Okay. Those of you online, can you hear me okay? See me okay? Is the audio with you okay? All right. Thank you. All right. So let's pray and get started. Can I request somebody in the class to please pray and then we'll start. Sorry. Oh, Mike is there. All right. Yes, somebody can please pray and we'll start. Thank you Jesus for this day. We pray that as we continue in the class that you reveal yourself to us and let us learn together of Father God and help us to grow in the revelation and knowledge of you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Okay. So let's quickly review what we did in the last class and then we will move forward. I'm just going to share my screen so that we can have a look at the notes. So we just began. It's kind of a little funny sitting and talking. We began with lesson number one, the introduction. We defined apologetics that we are providing an answer for the questions people have. A defense or a response to the challenges sometimes people may bring to what we believe. Why we believe, giving a reason for it. We saw that Jesus, the Lord Jesus himself answered questions and he demonstrated the power of the kingdom as well as he expressed the wisdom of God. We looked in the ministry of Peter, the Apostle Peter. And we saw that in 1 Peter 315 is the main text that most people, the ministry of apologetics, they use. And the Bible says, give a reason when people ask you for the hope that you have, you give a reason for that. So that's from that verse 1 Peter 315 is where we get the word apologia or the ministry of apologetics. It's a very nice definition of that ministry, the ministry of apologetics. However, in the case of the Apostle Peter, we made note that he was actually an simple, he was just a simple uneducated fisherman. He was not some big scholar, some highly trained person, just a fisherman. And in his ministry, the one incident we saw in Acts 4.13 to 14 is in his ministry, the biggest defense he gave was the healing of the lame man. So the man was healed, people couldn't question. So Peter did not give any big response, he didn't give any big defense and argument, but the healing of the lame man itself was a defense, an answer. To the preaching of the gospel. So that is something you must not forget that many times the apology that we give is actually the works of God, the miracles of God. We looked into the ministry of the Apostle Paul and we saw that even in his ministry, in contrast to Peter, Paul was a very educated man. He was a Pharisee, so he had been well-trained, he knew the Scriptures, he was well-educated. But even in his ministry, he reasoned and demonstrated, so he did both. He didn't just depend on his reasoning, he did reason, he did talk to people, he did explain, he did answer questions, but he demonstrated, he believed in the power of God, he demonstrated the power of God. In one classic example we saw was in Acts 13, when he was before Sergius Paulus, the governor of the island of Paphos, Acts 13, 6 to 12, and there, while he taught the word of the Lord, the power of God was what got this man's attention. When he saw what God did, he then received the teaching of the Lord. Then he spoke a little bit about spiritual dynamics, we said that we must be mindful that there is demonic interference, the devil himself is doing things to blind the minds of people. So really it's not about how well we can argue or how well we can debate, there's a spiritual battle, the devil is blinding the minds of people and so we must take authority over that part. Through prayer, through the exercise of our authority as we are proclaiming the gospel. And we also saw that there will be, there's a human side, some people oppose the preaching of the gospel, they oppose the faith and Paul tells us, we spent some time in 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 23 to 26, where the apostle Paul says, we must in humility teach those who are in opposition with humility, we must teach them so that God will give them repentance to the receiving of the truth. So it is God who's going to open their hearts for them to receive the truth from our side in meekness, in humility with patience, we have to share the gospel. Then we also saw how we have to depend on the Holy Spirit, John 16, 7 to 11, it's a Holy Spirit to convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. It's a Holy Spirit is going to open their hearts and minds, we can preach the gospel, we can share about Jesus, we can answer questions, we can give explanation, but it's the Holy Spirit who's going to convict their hearts. And we saw in 1st Peter 2 that if we just, if we maintain a good testimony, God will use that testimony, the testimony of our life in the day of visitation. That means when he visits people, he will use our testimony to speak into their hearts, so that living that testimony in front of people is very important. And another thing we mentioned from 2 Corinthians 3 is that the head follows the heart. Many times God touches the heart, they believe and then they come to understand, and that is true for us also. We believed in Jesus, we didn't understand everything about trinity, if we had to understand everything about trinity and then to believe, it would be very difficult. We believed in Jesus and then later on, the understanding came, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, that understanding came later on, but we believed with the heart, so that's important. So now let's move forward from them and I want to emphasize one very important thing in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 18 to 25, please, let's turn there. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 18 to 25, and you can follow with me, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 18 to 25, so the Apostle Paul is writing here, 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 18 to 25. So Paul the Apostle, let me just make this a little bigger here. So he writes, he says, for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. So what is he talking about? The message of the cross, the message of the cross, it is foolishness. So some people say, oh, what is this, they're preaching, Jesus died on the cross 2000 years ago, somewhere in Jerusalem. So it is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of what? The message of the cross. It is the power of God. So think about this. The message of the cross, that is the gospel, the gospel itself is the power of God. And in Romans 1, 16, Paul said the same thing, he said, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God. So here he is using the message of the cross, that is, when you are explaining about the cross, when you are sharing about the cross, the message of the cross, it is the power of God. So we say, you know, we want people to encounter the power of God. Well, this is how we do it. We bring them the message of the cross. The message of the cross is the power of God. So we're giving them an opportunity to encounter the power of God when we bring them the message of the cross. Now there are some people who think it's foolishness, but really it's an opportunity for them to encounter the power of God. So let's read on verse 19. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise, where is the scribe, where is the disputer of this age, the people argue, has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. So what Paul is saying is, you know, there is the wisdom of this world. There are all these educated people of this world, the wise people, they call them the scribe, the disputer, the debater. All these people are there, but God has really made foolish the wisdom of this world. And he says, the world through wisdom did not know God. Through its own wisdom, the world cannot understand God through its own ways. You're not going to be able to comprehend God. You know, so the world has its own way of thinking, own wisdom. Yeah, we, you know, we do a lot of nice things on the earth, but our wisdom is not going to help us understand God. God is beyond that and it requires spiritual understanding to know God. So the world through wisdom did not know God. And it says, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. Notice it says, it pleased God. So this is what God decided. I want people, if this may seem a very foolish thing, preach the message. But it pleased God that through the foolishness of the message preached, he's going to save people. So God said, I'm choosing a very foolish method. The world may think this is foolish, but I'm going to use this foolish method. What is it? Preach the gospel, preach the message. And through the foolishness of the message preached, I'm going to save lives. So God chose this approach. So when you and I think about this, you know, there are all these intellectuals in the world, the wise people of the world. They want to know God. Can you explain God to us? Can you answer our questions? So remember, man through his wisdom cannot understand God. They may be intellectually very great, but through our human intelligence, we cannot understand God. Second, we must understand that how do we approach these people? Well, God has said, I'm just happy with something simple. I'm just happy that you preach the message. It may look foolish, but through the foolishness of the message preached, I will save people. So you and I, we don't have to put too much pressure on ourselves. Just do the foolish thing. Share the message. And God will use that to save people. Okay, just share the message. God has decided that to the foolishness of the message preached, he will save those who believe. Let's read on verse 22. The Jews request a sign and Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews, a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because a foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. So what Paul is saying, he's saying, Paul recognizes that in his audience, there are two kinds of people. There are the Jews and there are the Greeks. The Jews are very spiritual people. They want a sign. They want a miracle. They want something supernatural. So you remember the Jews, they come to Jesus and say, Jesus, what sign will you give us? Do some magic. Do something, some sign. Show us some sign so that we can believe in you. So the Jews are very spiritual. They want to see something supernatural. So there are people who want that. Then there are Greeks. Verse 22. The Greeks seek after wisdom. So the Greeks, they're not interested in signs and supernatural. They want something that will appeal to the mind. So there are the Jews who want something supernatural. There are the Greeks who want wisdom. There are the Greeks who want wisdom. Tell us something very, very complicated. Something that will stimulate our minds. So Paul is recognizing that there are two kinds of people even in his audience. There are the Jews and the Greeks. But what is the message he will give them? Verse 23. But we preach Christ.  We preach Christ. That's the message we give you. So it doesn't matter who, what kind of people are in your audience. There may be people who are very spiritual. They want something supernatural, miracles, healings. There may be people who are very intellectual. They want some wisdom. They want something that stimulates their mind, appeals to their intelligence. Paul says, we have only one message. We have the message of the cross. That's all. We preach Christ crucially. That's the same message. But he says, this message, what about this message?  