So, but BF Skinner came up with this whole thing called behaviorism and kind of a philosophy of how people learn to be who they are by getting reinforcement. Getting a reward or a reinforcement. You tend to do that thing more. Yeah. That was really popular in the 70s. Martin Seligman kind of came through graduate school at that time. And so he was doing this experiment with these dogs on behaviorism and rewards and so forth. And so he had this thing called a shuttle box. It was just a box that the dog would be in with a little partition. And what he was doing was have the dog sit on this side of the shuttle box. And you know how like sometimes when you touch a doorknob on a winter day, it can shock you? A pretty mild shock, but enough that you want to avoid it. He would have a little metal plate in the bottom and their little paws would feel that level of a shock. And most dogs just jump over the little barrier and go to the other side. So all he was doing was measuring how many trials did it take for him to do that for the dog to do it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Now I want to get the shock. Right. And then they would associate it with a buzzer or a bell or something like that. And then even without a shock, just hearing the bell, they would go over. It's just a kind of standard psychological study. But in the course of the study, he discovered there was a handful of dogs that weren't jumping over the barrier. Three, four, ten, twelve trials, they would just sit down and take the shock again and again. And he was like, could not understand what's wrong with these dogs. And it wasn't until another experimenter kind of entered the scene and said, oh, Marty, he said these dogs were used in an experiment a while ago where they couldn't jump over the barrier. They weren't allowed to jump over the barrier. It was for a different whole different study. And what he realized is these dogs had fallen victim to what he called learned helplessness. Wow. Learned helplessness. And this was a revolutionary thought that we can learn to be helpless. And if you think about it, another example, toward the end of World War II in concentration camps, what they discovered, they went in to rescue all these prisoners that were just in dire straits. And what they realized is they could have easily walked out of the camps at that stage. Wow. But they didn't because they just learned you can't escape, right? Learned helplessness. So those are physical examples. We do that in our head all the time. To ourselves. Yeah, to ourselves. That's why it's a toxic thought is that it dismantles our capacity to have courage in our lives. Because, oh, nobody in my family has ever gone to college, so I can't go to college. Wow. You know, we just put perimeters on ourselves and think it's impossible to do. When it's not, we've just learned to be helpless. Wow. Yeah. Because we feel like something's wrong with us and it will never change. Right. If we take it personally. Yeah. And if you take something personally, there's three things, and this goes to depression too, by the way. This is the making of clinical depression. You take something personal, you believe it's pervasive and it's permanent. You believe those three things, you're going to get depressed. Something happens. You fail an exam. Well, it's because I'm an idiot. I'm stupid. All right. That's step one towards depression. Which is really different than saying, oh, you know, I didn't have a chance to study life. Didn't allow me enough time. I can make a different choice. I can have a different result. Right. That would be a very different choice. Right. Or that the test was incredibly hard and the professor's unfair even or whatever. Right. But you internalize it. You personalize it. Yeah. And then that it's pervasive. In other words, I think I failed this exam. It's going to impact everything in my life. I'm not going to pass this course. If I don't pass this course, I'm going to lose my scholarship. If I don't have my scholarship, I'll never be able to finish college, whatever it is. You just extrapolate and make this. Yes. You just spiral out of control. All right. Personal pervasive. And then it's permanent. It's always going to be this way. There's nothing I can do about it. If you buy into those three beliefs, you have the makings for clinical depression. If you hold onto them, right? And we all do those to some degree, some of the time. But if you have that pattern, and that's what I talk about. You just found self-doubt. Exactly. Well. Yeah. You just, you won't have courage to do much of anything. Yeah. So what's the antidote to that? How do you break out of it? Well, the real solution is to change your thinking, right? That's what this book is all about. And to change, to reroute the grooves. And so, you no longer think of things as personal or pervasive or permanent. So you say to yourself, just like Leslie was saying, hey, I just didn't have what it took to study for this exam. It doesn't mean I'm a failure. Yeah. I failed the exam. I feel badly about that. But it doesn't mean I'm an idiot. Yeah. Okay. So I climb out of that one. And it's not pervasive. Yeah. If I keep failing, I'm going to have a real problem. But just because I failed one exam doesn't mean it's the end of the world. I can keep going. Right. It's the