Start Here for Your Breakthrough
Self-Brain Surgery™ Basics (Part 1 of 4)
“The Self-Brain Surgery Sunday™ letter is the best five minutes spent on the Internet all week.”
🧠 Paid Subscribers: Scroll to the bottom for this week’s video self-brain surgery training. I give you an operation to take this week’s letter into daily practice!
Hey friend,
Welcome to the first of four short letters designed to introduce you to one of the most powerful, practical tools I’ve ever discovered for changing your life. Since my new book came out, thousands of new people from all over the world have discovered self-brain surgery, and many are writing in asking, “Where should I start?”
So, whether you’re a brand-new subscriber, a friend who’s been handed this, or someone who’s simply curious about why a brain surgeon keeps talking about “operating on yourself,” I’m glad you’re here. And if you’ve been around a long time, these four letters (and the podcasts this month) will give you something you can use as a refresher or to share with a friend.
Let’s get into it: What is Self-Brain Surgery?
It’s this: You can make real, structural changes to your own brain, without a scalpel, by intentionally reordering your thoughts.
That’s not motivational fluff. It’s neuroscience + faith in action.
Here’s the big concept in plain language.
For decades, we thought the adult brain was pretty much fixed. You were stuck with the wiring you had. Then functional brain imaging came along in the early 2000s and showed us something revolutionary: your thoughts literally change your brain’s structure.
Every time you focus on something, good or bad, you strengthen neural pathways. You’re pruning some connections and growing others. In other words, you’re performing brain surgery on yourself every single day, whether you realize it or not.
I’ve spent my career actually operating on brains in the OR. But the most important surgery I’ve ever done wasn’t on an operating table. It was on my own mind after I came home from Iraq, after my first marriage fell apart, after PTSD, and after we lost our son Mitch in a devastating trauma.
In those dark days I discovered that I could take the same principles I use in the OR: identify the problem, remove what’s diseased, and replace it with something healthy. and I apply them to my thinking.
To do that, I had to switch positions from passive, helpless patient looking for someone to “fix me,” to empowered, trained, compassionate surgeon ready to operate my mind and my brain and work with God to fix myself. And that patient-to-doctor switch changed everything for me.
That’s Self-Brain Surgery™.
It’s not positive thinking or “just believe harder.” It’s a deliberate, repeatable process:
Spot the automatic, lying thought that’s keeping you stuck (the “biopsy”).
Remove it.
Replace it with truth, usually God’s truth.
Repeat until new, healthier pathways form.
Science calls this neuroplasticity. Scripture has been saying it for 2,000 years:
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)
The pattern of this world is anxiety, rumination, self-pity, and hopelessness. Self-Brain Surgery is the daily practice of refusing to let those thoughts carve deep ruts in your brain. Instead, you renew your mind until your brain starts working for you instead of against you.
The result? Less depression. Less anxiety. More resilience. More hope. More joy, even when circumstances haven’t changed yet.
I get emails almost daily with someone asking me, “Does self-brain surgery work for ______?”
They ask whether it ‘works’ for OCD, cPTSD, betrayal trauma, and all kinds of other things.
And here’s the answer: self-brain surgery is the only thing that does work.
Don’t misread that.
I’m not saying that self-brain surgery is all you need for any of life’s problems. I’m saying that it’s the mechanism of what YOU have to do to make any type of breakthrough in your life. No matter what your therapist helps you figure out, no matter what your doctor prescribes for you, no matter what you hear or read or discover in your quest for healing, hope, and higher performance.
Nothing changes until you make the patient-to-doctor switch and begin operating your mind and brain to get neuroplasticity working for you and not against you.
That’s because real change does not come from outside you. It comes from within.
Self-brain surgery does not eliminate the need for professional help, prayer, medications when they’re appropriate, or any other type of guidance or treatment. It simply is the mechanism of what actually has to happen before those things CAN help: you have to take responsibility as the surgeon of your own mind.
You don’t have to be a doctor. You don’t need special equipment. You just need the willingness to stop letting your brain run on autopilot and start operating on it with intention.
Over the next three weeks I’ll walk you through the foundational operations of Self-Brain Surgery so you can start using them right away. We’ll keep it simple, practical, and grounded in both the latest brain science and the timeless truth of Scripture.
But here’s the first step, right now:
Decide that your mind controls your brain, not the other way around.
You were created with the capacity to change. You were wired for hope. And the same God who designed your brain’s incredible plasticity is the One who invites you to “take every thought captive” (2 Corinthians 10:5) and make it obedient to Christ.
You’ve got everything you need to begin. (That’s a promise, and you can read it for yourself in II Peter 1:3)
With you on the journey, friend.
If this first letter already feels like a light in a dark place, forward it to someone who needs it. And hit reply to tell us one thought you’d like to “biopsy” this week. We’ll pray for you by name.
Next week: A deep dive into the transforming news that your mind and your brain are not the same thing.
You can get the training you need to master self-brain surgery in my new book. You can go even deeper in The School of Self-Brain Surgery.
The good news is, you can start today.
Be sure to check out the archive of previous posts if you missed last week’s letter.
Dum spiro spero (While I breathe, I hope),
Lee
II Timothy 1:7, “For you were not given a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.”
From the banks of the North Platte river on Moon River Ranch in Nebraska, USA
Disclaimer: This letter is for informational purposes only. It contains general information, drawn from my experience, research, and best practices. It is not health care advice, and is not intended to replace the counsel of your health care provider. Consult your provider before starting any new treatments or making changes to your health routine. This message does not constitute a doctor-patient relationship between us.