That means to the Jews who are looking for something supernatural. You say Jesus died on the cross. What is supernatural about that? You're only seeing a man who is in his weakness. So it's a stumbling block to the Jews. To the Greeks, it is foolishness. You're saying he died, my sins are forgiven. What logic is that? It is foolishness.  Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. That means in this message of the cross, in preaching Christ crucified, the power of God and the wisdom of God is being brought into people's lives. Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. So Jews want the power of God in the message of the cross. God's power is there. The Greeks want wisdom in the message of the cross. The wisdom of God is there. It's actually there. On the surface, it may look like foolishness. It may look like weakness for those who are looking for something supernatural. It may look like foolishness to those who are looking for something wise. But actually in the message of the cross, in us preaching Christ crucified, there is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For us, we must have that confidence in the message of the cross. Whether you're speaking to the Jews, meaning very spiritual people who want, you know, some miracles and healings or whether you're speaking to the Greeks, the intellectual people, we have only one message. It is a message of the cross. And you have the confidence that in the message of the cross, as you are explaining it to people, as you're giving them the simple message, they are going to encounter the wisdom of God and the power of God. Because God has chosen to the foolishness of the message preached. God has chosen. You just go and do this. You just go and give them the message. Just preach the message. So the foolishness of the message, he will save lives. So as we are getting ready to answer some of these big questions of life and is God their existence of God, this and that and all of that, talk about those things. We must be very clear that while we make our efforts to answer the questions, yes, we are going to give an answer. Yes, we are going to give a reason for the hope we have. Yeah, we're going to do that. But most importantly, we must share the message of the cross. And in that message, there is the power of God and there is the wisdom. So very simple message. We are sinners, but Jesus Christ died for our sins. He was buried. He rose up again. He's alive today. Anyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins and be saved. Simple message. But in that message, there is the power of God and the wisdom. And we must depend on that. God has said, just give the message. You give the message. Of course you answer the questions. Do the best explanation you can, but depend on the power of the message of the cross. Okay. Any questions? Yeah. So when we actually in the message of the cross, there is the wisdom of God and what is, how is it? It goes like this. And Paul explains this very beautifully in Romans chapter five. He explains very nicely. It goes like this. One man sins and the whole human race came under sin, Satan and death. One man sins. Everybody was put under sin, Satan and death. What is the wisdom of God? God said, I will bring another man. I will bring another man. But through this man's obedience, everybody will be brought out of sin, Satan and death. So wisdom of God, Satan thought, ah, I knocked the whole race out. I knocked Adam out. So I knocked the whole race out. God said, I have a better plan. I'll bring another man. But this man whom God would bring, himself must not be subject to sin, Satan and death. He has to be without sin. He cannot be born under Satan. So how can that happen? There's only one way. God has to become man. That's the only way possible because there is no human being who can be in that state. So this is the wisdom of God that God became a man, but this man was very different. This man was above sin, above Satan, above death. But he was a man. But he was God who became. So just as one man disobeyed, put us all under sin, Satan, death, one man. So Paul says, through one man's obedience, referring to Jesus, through one man's obedience, we have all received grace and the gift of righteousness. One man sinned, we all came under sin, Satan, condemnation, death.  Through him, we have all received grace and righteousness. This is the wisdom of God. It's wrapped up in this message of the cross. So beautiful. And that is how we experience salvation through Jesus Christ. So in the message of the cross, there is the power of God and there is the wisdom of God. It's there. So now as we, any other questions? As we move forward, just as a little side note, and I want to make this the focus of our study, but as a side note, I want to just point a little bit to the history of the church. And this is in the, you will learn about this in the other course on revivals, visitations and moves of God.  So what we will see, and you will find it in that book, Revivals, visitations, moves of God. I'm just sharing this with you. That actually from the very beginning of the church, people had to defend the Christian faith from other dangers, heresies. They call false, false ideas, wrong ideas from the very beginning. So from the early church itself. So apologetics or apology is not something new. In the sense, in the Christian church, apologetics has become something very big, maybe in the last 30 years. But actually, when you study the history of the church, you will see that this whole defending the Christian faith began way back in the early church. So I'll just mention this, you will learn all this in detail in the church history course that Aris Tidus, AD 125. He's referred to as one of the earliest Christian apologists. So this man called Aris Tidus in AD 125. He wrote the first book called Apology, a defense of the faith. So way back in AD 125, the beginning of the early church itself, they had to defend. And some of the things that they had to defend against, and then there was another man called Justin Martyr in AD 155. He wrote a book called First Apology. And after that, many others, theophilus, Arrhenius, Tirtulin, these are all early church fathers who were all apologists. I mean, they defended the Christian faith. Some of the things they had to defend the Christian faith was against things like the canon of scripture, which, you know, what makes up the Bible? So no, these are the scriptures. We can't get rid of this. These are holy scriptures. A very important area they had to defend was about the deity of Christ. Because in the early days, at that time, people were questioning, oh Jesus, it's not deity. He's not God who became man. So they had to defend. And there was so much confusion, you know, because people are trying to understand the deity of Christ. How did God become man? So they had to defend the Christian faith against this and also the Trinity. So Tirtulin, again, was a lawyer and an apologist. This was AD 200. And he brought about the term Trinity to preserve the understanding of the triune God in the Bible. Father, son, holy spirit, to protect that, preserve that. So he came up with this idea of Trinity. And one of the most important things that happened was around AD 325. There was the Council of Nikea, so not Nike shoes on, but Council of Nikea. This was called by the Emperor Constantine. And it was in the Council of Nikea that the Nicene Creed, today we say it, many churches all over the world, almost 2000 years later, we are still saying the same thing. I believe in God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And I believe in Jesus Christ. And I believe in the Church. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Church. I believe that Jesus was crucified, died under Pontius Pilate, was buried, he rose up again on the third day. He ascended to everybody. He's coming back. So the Nicene Creed was written in 325 AD, very specifically to protect the main tenants of the Christian faith. This is what it means to be a Christian. Let us put it down in a simple statement, a declaration. So the Nicene, so 380, 325 was written. So the Emperor Constantine, he saw all these wrong ideas were trying to come into the church. How do I protect the church so that the core beliefs are not compromised? How do we, okay, let us do this. He got a lot of these bishops together and said, okay, let us write this Creed. So people can say it. See, when you say it over and again, everybody understands, everybody will know this is what we believe. So in order to protect the church from all these wrong ideas and things like that, let us write it down. Everybody says it. So everybody knows this is what we believe. So it was done back in 83, 325, long time ago and even today in churches around the world. What an amazing thing people are saying. Of course, they may say that it has been modified slightly in terms of language, but that the main core tenants of the faith were captured in the Creed written down so that nobody can try to disturb, corrupt the Christian faith. So when we talk about apologetics, we must remember it goes back all the way to the early church. We said Jesus was a great apologist. Paul, Peter and Paul, they were great apologists. But understand that after the Apostles died, there have been, there always have been threats against the church about what we believe. There's always been there. It's not something new just to our day. It's been there from those days. And God has used different people to give answers to the questions of their day and time. Of course, in our day and time, the questions may be a little different. There are a lot of social issues today. People are asking questions, but we must be prepared to give answers. Okay, so we are going to go on to lesson two, which is the existence of God. Any questions so far, everyone is fine with me? So the first question we want to deal with is how can we say that God exists, right? How do we know there is a God and how do we know God created everything? Because there are some people who believe there is a God. And again, this is, you have to be careful because even among Christians, there are people who believe there is God, but they believe that everything happened through evolution. Among the Christians, they say there is God, but He let everything happen through evolution. So they are matching, they're mixing both, but that is also wrong because that is not what the Bible says. The Bible says there is a God and God created everything. God didn't say let it evolve, let it happen by chance. The Bible is very clear, there is God and God created everything. So we have to try to answer both these questions. That is, how do we know there is God and how can we say that everything was created, not evolved or happened by chance? Okay, so we will spend a few chapters, chapter two, three and four on this matter, on the subject. So we will look at it from a theological perspective, we will look at it from a philosophical perspective, and then we will also look at it from a scientific perspective. Theological perspective means, okay, this is what the Bible says.  