self-talk. It's just what we're feeding ourselves. And so you lean into optimism, but the apostle Paul called it hope, right? I mean, that's what we call it in the Bible, right? It's just not allowing that script of self-doubt to become your truth. Yeah, absolutely. And bringing every single one of those thoughts, 2 Corinthians 10.5 says, you demolish arguments in every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And you take every thought captive. That's it. You're bringing it to Christ. And so literally taking, doing everything that you just said in the context of prayer time, bringing it to Jesus and having those conversations with the Holy spirit and being like, Lord, I'm coming out of agreement with these lies. Like I'm done believing these limiting, restricting beliefs that I am this way because of my family. So I'll never be this XYZ. And just like absolutely eradicating all of those lies and saying I'm not like, and I think what you're alluding to also is like awareness is curative, like to be aware of what's going on in your mind because you mentioned this earlier. I think we're like, you have so many thoughts and almost all of them are negative and you're not even aware of what you're thinking and you have the script going on in your head and it's been your whole life. So you don't even think to challenge what's happening in your own mind. And I think what's been pivotal for me personally is just being like noticing a thought and being like, I don't have to agree with that. That doesn't have to be true. Take it captive. Take it captive enough. And like, yeah, so that's really profound. You know that we've talked on another occasion about this class lesson I used to teach on relationships and we had this sentence that we would start the class with. If you try to build a relationship with somebody else before you've done the difficult work of getting whole on your own, all your relationships become an attempt to complete yourself. The last time we taught that class, a student came up to me and I was kind of at the podium and kind of getting my computer set up and he goes, hey, Dr. Parrott, he said that, can I talk to you for a second? I said, yeah. He said, you know, that last lecture you gave a week ago, he said that was really meaningful to me. I said, hey, thanks man. I really appreciate that. He goes, no, no, no, you have no idea what this meant to me. He said, if you understood the home that I grew up in and how I've kind of been beaten down and I lost like courage, like I'm barely, you know, to be here on this campus has been a huge thing for me. And he's just going on, he's telling this story and he goes, that sentence that you gave me, he says, it's like really revolutionary for me. And I said, man, I've never had a compliment like this on a lecture before. This is, thank you for sharing that. He goes, can I show something to you? I said, yeah, what? And he lifted up his t-shirt and he had this sentence tattooed on his ribcage. I kind of wanted to say, hey, I have better things than that to say hold on before you tattoo stuff. But doesn't that speak volumes about what some of us need? Like we don't have to tattoo it on our skin, but we need that tattooed on our soul and our brain to be released from that so we can regain our courage and find that capacity to not surrender to self-doubt to learned helplessness. Wow. Wow, the learned helplessness is crazy. I can't imagine how many people, would you also kind of equate that to victim mentality a little bit? Would that be similar? That's actually the next one. That's a great setup. The next one is we call it step off your high horse and walk in another shoes. And this is all about entitlement. Yeah. And when we were writing the book, we really debated on whether to include this because what we found, we have this little thing where we surveyed people and it shows which one is most troublesome to you and so forth. And you see, there's, you know, it shows the percentage of everybody and then we get to entitlement wherever it is. And it's like, just like, yeah, here it is. 12% whereas, you know, 40 and 50% say, you know, needy talk and unworthy talk and insecure talk entitlement. Not many of us admit to that, but this is that idea of feeling like life owes me. Life should be fair. Well, guess what friends? Life is not fair. It's not for you and not for anybody else. And if you think it's supposed to be fair for you in spite of anybody else's problems, you're walking down the pathway of entitlement. And that's a toxic thought. Entitlement is, I wish we could pass laws in Congress against it. Do you know, it's just not a healthy thing at all. And mostly it dismantles our capacity to see somebody else's perspective. Think about that, you know. Now we all have this little thing in tight, you know, we were talking earlier about airlines and accumulating miles and all that stuff. And you get status and you get to board the plane first or whatever. And when you travel a lot and you are accustomed to having, oh, I get to go on the plane first. If you don't, what's going on around here? I need to speak to the manager. You get that kind of sense of entitlement. We all have that. I'm talking about though, the person that just has a groove in their brain and they can't seem to get out of it because life owes them something. I