It has more to do with logic and reasoning. Scientific is, okay, here are scientific facts based on science that we can point to. So look at, we will look at it from all three perspectives. So let's get started, the existence of God. So the question is, does God exist and was the universe created? Now, what does the Bible say about God? Asya 40 verse 28 says, have you not known, have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord? The creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary, his understanding is unsurpassed. So think about, what does the Bible say about God? First, it says he is the everlasting God, that means he is beyond time, everlasting, no start, no finish, infinite in time. So God is infinite in time, everlasting. Second, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary, he is infinite in power. He doesn't get tired, doesn't need to take a nap, sleep, he's infinite. He never faints nor is weary, he's infinite in power, strength, energy. His understanding is unsurpassed, but so he's infinite in understanding. So three things about God, infinite in his time, infinite in his power, infinite in his understanding. Now, here's the problem. We are finite beings, our brain is finite. So the finite is trying to understand the infinite, starting trouble. There it says there's a problem. The finite is trying to explain the infinite. How can we do it? So obviously, there are going to be limitations. There are going to be things beyond our ability to understand and comprehend. Because the finite is trying to explain the infinite. But let us do the best we can. Within our finite understanding, our finite time, whatever time we've had, our time is finite. Our knowledge is finite, our power is finite. Within what we can, let us try to explain. But understand there are limitations right away. So there are limitations on both sides and the person trying to explain and the person trying to understand. So somebody asked a question, how do you know there is a God? And how do you know he created everything? The person asking the question, the person giving the answer, both are finite. And we are trying to talk about an infinite God. So both sides, there are limitations in us trying to explain. And then somebody trying to understand there are limitations. Now, there are two kinds of people who oppose the truth. There is the atheist and there is the agnostic. What is the difference? The atheist, he makes an affirmation. He says there is no God. I know there is no God. That is the atheist. The agnostic says I don't know if there is a God. If there is a God, I don't know. I am not interested in finding out because I don't know if you can actually know or not. That is agnostic. So he's not taking the side of saying there is no God. He's not taking the other side saying there is a God. I don't know if there is a God and I don't know if you can know that there is a God. Don't trouble me. I don't know. Some people are like that. I don't know. Now, there's a nice quote here from a man called Alex McFarland.  So God is not afraid of us asking questions. We don't have to think God is intimidated anyway. So the problem with the atheist, see when the atheist says there is no God, he is actually making a very big statement because he is saying, I have searched everywhere and I didn't find God. But the question is, did you really search everywhere? How can the finite search out the infinite? So we sent one probe. It is so many billion miles away from the earth. But that is still a finite distance. We don't know how much more there is after that. And you only went in one direction. What about the other direction? What about all the other directions? There's so much we didn't search. So how can we say we searched everywhere? You didn't search everywhere. You searched a little bit. You searched a finite time and space. That's all you searched. So the atheist when he says there is no God is making a very big statement, which cannot be substantiated. There's no proof. Simply saying there is no God. But the problem is, even a lie, if it is said long enough and strong enough, people will believe it. That is the problem. You say it long enough, keep on saying it. And you keep saying it like as though it is very strong. Say it long, say it strong, people will believe. That's what happened with atheism. We said no, no God, no God, no God. And said very strong, no God. People believe. So a lie, if it is said long enough and strong enough, people believe. That is deception. But it is not substantiated. It is not that the atheist can give us proof, complete proof. I searched the whole universe. There was no God.  So remember, when the atheist is asking us to give proof about God, he himself does not have proof that God is not there. He also has no proof. But he is making a statement. There is no God. And he challenged, how come you say there is God? On the same basis. You are saying there is no God very emphatically without having searched everything, without having valid proof. And you're challenging us when we say there is God. But we can have, we can point to certain real things that say there is God. We will look at that. So at least we can point to hard evidence and say, look at these things. There is a God. So we can actually very logically respond to an atheist when they say. The other thing about the agnostic is, the agnostic is one who says, I don't know if there is a God and I don't know if you can know there is a God. Well, when you say that I don't know if you can know, even that question, that statement is not a final statement. You're just saying, I don't know. But we can't take that as the final statement. It is not the conclusion of the matter. You're just saying, I don't know. So we can say, look, if there is truth and truth can be found out. And the fact is, there is truth. Truth exists. So any matter, truth exists, facts exist. You just have to find out. Exam. I don't know where Ravali stays. Just because I don't know where Ravali says, I cannot say we can never know where Ravali stays. We can never know where she says. We have to find out. In this case, it is a fact. She is staying somewhere. We don't know where she stays. But just because I don't know, I cannot say, I can never know. I don't know. But there is a fact. She is staying somewhere. I must find out. I have to search. I have to ask. Find out. So just because I don't know the fact doesn't mean the fact is not there or doesn't mean I cannot find out the fact. Just because I don't know the truth doesn't mean truth is not there or I cannot find out the truth. I have to search. So the agnostic who says, hey, I don't know if there is a God. You don't know. Does it mean God is not there? You don't know. Does it mean we cannot find out? Search. Ask the questions. Fact is there. You can find out the fact. Truth is there. You can find out the. Right. So that is the response to the agnostic who says, I don't know. If you don't know, find out. Okay. We will come back to this. After the break, we'll get into a theological response and then a philosophical response. Okay. We'll come back in 10 minutes.


Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm at London Paddington today. We're allowed to travel on trains again So what I'm going to do I'm going to get on the train And we're going to go to Acton because Acton is the only place in Britain that has a North South Eastern West station But it also has Acton Mainline, Acton Central and Acton Town So we're going to go and find a Crossrail train which should be somewhere over there and We're going to travel right to Mainline and when we get there, we'll explore all the other stations of Acton Well, this bit of the video wasn't planned. They seem to cancel every train that was going to Acton Mainline from Paddington when I say every train. There was one in about an hour But I didn't really want to wait an hour So what I did was I got on the next available train to Ealing Broadway and I'm now walking from Ealing Broadway To Acton Mainline station. So I'm going to hopefully get in have a look around the new station Show you the old one as well And I'm not actually going to go anywhere because my plan was to walk from Acton Mainline to another access station We'll get on to that soon. But regarding cancelling trains I would remember on the Great Western Mainline quite often, you know I'd get a tap where to watch trains and especially for steam trains coming through and what happened is if say the all-stations train to Reading was cancelled quite often the Semi-fast to Oxford would sometimes stop in its place But here it seems if you want to go to Acton Mainline from Paddington You just had to wait ages. So I might not actually have got there any quicker, but I'm an active sort of person I didn't fancy sitting around at Paddington for too long. So hence the reason we're walking through Acton from Ealing Broadway. So we're just going to continue on forward and soon we should be at Acton Mainline station That's Acton House behind me that Art Decker building and the Acton Mainline station and its new station building It's just here in front of me. Now interestingly, this is the oldest station in Acton But it's also got the newest station building or perhaps I should say It's it was the first station to serve Acton because I shouldn't think there's very much left of the original But here we are. Here's the new Acton Mainline station. So it opened in 1868 just a plain Acton because it was the only Acton station and the Mainline suffix was added in 1949. So I've got a travel card today So I'm going to use that to get me through the ticket barriers. In fact as this one's open I'm just going to walk straight through. So I've got a ticket and Because is if on cue whenever I try to put these for a ticket barrier and filming doesn't always work But let's just have a quick look. So now has ticket barriers this station It didn't use to we'll go and have a look at the old station building while it's still there. So Another station with a great rest of Mainline now to have ticket barriers. It's also the only one in London The great rest of Mainline in London. I've not actually ever been to before. That's probably where I know at the go So this footbridge Yeah, good for watching cars and buses. Well, look there's a class 66R. They're at number 69 So I was about to say is it any good for watching trains? I don't need to ask that question It clearly is if we go down here There she goes I'm surprised really. I know it's me, but about myself. I'm surprised myself I've not been to this railway station before because it's like one of the best ones for seeing Good strains and diesel locos. So I think I can answer that question I don't really answer why I've never been here before but I haven't but here we are my very first time This is a winning station for me today act to Mainline I'm not even getting a train But what I'm certainly going to do is have a look at the station. So there we are Has lifts now. So, you know fully accessible, which is good thing everyone can access it There's the old station ticket office just up there. So previously just had these steps There's no platforms on the fast lines. I've seen another class 66 up here and all it and there's a Purple line train cross rail train coming in So is that one going to stop? Yeah, so if I had waited At Paddington that would have been the train I'd have got so by By going to um, Ealing Ballway and walking back. I've got here in exactly the same time Then I would have, you know, if I'd sat around at Paddington, so I could have sat around but quite enjoyed the walk and there Is 66 number five eight five six eight, sorry So you have a look at that So, um Not a lot else to show you really. I've shown you most of the station. That's Acton house there, that big art deco building Cross rail train departing 60, 34506, so All the other class 66s have gone Right down the end of the yard. So I doubt we'll be able to see them From the platform. There's one I think I want to show you See where they've extended it just up here the platform That is to accommodate The nine-card trains of Elizabeth flying or purple trains or cross rail Nice to see got some flowers on the station making it, you know, bright and everything I'm thinking we might see whether we'll see any Heathrow Expresses or any other Great Western trains on the Mainline passing through but not so sure There's like a little workers compound. So it's still not quite finished really this station And then here the platform extension begins I'm not going to go any further up there. So I'm not going to get any closer to those class 66s I'm going to now make my way out because I don't actually need to catch a train here So that's the new acton mainline station building and there's the old one. Let's go across the road and have a little look there's not a lot to see and We'll have a look so yes, there's a new station entrance. So anyone arriving here who didn't know we'll have to go down there So I assume yeah, you're the whether there was a ticket office So yeah, you used to be able to buy a ticket there You've gone down there for the down platform and then this little area here Effectively was the concourse. So they never ever had ticket barriers here probably because well, exactly they could have had a line here if they put a little shelter for the into london platform, which It's typical whenever I wanted to get a train here. So I was saying earlier no trains are stopping There's now one coming in the opposite direction, which is stopping. So maybe I just this bad timing It's a bit frustrating. I mean, I don't mind walking, but if you had heavy luggage We wouldn't do best, please. So crossroad train has stopped and there's a Class 66 down there. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to walk 957 yards to North Acton station I was making my way through this jungle of modern tower blocks looking for North Acton station and North Acton station is on the central line of the London underground It's quite a late opening. Well, I've been 1923 there was a hole because behind it is the Old Great Western North Main Line, which has now closed in preparation for building HS2 But there was once a hole on that, but that didn't last particularly long and wasn't really necessary Because on the whole all the trains used in that line were expresses to places further afield like Birkenhead So the london underground Suffice. So here there's the roundabout It's all been quite recently redeveloped. I've not been here for a while and it was never anything like this I've opened this North Acton square and down there. There's the station. So we're going to go down and have a look and What we're going to do we're going to travel towards London to our next Acton station Now I'm going to have to come back on myself. So this is the only station Acton station That you that the next station that way and the next station that way is an acton although technically there's actually the junction of the west rice tip line. So There's um, three next stations from here. I know it's getting complicated and two of them are acting I've got all these modern buildings And now I'm going to have to stop filming in a second to put my face covering on find my ticket and go through the ticket barriers into North Acton station There's a central line train arriving. Let's go into west rice tip So that's one that will not be stopping at any acton stations after North Acton So looking that way you've got the brick bridge the next bridge down there that carries the north london line Which I will end up on later because that's got some acting stations The disused tracks there that is the old north main line Which I've traveled on a few times when I used to divert trains from marilib and to Paddington But you can see they've started lifting it and it's actually track all stacked up And then here we get quite a good view of the station I'm going to run down the steps now and get on this train because It will take me to my next acton station East Acton This station was opened in 1920 So the one station down the central line towards London from north acton Now this one was opened by the Great Western Railway as a line to connect the Great Western main line To the network of other railway lines down at Shepard's Bush There's another train just pulling in So what we'll do once this train has been and gone We'll leave the station but there's some quite nice original Western pizzas to show you So before we came part of the central line network you'd have seen Theme trains coming through here Good trains passing the train Thoughts of the Great Western Theme Locos would have been here So it seems really strange now to see it There's a central line station But then if you go to other parts of the central line Such as up towards Ething Then there are all Great Eastern Railways And they would have been served by steam trains Before the London Underground came along So I'm just going to pull in and train out the station But there's something very Great Western up here to show you before we leave So we'll have to wait for that train to go to show you the one on that side I can certainly show you on this side We have some old Great Western shelters So just have a look at those Restored in Great Western colours Which I think is really nice And they sponsor the wait and then you're actually going to see another look So it looks like it's completely made out of wood It's not a brick structure It's a wooden structure The other station I know of to have old Great Western shelters is down in Gold Club But they are corrugated lion shelters Now for the train departs It will reveal the hut on the other side There we go Now I've made my way to the station So when you get to the end of the platform You go down to the ticket office It's just down the stairs I'm going to go down here to the ticket Here we are outside East Acton station It's in a residential area It's almost like a garden city to me It all looks very uniform That they've built the houses around a set plan Just like the Garden City movement There's places such as Welling Garden City That looks really nice There's those towers over there in the background Where we were at Northmatt So if you have a look at the housing estates of East Acton And then I'm going to go back to the station And we're going to travel to the other Remaining centralised station in Acton In 1923 But the station building we're going to see Which is a great traditional building Was opened in 1940 I'm going to carry this to myself That's a quiet journey Here we are I do quite like this station It's completely different to what we saw at East Acton In the West Acton station building It's kind of like that The only intermediate station there is On the branch to Ealing Broadway Well, technically which one is the branch Is this is the main line to Ealing Broadway Or is the main line to West Rises Or are they just equal I don't really know But well actually the majority of trains This isn't going to Ealing Broadway So it's the first Art Deco station we've seen so far I know we saw the Art Deco building Next to Acton main line That wasn't the railway station Just starting to rain as well That's the announcement Suggest station I like how at the ends of So you come down the stairs on each side Then you've got these nice Curve little waiting rooms So it's not a Charles Holden station As quite a lot of London underground stations are You see the nice curved wooden bench So this is Art Deco But it's slightly different to Charles Holden style I do like it very An impressive building Certainly well deserving of its status It was a train about to pull in You can see that In the ticket hall Nice and light And just like how the Charles Holden stations are What I was saying This one isn't Charles Holden So what I'm going to do I'm going to file my ticket I'm going to get out And I'm going to walk Not to an Acton station this time So I'm outside the ticket barriers Now I'm going to step outside the station And as I said I'm going to walk to Not an Acton station I'm going to walk to North Beading On the Big Adili line Because that's about the best place for me To get a station To get a train to Acton town The next station I'd like to visit So there we are Here's West Acton station I'm now going to walk Through the housing estate As I said To North Beading on the Piccadilly line But I'm not doing all the evening stations today Maybe another day So here we are Outside North Beading station So as I said Not an Acton station But it just was a convenient For me to add it in To get to North Beading So this station was opened in 1903 By the District Railway And it's got a quite traditional Railway station feel Rather than tube station But the service was replaced By the Piccadilly line In 1932 Never been here before So where do I look? I say yes Nice to see trains to Harrow and Uxbridge That way's just the men's toilet So I don't need to go there Looks like the bridge is this way I really like this station Nice old Lattice footbridge The only thing I'd say is It's not got disabled access But maybe one day I'll put another bridge in And make it disabled access But just look at that It feels like a rural country station Rather than stations from London So I think this is a very pleasant station So I'm going to wait for my train And we're going to get out of Ealing Perhaps one day we'll do all the stations of Ealing And we're going to find an Acton station Sorry I'm looking really silhouetted at the moment So I'm going to get on the platform And get my train I've arrived at North Acton This is one of the Charles Holden stations So when I was saying When we were at West Acton That was Art Deco style But not Charles Holden There's a Piccadilly line train coming in Now this station was opened by the District Railway Today there's no District lines train stopping here Due to engineering work But it was originally called Mill Hill Park Which not to be confused with Mill Hill on the Northern line Because that's nowhere near here But it was called Mill Hill Park And it was on the Piccadilly line to Ealing Broadway So where we were at our last station That was on a later branch Opened towards Park Royal And then as I said in 1910 it became Acton Town The Piccadilly line didn't start calling into in 1932 So we're now going to go up Have a look at the Charles Holden station building Make our way out And then I'm going to walk from here to Acton South So this is our final station on the London Underground At Acton The next two Acton stations Are on the London Overground So see how you can see the wooden effect From where you would have been carved in wood The wooden shuttering They've taken the shuttering away And you get the wooden effect in the concrete Here you can effectively do a complete circle Or square rather You can walk around Right the way around in a circle Or square Not really at today then So I just love this art deco style there It's fantastic High quality architecture I much prefer this You know to like