think this is where faith can be such a gift. Totally. And I don't like the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. It's so profound to me that he's able to say, you meant it for my harm, but God meant it for my good. And if you can refocus even on the thing that you thought would be fair and that you would just deserve in life and it's not happening. And you can say, even if I'm right, I shouldn't have been treated this way. I'm going to trust underneath it is God's love. Yeah. Yeah. God means it for my good. We'll work it for my good. And it just takes you out of that place where you act the victim. Instead, you can say, you know, I'm going to receive whatever the gift is you have for me in this. I wouldn't choose this, but where's the gift? Because entitlement just leads to a whole of depression, right? So like, I need this. I should have this. And then you just sink, right? Where if you change that thought, you actually get you through it, right? Yeah. And let's do a little thought exercise. What would make you happy? Like if you could do something. If you could push a magic button kind of thing. Like later this afternoon, you're just like you had an hour to make yourself happy. What are you going to do? Are you going to watch, you know, a favorite TV show, play a video game? Doomscroll. Doomscroll. It's fun. Yeah, that's fun. You know, when we think about what will make us happy, we think about, oh, I want some ice cream. I'm going to get some Ben and Jerry's. I'm going to, whatever the thing is. Shopping. Shopping. Yes. Shopping is a good idea. Yes. Vacuuming hair off the floor. Suflay. Suflay at the pole launch. Hey, he's getting personal now. But, you know, we think about indulgences, finding pleasure in something that's going to make us happy. But there was another interesting study where they had people do exactly that and then. A little splurge indulgence. Whatever it is that would make them happy. They spent an hour doing that. And then they did another day and did that same hour. But now you're going to add value to somebody else's life. Wow. That means being generous. It doesn't mean you have to necessarily spend money, but you're going to add value to somebody else's life. Volunteer your time to help somebody. Maybe it's just standing at an opening up the door for a bunch of people and just like being whatever the thing is, but add value to somebody else's life. It really does make you happy when you do those things. Well, the exponential. Exponentially. So the experimenters found when we did the thing that we thought would make us happy, it was very temporary. There's a little hit. Yeah. A little dopamine hit. And the percentage. But when you're generous, when you're actually considering other people's needs and trying to meet those needs, your kindness is coming down here on the flight yesterday. We were talking about miles again. I don't know why I keep coming back at this. But because of our miles on Alaska, they come by and they give you these special little chocolates. All right. But you're sitting around other people. It's the weirdest thing because not everybody gets the chocolate. It's so exclusive. It feels crazy. Yes. And so there was this young woman that was sitting on the other side of us and I talked to her earlier and she was a PhD student at the University of Washington. And I saw her reading a textbook. And did you see me do this? Yeah, I saw you do it. You gave away my chocolate. I did. Which I knew I wasn't going to want. And I didn't think to offer it. He is so cute. I ate mine and I said, hey, would you like this one? But I know it's so she said, really? Oh, she was. Yeah, it was so cute. But it kind of made me feel good. I know. We didn't talk about it. But you know what I mean? Better than eating your own. It did actually. That's a great illustration. It's so genuine. Yeah. We should have put that in the book. Yeah. I can't believe you're saying this because I would say I'm in a little bit of what is it called? Entitlement. Entitlement with my singleness right now. I've been having a couple moments here and there being like. I should be in a relationship. I should be like, it's time. And it's made me sink into a depression. And then I do fleeting things like doom scroll and disassociate and do these things. And I just said on the phone last night out to one of my girlfriends, I said, I think I know what I need to do to gain real happiness. I need to go help kids again. Because that's the one thing that fulfills me like helping kids. Right. And I can't believe you're saying this. That's so interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean you really had that discernment. It's huge. Well, pleasure versus generosity. Yeah. Great. But that's if you're looking for the antidote to entitlement. That's what it is. Yeah. Start to give your life away. Yes. And those are the happiest people on the planet. That's you through your depression. Yeah. When you take the focus off yourself. Yeah. Got me through all of my hard times. It's insane. Yeah. Oh, man, your boss next didn't really came out on that. Hot times. Did I say it like that? Hot times. Yeah. It is so lovely. I like it. It's my favorite thing about her. It's got to be the worst accent of all time. Right. So one more. Yeah. How's our time? You want to get to one