say the new station As to what we saw at Acton Mainline Now we're going to go through into the big Holden ticket hall It's a fantastic piece of architecture So as we come out here We've got Acton Depot over there Also the museum depot In fact let's cross the road We're going to have a look at the station building From the outside I'm going to say it's off now No, no Out the station So we're going to go across I'm just seeing over there Big letters The word museum written So we'll have to go there to the museum depot They've also got a minute to railway So technically there's one Acton station I've just realised I'm not doing The Acton minute to railway station Which is well This is Acton town as you know The Charles Holden building If I was to walk along that road over there Up there's the museum depot There's a minute to railway there So that is on my list to do As a minute to railway Britain episode We'll do that in the future So that's one Acton station We're not doing today I'm now going to walk from here To South Acton But let's just see Another Piccadilly line train coming in I'm just walking through the housing estate I'm away from Acton town to South Acton Just passing these tower blocks This is the Park Road east of State I believe But this tower here This one's quite famous This is Harlech Tower But it's better known as Nelson Mandela House in Peckham Because it's where only falls and horses It's actually lived in this tower block And there is talk of demolishing this estate But because of this one's place in television There is a campaign to try and save it So I'm not sure what the latest is But I know they've been This estate here on this side Different slightly different era Everything's covered in brick You can see from there onwards They've redeveloped it So this estate basically carried on In the same format All the way down there But they've demolished up to here So this tower block here Which isn't quite as tall as Harlech Tower Is still standing But I'm not sure It's called Frampton Court This one Looks like it's lived in But there are some boarded up windows But there is talk that all of this Could be demolished soon And replaced with buildings like this Which would be rather a shame Unless they blow them up It would be quite a spectacle And see if I somehow think we won't blow them up They're probably just, you know Munch them down But then maybe they'll be saved And refurbished And people will be able to enjoy them Two years to come And the home of Del Boy Only Fools and Horses Will remain for us to come and see So here we are In another modern housing estate in Acton And in front of us Is South Acton Station I think this possibly might have been A level crossing once Somewhere around here Before this road became pedestrianised So this is our first one on London Overground I'm going to travel from here to Acton Central So we're going to go On this side Is a footbridge Which is also Looks like it's used by people Just crossing one side the other It doesn't have ticket barriers This station The first Acton station We've been to Which doesn't have ticket barriers So we're going to catch The train to Stratford to this station Opened in 1880 And it had been served by trains In and out of Broad Street So they'd have gone from Broad Street Down and off London Line To Richmond A bit like they do now Except they don't get to Broad Street The train will catch or go to Stratford So this is South Acton And here comes our train So we're going to jump on this London Overground train And we're going to go To Acton Central So here we are Acton Central We have been to every Acton station In London All seven of them I say in London Because there is one other Acton station But it's not here in Acton at all It's Acton Bridge Up in Cheshire on the West Coast Main Line Which we're not going to go to today But maybe one day So Acton Central It opened in 1853 Again, it was just called Acton This central suffix was added in 1925 What I find interesting about this station Is if you look at Third Rail And overhead It's where the Third Rail runs out And the overhead commences Down the end of the platform It tells drivers of class 387 units To put the pantograph down Because there's not much use be on there And at this end of the platform We have says 387 and 7110 units Put your pantograph up Pan up Because obviously if you don't You're not going to get very far Because Third Rail runs out Literally at the level crossing It's also quite unusual To have a level crossing at a London station So I'm going to make my way out Of the two areas And we'll have one last look at the station outside And that will complete our trip around Acton And maybe one day We could do one of the other state areas Like E-Link perhaps It's got more than one station But we'll wait and see So this is Acton So the pubs are open Might as well just go and get a point Somewhere in myself Anyway There's the level crossing This is Acton Central Station No, it's the old station That's cool The old station Mostly the old station building is now a pub So I hope you enjoyed this little trip around Acton Thank you very much for watching And take this off can't I? Thank you very much for watching And please do feel free to like, subscribe and comment And from Acton Central Station Thank you very much for watching Goodbye


Welcome to today's episode with Judd Brewer. Judd Brewer is a psychiatrist whose newest book on winding anxiety talks about the importance of figuring out where anxiety comes from, how to work through it and how to get rid of it. We dive really deep into the addiction of anxiety, what causes it and how to get rid of it. So with all of the stuff that's happening in the world right now that happened last year, I can't think of a better podcast episode for all of you guys to listen to and to be a part of. So without further ado, this is psychiatrist Judd Brewer. When somebody's in a full bone panic disorder and they've developed this system, it seems like the way that you explain it and the way that I love it is, I guess the thing that I feel like most people in the world kind of, I hear from them is that they feel like anxiety is something they can't really do anything about. But from looking through what you say in your book is it actually explains more of anxiety as being a habit, is that correct? Yes, and this is what blew me away. When I was training to be a psychiatrist, I didn't learn any of this stuff, but doing research myself as my lab started exploring how habits and addictions form, it turns out that anxiety can be reinforced in the same way that any other habit or addiction can be reinforced. And it was just kind of this obscure part of the literature that people had been largely ignoring. So in fact, if you think of, actually it's a very basic learning mechanism, that helps us survive as three elements that trigger a behavior and a result.  This is at least for our ancient ancestors. But if you think of anxiety itself, anxiety can trigger worry thinking, and that worry thinking leads us to feel like we're in control or and or to avoid that feeling of anxiety itself. And what that can do is then feedback and trigger that same habit loop.  Does that make sense? For sure. No, I feel like I know people that are actually exactly in that loop. So what's your, if I'm getting it correctly, is the way that people actually kind of put their anxiety at bay is they worry so that they feel like they're somewhat in control of the circumstances? Yes. Okay. I know, it's crazy, isn't it? It's crazy when you say it, but then I know there's people listening that are like, yeah, this is 100% me. I'm worrying too much because the worry actually makes me feel like I'm in control of my circumstances in some way, even though worrying does nothing for your circumstances. Right, right. Now, what makes it worse is that maybe one in a thousand times when somebody worries, they're like, I'm gonna think of all the worst case scenarios and I'm gonna be prepared for them. That one in a thousand time when somebody has had that scenario go through their mind and then suddenly it happens and they're like, wow, see, it was so good that I worried about this because then I knew it was gonna happen. So that can, it's like playing the lottery, you know? It's like, I wouldn't invest in the lottery, but it gets people addicted in the same way if people happen to have that association where they're like, wow, I worried in it and it did come true, that can actually make it even, that worry habit loop even stronger. That's interesting. There are people who, I know multiple people whose parents worry like crazy and they tend to place their worry onto them and it's kind of like it's almost hereditary, like it just comes down through generations where they learn to worry, they learn to worry, they learn to worry and the justification that I hear from their parents is that I just love you so much and I wanna make sure you're safe as possible, but it sounds like when someone's outside of the nest, the parents are actually justifying their fear of something happening for their children with the worry and that makes them feel at least a little bit in control of a situation that they're completely un-in-control of. Is that kind of right as well? That is it in a nutshell, because if they look at the fallacy of that logic, I love you so much, I wanna make sure nothing happens. The worry actually makes it more likely that something bad is gonna happen because their worrying makes it harder for them to think and put to plan and on top of that, that seeds the anxiety in their children, so children learn from their parents and so they're gonna model worrying for their kids and then their kids are gonna grow up and be like, man, why am I worrying so much about my kids? Well, it was because your parents modeled that behavior for you. For sure, and so it's super interesting just because of the fact that it's completely in our control, but I feel like most people act like it's completely not in their control and so I see a lot of, I mean, now is literally the perfect time to talk with us like I was saying at the very beginning, is there's so much anxiety about what could possibly be happening in the future. But if you were to take out even just everything that's happened in 2020 and beyond, right? And we could have never seen this happen. I feel like anxiety was still really on the rise a lot before COVID popped up, before all of the things, presidency popped up, all those things popped up. It seemed like anxiety was really on the rise. So if we just, I wanna go back to COVID and talk a little bit about it because I think it'll really help people, but even before that happened, it seemed like people were starting to get very anxious. Did you see that in your lab of people getting more and more anxious? And if you did, what were the reasons why you saw that more anxiety was coming up? Yeah, we saw this both in my lab and also in my clinic, getting the primary referral that I get now from my clinic is people with anxiety. And I think we can look at this in terms of, there are a number of factors that contribute, but uncertainty is probably one of the largest ones. So for example, with certain political figures that are very erratic or aren't very, I don't wanna use the word unstable, but they're not necessarily predictable in how they're gonna behave, right? That drives people's minds apeshit. Because our brains plan for the future based on previous events. And so our brains are gonna do these simulations and they're gonna say, okay, based on what happened before, I'm gonna project into the future and that's gonna help me survive. Yet if we don't know what, if things are very uncertain, let's just put it that way, that uncertainty makes our brains go into hyperdrive thinking that they need to get more information. Yet there's a ton of information out there, but it doesn't necessarily, one, it's a lot of it's not true. And the second part is it's hard to sift through all of it to figure out what information is actually relevant to us. So not only is there a ton of uncertainty happening, whether it's environmental, right now we're seeing this with health crises, with COVID, politically, people's jobs, all these things, a lot of uncertainty. And then on top of that, you throw in a fire hose of information and people have to sift through it to figure out what's pertinent. And then they also have to sift through it to see what's real. From a survival standpoint, our ancient ancestors, there were no such things as like deep fake saber-toothed tigers, right? You're like, is that really a saber-toothed tiger coming at me? No, there. Yeah, and they ran. So our survival brains are saying they just take everything as gospel because that's how our survival brains work. And so we have to help our brains step back and say, wait a minute, you gotta, before you freak out, you gotta see if this is actually true. So there's an added layer of complexity. Yeah, that's interesting because it's almost like, what you're saying is people's brains really want things to stay consistent, which is I found a lot of people are miserable, but they're so comfortable in misery that even getting out of that misery and developing something beautiful of their life kind of scares the shit out of them because there's variables that they don't understand because they haven't been there yet. And so people can literally create anxiety about changing their life into a more beautiful future, it seems like. They can, and this relates a lot to, often people talk about being in a comfort zone and then moving outside of the comfort zone and how we deal with that outside of the comfort zone makes a big difference. So comfort zone is what you're talking about, where it's very predictable. If we set up a routine or have it at home, it just feels good because our brain says, okay, I don't have to worry here. I don't have to, I can basically check out and it helps me save energy so I can save my brain power for learning things. When we move out of that comfort zone, our brain goes on high alert. And if you think about it from a survival standpoint, our brains, you know, it's like out on the savannah scanning for danger, because it doesn't know that territory. Now, what we could do in modern day when most of us aren't in actual physical danger is we can actually lean into that uncertainty and understand how our minds work so that we can say, oh, here's this, instead of moving into this panic zone, like, oh no, this is dangerous and running back to our comfort zone, we can lean into that and say, oh, here's an opportunity to learn and grow. And here it gives us the ability to lean into that to say, okay, can I actually learn from this? Can I grow in these moments of uncertainty as compared to shrink back or panic? You know, which are the two other options. 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One of the things that's real interesting is he talks about how when you're about, he deals a lot with neuroplasticity. He says when you're about to do something that you've never done before, you start to get really stressed out, you start to get anxious. And like you're saying, it's because it's kind of like you're stepping out. I would say like a comfort zone is like a caveman's cave.  Totally. What he says is that what's really interesting is what causes neuroplasticity.  And acetylcholine actually is what marks the brain for change. And what he says is that what's really interesting about before acetylcholine becomes released is that you actually turn on the stress mechanisms in the brain.  And what you're saying is just lean into it. Yes. Yes. So instead of the, oh no, like I got to run back into the cave, we can lean into it and bring in some curiosity. Like, oh, what's happening here? And what that actually can do, another Stanford professor, Carol Dweck, she came up with this mindset model of growth versus fixed mindset. So you can think of being in our cave is that fixed mindset where we're, this is how things work and this is always the way that it's going to be. Moving out of the cave is potential, it gives us the potential to move into a growth mindset, but we have to be open to change. And so we can look at that stress, quote unquote, as something that helps us open to that and say, okay, cause that's basically our brain saying, okay, I'm ready to learn stuff. And there, if we can open to it and bring some curiosity in, what that does is literally opens us up to seeing things and seeing things differently or learning something new. I love the idea of just the curiosity instead of the fear. I have a friend who went and lived down for 40 days with a native Brazilian tribe. Like it took two days by boat to go live with them. He lived with them for 40 days and he looked me dead in the eyes. And the one thing he said, he said, do you want to know the craziest part about it, Rob? He goes, there is no depression with these people. And the reason why, and is because they've always got something to work towards. They're always working towards something.  But one thing he said though is, is he said he always had to be aware with the machete because he might come across something that was going to attack him. He saw a jaguar. The jaguar has been seeing you for a long time. Like it's an issue. And so what he said is, in the way he said it to me was, all my primal fears turned on and all my intellectual fears turned off of people are worrying about me. What am I thinking? And I'm really curious, do you feel like the main reason for this anxiety and everything that's coming up now is that our brain still exists from millions of years, you know, a hundred thousand, a million, two million years ago. It hasn't changed as much as our external world has. And we still have the animalistic part of our brain that says I could be attacked by a lion. Even though I live in Austin, Texas, I could never be attacked. There are no lions in Austin, Texas, but that part of my brain, I guess the amygdala is always still searching for something that could be a possible threat or fear in the future. Is that right? Yes, it's always on the lookout for danger, you know, unless we're in the cave. Right, yeah. And so I'm curious what exactly triggers someone's anxiety? Like what are the triggers around that? And how can someone become more self-aware to those triggers and actually work through them so that they can actually have a system when they do have anxious thoughts that come up? It's a really good question. I would say it's very individual in terms of what triggers anxiety for people. And often I see people just waking up in the morning and feeling anxious. And so here anxiety can be its own trigger for worry, which then feeds back to more anxiety because they're worried, you know, why am I anxious? Is there something wrong? And then it just kind of feels on itself. So I think here we can differentiate triggers for anxiety and triggers for worry. And here, you know, that feeling of anxiety, often it's hard for people to identify specific triggers for that. But one thing that I do see as consistent is that people with anxiety, that tends to trigger worry. And worry is one of the key characteristics of anxiety disorders. And in particular, if you look in the psychiatric, you know, the diagnostic statistical manual there. So you can think of a lot of things will trigger worry. And one thing, so anxiety, the feeling of anxiety can trigger worry.  And they start going through all the worst case scenarios. So those are some of the two of the big ones that I see in terms of precipitants or triggers for worry. And if somebody catches themself, okay, they're in this state of anxiety, they feel it coming up. What's the best route for them to go to kind of get themself out of it and I guess, you know, recall themself down? This is one of the things that my lab's actually been studying. So we've been looking, approaching this from a neuroscientific standpoint, which is to kind of understand how anxiety and worry habit loops get perpetuated. We just talked about that habit loop process. And then asking questions like, how can we specifically target that from a mechanistic perspective? So there's actually a part of our brain called the orbital frontal cortex that stores and updates reward value for certain behaviors. And it sets up this reward hierarchy so that we don't have to relearn the reward value of everything we do every day. So for example, I use an example in my book of broccoli versus chocolate, right? Most of our brains have this chocolate of a broccoli hierarchy so that we don't have to like, oh, broccoli, oh, chocolate. And then decide every time we have the choice which one to eat. The reason I bring all of that up is that the thing that will change reward value of behaviors is awareness, right? And there's this, we don't have to go into all the specifics but there are these mathematical models that came out of the 70s by these two researchers with Squirla and Wagner, basically showing that we're gonna just habitually act out certain behaviors based on their previous reward value unless something changes. And the only thing that's gonna change that is awareness to help us see, oh, this is more rewarding than expected or less rewarding than expected. How this applies to anxiety is that we tend to see the feelings of anxiety and the mental behavior of worry as having a certain reward value. Yet if we pay attention to it and bring awareness to how rewarding the worry actually is, we can start to see, oh, this worry isn't getting me anywhere. And that leads to what's called a negative prediction error. Our brain has predicted that it's gonna be a certain reward value and then we just bring awareness in and we're like, wow, this is not very rewarding. And so it drops. And what that does is it helps us start to become disenchanted with the worry itself. Now, the reason I went through all that background is because this is very different than the standard way that we're taught even in residency training to help people with anxiety. It's basically, try to give them some medications. I wish our medications were better. And use cognitive control techniques.  The problem is that all relies on the youngest and weakest part of our brain from an evolutionary perspective. And ironically, that's the part of the brain that goes offline when we get stressed out or anxious. So we can't actually tap into these mechanisms. So we need to find something that's gonna be a little more, a little stronger. And this is where we can actually tap into this reward value piece simply through having people just get very, very aware of what that worry gets them.  