more? Yeah, let's do this last one. All right. So we've talked about guilt. We've talked about the disease, the pleas, and we've talked about self-doubt and entitlement. The last one is, in my opinion, the most important one is the title is quit earning credit with God and receive his gift of love. And if you don't get this one right, the rest are pretty difficult. Wow. So ultimately, our love is not earned and it's not from somebody else. It's from God. Yeah. And when you have that, all the other ones get a whole lot easier. Wow. So the problem is so many of us think I'm not worthy. I need to do something to prove. I haven't used this illustration for a long time, but I remember I was at a hotel in Chicago once and I was speaking and I had this little break and I was getting a bite to eat and through the glass partition in the restaurant, I could see the swimming pool and I saw this scenario played out where there was this businessman and he was in his suit, but you tell he brought his little boy along on the trip and his boys splashed around the pool. He gets out of the pool and the dad sitting there reading the Chicago Tribune or something and the kid gets out of the pool. He stands on the edge of the pool and he looks at his dad. Do you know what he says? Daddy, daddy, watch me. Watch me. And he jumped and the father pulls down the paper. He jumps in. Hey, that's great. Good jump, son. Back to it. Do you know what the kid did next? Got out of the pool, went to the exact same place. Now what he said to his dad. Hey, dad, watch me. Daddy, daddy, watch me. Watch me. Kids do that, don't they? Exactly, right? Hey, that's a good jump. Way to go. And I just saw this. He did that several times, you know? And I just thought, how many times do we do that in our own spiritual walk with God? Father, father, watch this. This is going to be good. I'm really going to get some credit for this one. Look how I'm setting my needs aside here, right? You're going to really give me some credit here, right? This is like extra credit, right? And we really want to earn that from God. And of course, God's never asked us for that. The love is given. That's just there. It's received, not achieved. Nice. Nice. I mean, it's not. God's love is not connected to our performance. We sometimes feel God's love more when we think we've done a good job. Nothing has changed. If we've done the worst day, God's love hasn't changed. Wow. Thank you for saying that. I have a friend, and he's in heaven now, but he was one of my mentors. His name is Gary Smalley. And Gary, when we would speak together, I remember at the Rose Garden in Portland, big arena, and we were speaking a bunch of folks, and he got up on the very first night of the conference, and he had a $100 bill. And he says, who wants the $100 bill? The place goes, no, I want it, you know? And I said, he said, I'm going to give this to somebody in just a few minutes, but I want to do something first. And he took the dollar bill and he crumbled it up in his hand. He says, it's all crumbled up. Who wants it now? I said, want it. Yeah, take it. You know, throw it to me. And he goes, hold on. I'm not done. And he put it on the ground and put his foot on it and he's smashing it in like that. And he pulls it up. Does anybody still want it? Yeah, we all want it. And then he spits on it and he puts it back on the ground. And does anybody still want it? Yes, I'll still take the $100 bill, right? And he said, that's just like your heavenly father. He wants you to. Because your value hasn't changed. Your value hasn't changed. Thank you for saying that because one of the biggest things even as we're on tour and asking people, we said to the audience, we were like, how many of you feel like God is mad at you? And mostly everyone raised their hand. Yeah, ache. It's something we talk about a lot. And I can even relate to that, you know, that condemning voice of, oh my gosh, I didn't read my Bible enough today. Are you mad at me? I mean, I said three times last night, I was like, I'm sorry, Jesus. And while it's good to have the fear of God, it's also can be very unhealthy when you constantly feel condemned in your mind. You have this voice in your mind that's like, he's mad, he's mad. Did I say the wrong thing? It's like no way to live. And I feel like so many people are living that way. Like I have to be this perfect person. I have to, it's a real thing that we don't talk about enough. And I would say, you know, I've been doing this thing for two and a half years and I'm still learning and growing, but like I still go through this. Where I still feel like if I do one wrong thing, like I have that condemning voice sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. So that's really good to touch on that. I was just checking it in the book because I wrote this story that's so similar to that. Wow. And it's about a professor that you know, and he would ask the class, and this is a seminary class of, you know, future, you know, Bible teachers. And he'd say the question he was asked, how many of you have been conscious of God's love for you personally in the last week? Raise your hand. You've been conscious of God's love for you. And very few hands go up. And then he would ask the second question, how many of you have been conscious of God's disapproval of you this week? Every hand