So I had a patient who was referred to me for anxiety. And this is the gentleman that had a panic disorder. He had generalized anxiety disorder and he was terrified of driving on the highway because he described it as it felt like I was in a speeding bullet. And what I had him do was after his first visit, we was during his first visit, we mapped out his habit loop around anxiety, around panic in particular.  His behavior would be, I'm not gonna drive on the highway. And then the result was that he could avoid those really distressing thoughts. So we mapped that out and I sent him home and I said, just go and map out as many of these things as you can and all the things related to your anxiety, all these habit loops related to your anxiety. And in particular, pay attention to how rewarding they are using the simple question, what am I getting from this? So when you're worrying, ask yourself, what am I getting from worrying? Is this actually helping me? Not intellectually, but dropping into their direct experience into their bodily sensations. What's happening when I worry? So this guy came back, he actually, he was very overweight and he came back two weeks later and he said, you know, I mapped out these habit loops and I lost 14 pounds and that was a surprise for me because we weren't even gonna address his obesity at the beginning, but he had realized that when he got anxious, he would eat. And that eating wasn't actually fixing his anxiety and in fact, it was making him feel worse about himself cause he knew that it was very unhealthy. So when he started seeing how unrewarding that habit loop was, he was able to let go of it. In fact, he lost over a hundred pounds simply using that practice. And the same guy also, he went from not driving at all to becoming an Uber driver within five to six months because he could start to see how unrewarding the worry was and then he could start to bring in tools. I think of them as like the bigger, better offer, right? Give your brain something more rewarding. He started bringing in curiosity as that bigger, better offer. And he started to get curious about what his, what that worry felt like in his body, what the thoughts were and he could start to just notice them and let them go rather than getting caught up in them. 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That's F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y glasses.com slash dial. You'll get free shipping, free returns, free exchanges felixgrayglasses.com slash dial. What I always tell people, because when you're talking about the youngest part of the brain, the thingy party brain, are you just speaking of the neocortex? Yes, in the prefrontal cortex in particular. Okay, so the prefrontal cortex. I used to always say, and we used to say this when I would manage people is that when emotion is high, logic is low. And so what I always tell people is if you notice something, have a plan when your logic is as high as possible, not when you're going through that. The worst time to try to fix the relationship is in the middle of a full bone fight. Wait till you're chilled out. But what it seems like is as I'm putting the pieces together is we see worrying as a reward for like we were saying a little while ago for, we're at least being safe in case something happens. But it seems like everybody knows worry does nothing to them. But I think it seems like if you were to write it down with a pen and paper and actually, as if it were a business plan and you're trying to create a business, you're gonna put it on a piece of paper. But most people don't take their mind where things can be very abstract and actually put them on a piece of paper where it can be concrete. And it seems like almost if you were to be able to write these things down and track them, you'd be able to see, yeah, this doesn't work here. This doesn't help me here. This doesn't help me here. This doesn't. And then your brain as smart as it is starts to go, well, this doesn't hold as much value as I thought it did. But it seems like what needs to happen though is you also need to have something to replace it. And it seems like from what you're saying is that curiosity is almost like, like when somebody worries, they might get like the dopamine hit that they want. But it's also like very anxious at the same time. It seems like what you're trying to do is you're trying to get the curiosity to be a stronger dopamine hit that you feel like your brain is getting a reward from being curious about, oh, why do I feel this way versus the worry itself? Is that the kind of the thing that I'm getting there?  Give me some use case scenarios.  And then they say, okay, we'll find a different thing. Okay, go try the use case scenario of having people get curious and have them get curious about what that, those sensations of anxiety feel like in their body. Can that actually help them overcome things like anxiety? And is that something that's gonna actually be a viable business strategy, so to speak? So absolutely, I think that's dead on. And you were talking about a lot of people will wake up and have anxiety. And I know that for me, like I don't have anxiety throughout the day, but I found for about six months I was waking up and just immediately upon going, brushing my teeth, everything, I was like, I have these anxious feelings. I was like, why do I feel anxious in the morning? So I started reading and trying to figure out what it was. And it seems like what wakes most people up is actually cortisol, right? It's from what I've heard is that it wakes, cortisol is at the highest in the morning. So for me, and I saw that in your book, you talked about meditation and mindfulness. So if somebody wakes up in the morning, they feel those immediate thoughts of anxiety.  They could probably drink a coffee and then go on the internet, right? And go on social media. That's probably gonna make your anxiety full blown after that. So instead of going that route, what do you recommend for people who wake up and feel anxious thoughts? Well, I think it's a great thing to do to just take a beat, so to speak. So this reminds me of something I learned in medical school, which is if somebody is having a heart attack, the first thing that you should do is take your own pulse. Well, it seems kind of intuitive because our goal is to help the person that's dying. But what that points out is if we are freaking out, we're actually gonna make things worse. And I think this can be true for us ourselves. So if we wake up and we feel anxious and we go get coffee, go get a stimulant, we're just adding fuel to that fire. Whereas if we can take a moment, take a beat or maybe take five or 10 minutes and just, I hesitate to use the word meditate because it has all sorts of connotations for people. But let's say take five minutes to just simply scan down through our body and get really curious about where we feel different sensations in our body in that five minute period. That can help ground us a bit so that we can then get up and go throughout our day without kind of spiraling out of control. And one thing I'd like to do to kind of help people wake up to their own natural capacity to be curious is if they're feeling anxious to just feel into where they feel that anxiety most in their body and then ask themselves, do I feel it more on the right side or the left side of my body? And what that does is, I think you just kind of did that. Hmm, is this on the right side or the left side? It doesn't matter what side it's on. But what that does is it awakens our curiosity. Like, huh, if I had to pick, which side is it on? So that brings that awareness in and helps us see, oh, these are just physical sensations. And it also awakens that curiosity, which is very much an antidote for getting caught up in anxiety. Yeah, and that's good because the next question I was gonna ask you is it seems like a lot of people that I've worked with and spoken with, it seems like a lot of people have lost a lot of their curiosity. They've lost a lot of their, you know, like being a kid, it's like you're curious about everything.  And it seems like being curious or actually just trying to think something amazing in the future that's different from where you currently are tends to be a chore with people and it tends to be hard, but the question's kind of answer. I was gonna ask you, like, what is the best case? Like, what's the best thing to do in that case? And it seems like just ask yourself, like, do I feel it more on my left or right? Which is just a simple question.  Like, you know, all of the meditations have. It's just like, okay, do I feel it more on my left or my right? And in that situation, do you feel like, or do you ever recommend for people to write these things down? Like I was saying previously, do you find that that helps with some people? I think it can be very helpful for a lot of people. So really, some people, they like to write things down. They like to see it on paper. And there's something really transformative about just seeing something on paper that was in their head that just makes it very concrete. And often it's this big wake up and they say, wow, I was thinking that, you know? The other thing that that helps with is you can think of this as the observer effect. So in physics, you know, back in the day when they were starting to do these quantum physics experiments, there was this, they found that by doing these slit lamp experiments with light to try to determine, you know, whether it was wave or particle and all this, that actually by adding an observation device to measure photons, they were changing the results. So they call this, I think it's the Heisenberg effect or the observer effect. And the same is true psychologically. So if we can observe our thoughts and emotions, we can see, oh, simply by observing, that gives us some distance and some perspective rather than being totally identified with them. So we can actually employ that observer effect ourselves and the writing down on paper can add even more distance there. And you bring in a really good point where it bringing the observer into it because a lot of people have say something like, I have anxiety. So instead of saying like, I'm feeling anxious feelings, right? And people tend to identify with whatever they've been told that they have or, you know, that it's really interesting, the perception of somebody will change when their identity around that thing tends to change. So if somebody has anxiety, is it better for them to say like, at times I feel anxious thoughts or do you feel like it's better to actually say, I have anxiety, which in some sense, I think changes someone's identity and their perception of themselves. I think this is something that people can experiment with. I love where you're going with this.  That's how identified they are with it. And remember somebody, so we made this app called on when the anxiety, same name as the book. And somebody wrote me an email who is pilot testing the program. And she wrote me this email and she said, I feel like anxiety is deeply etched into my bones, right? That's how identified she was with the anxiety. So somebody can explore this themselves and say, what's it feel like when I say, I'm an anxious person? What's it feel like when I just notice those thoughts and say, oh, I have anxious thoughts? And what's it like to simply notice, oh, there's an anxious thought. It doesn't even have to belong to me, right? So somebody can explore that and see what is it like? I'm anxious versus there's an anxious thought. And I can spoiler alert. A lot of folks, it's game changing for them just to see that they don't have to be there identified with their thoughts and emotions, that they are not their thoughts. That is huge for a lot of people. And anybody can do this experiment. I'm anxious versus here's an anxious thought. Yeah. And it's kind of like, like my favorite, one of my favorite quotes is by Alan Watson. He says, you're under no obligation to be who you were five minutes ago. You know, and I kind of think of it, the easiest way to think of anxious thoughts, happy thoughts, whatever it is. Like it's rainy here in Austin today, but it's not gonna be rainy forever, right? And so it's kind of like that it's a rainy day and the anxious thoughts can come in for an hour, two hours, but it's not behind it is the sun. But when you identify as I am an anxious person, it's kind of like saying that is the sun and it will always be that way, it'll always be there. But it seems like the main thing is to kind of unwrap your identity from that thing that you think that you have and go, I'm having anxious thoughts right now, okay? I'm having happy thoughts right now and not identify yourself with the thoughts and the feelings that you have that run through your body and your brain. Absolutely. So if you think about this in terms of our brains wanting to have certainty, you know, the way to have certainty is to try to keep things from changing. Well, we can flip that on his head and you know, accept the fact that we are constantly changing as human beings, you know, we're constantly aging, we're constantly changing, the world is constantly changing. And so there you can think of as the only unchanging thing is change itself. And if we can start to live into that piece and kind of ride that wave, suddenly things get a lot easier to work with just like you're talking about, oh, things are changing, you know, the weather is this way in this moment but the weather constantly changes. My mind is like this in this moment. Oh, but things are constantly changing. It's really helpful to be able to kind of get on that constantly changing train as compared to really struggling all of our lives trying to make things not change. And it also helps us start to see how much suffering we cause for ourselves by trying to make things not change. Everything from relationships to, you know, our bodies. It's funny because I guess even the phrase I'm an anxious person is me trying to find certainty and create no change, right? So when you're saying I'm just a human that experiences different emotions, it's kind of a lot easier in that sense where it's like there is certainty there but then the anxious and the happy will come up in some form or another. So obviously I'm really curious about this and I don't even know how to dive into it exactly but I'm really curious at this point in time with all the stuff that's happening with COVID, all the stuff that happened with the election, with vaccines, with all the stuff that's coming up. I mean, what tips and how can people create less anxiety, more happiness and all of the changes happening right now knowing that they want certainty? Yes, so I think of this as a three step process and I've seen this both in my clinic and also in the research that we've done where the first step here is just to be able to see how our minds create habit loops around anxiety. So the first step is just mapping them out. What's the trigger? What's the behavior? Is it worry? Is it fear? Is it whatever? And what's the result of that? Step two is what you and I just talked about a little while ago is around seeing how unrewarding that behavior is, so that habit loop. So if it's worry, we can ask ourselves what's the cause and effect relationship here? What do I get from worrying so that we get that negative prediction error in our brains as, wow, that's really not as great as I remembered. That opens that door for step three, which is to bring in the BBO, the bigger, better offer and here the simplest bigger, better offer that I love, I think of it as a superpower is curiosity. So in those moments when we're anxious, instead of falling into an old habit of worrying about why we're anxious, we can simply get curious about what those sensations feel like in the moment. And then this gets back to what you were just talking about. We can see that these sensations are constantly changing. And instead of worrying like, oh no, this feels bad right now, instead of the oh no, we can dive in and say, oh, what is this? Where do I feel it is on the right side, left side, front, back, those types of things. And then it's just basically rinse and repeat. That's basically what I wrote the whole book about was to help people kind of understand this from a neurobiological perspective and then put it into action in their own lives. Yeah, it kind of goes back to the whole phrase of like, the world's happening to me versus the world is happening for me, I think, right?  But if you look at Ingo, you know, I think that it comes down to control problems, which I think a lot of people really have. I've realized through some psychedelic experiences, control problems were really my issue. And as I've tried to get rid of those, it's helped and been like, man, I can't control almost anything. I can barely control anything in myself, right? And so if you think about the world's happening for me, it's like, okay, are these the circumstances that I would choose for myself? No, but if life is this game, if we just look at it as a game, this is my level that I'm on and I have to deal with these circumstances to get to the next level. And it seems like for you, it's like, all right, let's be curious. If we're in this, if it's happening to me, then it's gonna be hard. If it's happening for me, why is this happening for me? That seems more fun to me than being like, oh my God, this is terrible. This is happening to me, right? Why is this happening for me? Like, what is it that, what can I see about this breakup? What can I see about this whole thing that's happening for me to make my future better? Yes, and so in that sense, we can bow to every circumstance as a teacher. There's this, the phrase, two steps forward, one step backward. Well, I would throw out there, if we are learning from that quote unquote step backward, is it actually a step backward? Because often we learn more from our mishaps than from things going well. And so if we're actually learning from that step backward, are we ever going backwards if we're actually open to learning in each moment? Right. It's like a, you can't have an arrow go anywhere unless you pull it back to launch it. And the further back you pull it, the farther it's gonna go. Totally. Bow to every circumstance as a teacher is what you said. I might have to get that as like a tattoo. I feel like that's the perfect phrase for if people could just wrap up this entire thing is just bow to every circumstance as if it's a teacher for you. There's a lesson in every single thing, whether it's good or bad.  Totally. So I think it's a good way to end it right there. That was a great little ending. I love that phrase. I'm gonna write the one down as soon as we get done. So the book is called Unwinding Anxiety. For people who wanna go out there and purchase it, I'm sure it's available everywhere. You could possibly purchase it. And for anyone else who wants to dive deeper into it, how can they connect with you? And, you know, obviously you can go by the book at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, all of those places. But if someone wants to learn more about you and more about your app, how can they find more about you? My website is drjud.com, d-r-j-u-d.com. And that has a bunch of resources, talks about the apps that we've developed, you know, the one for anxiety as well as eating and smoking, a bunch of, and also has links to my book and ways to contact me. If folks are on Twitter, they can hit me up on Twitter at Judd Brewer, J-U-D-B-R-E-W-E-R. Nice. Well, man, I appreciate it. I think this is definitely the best time for this book to come out. And I think a lot of labs are gonna be changed from this, so I appreciate you for that. Thank you. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. If you love this video, I've got another one you're gonna love. Just click right here and watch it.


What's going on guys and gals Brad here for Leighton sports cards. We're ripman and team prism basketball two box number ten Random teams. Here's the list one more time. Feel free to check it out on the website at any time Thank you for joining guys. Good luck Start with prism All we have is two more breaks after this and then personals with Sam Scoob a Sam can't screw them. What's all this been about? That's why you move Florida Herbert Jones want to scana Pat Williams redway Hyper Marcos or Marcos Simon O bitch Crystal Arte Rookie Rookie Josh Christopher silver Brandon Clark Silver Penny Hardaway You watch stranger things Quentin Grimes rookie, it's just sci-fi Jones Highland nice pulsar fearless Lebron James or hyper fearless. I think or no, that's pulsar definitely I think Magic Rookie auto bronze Wagner Sensational six not numbered Nice Wagner, not the biggest sci-fi Hi Jones rookie GT Lauren silver Amari Stadamire Rookie one to scana you ever watch Lord of the Rings. Yeah Nice Josh Giddy rookie Jalen sucks red wave Ruggie block Low Jalen Smith sons Kessler Edwards Silver Austin Reeves rookie Red Ice Hakim Alajuan and Hollow Zach Levine Sire Williams, Joe Weiss camp red wave Aaron Wiggins Hyper Jaren Jackson Jr. Segeralski silver Kam Reddish Kevin Durant.  So that's the first time you've watched it for us miles McBride That's Danny's nephew purple ice that he is young Bulls That's how I felt. I mean I liked it. I thought the under-the-earth crust stuff was cool like the Hollow Earth I thought that was really neat Is they a Todd Davion Mitchell Silver Jason Preston Kuiper Wendell Carter Jr. I Agree that Godzilla is better, but I do have a soft spot in my heart for Kong low-way Wheezy Kate Cunningham rookie Miles Turner, I feel like you were like a big the Carter fan Still listen to it. I knew it dude. So do I We got orange wave Aaron Nessmith Celtics nice Franz Wagner Sandro Silverpole George Rad and Jordan Clarkson NT guys good luck God Pelicans Bay's to 75 C. Jimmick Callum printing plate Sadiq Bay Pistons one-of-one Jersey to 99 James Harden Sixers See the thing is Kong can use weapons. That's the big difference because he has thumbs and stuff He has arms, you know got patch wizards to 25 Kristaps poor zingas that's like The big advantage that Kong has Burrs David Robinson Otto to 25 the admiral Warriors Jonathan coming up our PA redemption Like imagine if they made a sword like a legitimate sword Like super sharp for the size of King Kong and you could just dual-wield Katana's We got bucks Otto to 49 Bob Dandridge Gmail Just Sean Tate Otto Rockets to 99 got Jersey Deandre Hunter to 99 Exactly for us Jersey next to 99 Al Harrington. That's Steve's cousin Right, we'll do a random or not a random a recap one sec I think I've watched it twice But the second time was when I was like drunk and bored Got Al Harrington Deandre Hunter James Harden Kristaps just Sean Tate Bob Dandridge David Robinson Christian Leitner. Where's the Wong-Jee-Jee? We got redemption coming our PA and Otto Franz Wagner and There you go guys that'll do it coming up next two cases of