goes up. Isn't that wild? Yeah. Yeah. These are the professionals, right? Yeah. Going to teach us how to understand the Bible. Yeah. And they feel like that as well. Yeah. Yeah. It's a struggle. What you know breaks God's heart. Yeah. I know. The love is right there. I know. You're not connected with our performance. I know. Nothing changes. And you go back to all the times you feel most loved. It was when you were at the bottom of the pit and you felt worthless and you were in sin. And that's when he meets you. And it's so, yeah, it's a struggle that we need to keep talking about. What do you think? Why do you think so many people feel this way? A constant condemning voice. What do you think is the root of it? It's the pre-programming of the brain, right? You are what you think. And we were programmed from day one by hearing what messages we were around in our homes. And because God's love is so unique, unconditional. We've never actually experienced that on a human level. That's rare and precious when we get offered that. But it's always available to us at the ground of our being. Wow. What is it in Ephesians where Paul talks about, you know, try to measure God's love. Measure its depth, its heights, its links, right? It's so extravagant. God's love is just so extravagant. We can't compare it to any earthly love that we have. But that's why we close the book with this because it's, you know, even though it's the most important, we wanted to kind of lean, lead up to it because this one ultimately is the greatest challenge for all of us to accept God's love. It's so true. Thank you for writing this. This is so important for people. Well, I appreciate you saying that. This is the list, unworthy talk, needy talk, insecure talk, entitled talk, and then finally, unlovable talk. And this is the talk that we have in our own minds. Guys, you have to get this book. You have, like, genuinely, you have to read this because there are so many people who are suffering when they don't need to be. They're suffering and they're a victim to the thoughts in their mind when our thoughts are under the authority of Jesus. And it's just no way to live. And we don't have to live like that. We don't have to live absolutely tormented with this unworthy, insecure, unlovable self-talk. That's right. I love how Jesus said, when you know the truth, the truth will say, you know what I mean. Exactly, yes. And just psychologically, I want to make sure people understand. It begins with your thoughts. So many people think, oh, I need to feel a certain way and then I'll think differently. Wow. And that's just not true. Your thoughts are the catalyst of creation and the dealings. And we get it backwards so often, right? Wow. And that's why take every thought captive. That's why you can change how you feel. Exactly. You can literally change how you feel. So good. You know what you think. And that's why one person can have a certain experience, failing an exam, for example, and have a terrible feeling and another person can go, oh, it wasn't great, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Oh, that's awesome. It's your thinking. Yeah. Let me read this. This is, when you eliminate, I'm going to, these are the four things, the five things that I just mentioned, but I want to make sure people get the payoff for each one. So if you eliminate unworthy talk, you enjoy more grace. Wow. Right? Because this is all about guilt. If you eliminate needy talk, you enjoy more authenticity. Because now you have real depth, no longer the pseudo relationship. If you eliminate insecure talk, you have more courage to step beyond the learned helplessness that you've fallen victim to all in your, all in your head. If you eliminate entitled talk, you enjoy empathy. Cause now your focus, not just on what brings you pleasure, but how I can add value to somebody else's life. And then ultimately, if you eliminate unlovable talk, self-talk, you enjoy more love. Wow. That's great. This is absolutely amazing. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you both. Thank you, Les. Thank you, Leslie. Guys, you know what to do. We're going to go get bad thoughts and we're going to fix our brains. Here we are. Oh. Sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. That's part of this whole interview. You telling Leslie he uses a Dyson? Did you not picture him using the Dyson doing like this? There's not even product in this air. It's ridiculous. Hey, you know what just occurred to me when you bumped her on the head? I'm so sorry. It just occurred. It was a love talk. Yeah, okay. We have the same, we have the same literary agent. And I don't know if you're, if she did this for you, but when this book came out, she sent me a box of cookies that had the cover. No, she didn't do that for us. She didn't do that for you? No. Okay. Well, you missed out. Are you sure? Or somebody sent us cookies. We got a box of cookies that had bad thoughts on it. And so now I'm going to eat my bad thoughts. Oh, I love that. Eat your bad thoughts. Don't think them. Eat them. That's right. Let's go. Figure out how this connects you with the box. Now I get it. All right, everybody, bad thoughts. We love you so much. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May he turn his face towards you and give you peace and good thoughts. Shalom, shalom.