A podcast highlight where Dr. Don Wood and Holly discuss how the mind resists uncertainty by forming unconscious habits and behaviors; they frame mental-health symptoms (anxiety, depression, PTSD) as the product of old, survival-based programming rather than personal failure, and emphasize that the mind is malleable — change requires education, repetition, and gradual retraining (a clinical "reboot").
Chapters
And that's what I always talk about, is that uncertainty is the number one fear for the human mind. The mind does not like uncertainty.
That's right.
So it's trying to bring uncertainty. And how it does that is it creates habits and behaviors to create the certainty and then it becomes unconscious. And you just live the habits and behaviors and have no idea why you do them.
That's right. That's right. And you know, I so appreciate speaking with you, dawn, because you came at it from the clinical point of view and you learned all of this stuff. And I found myself so fortunate to be able to find it not only in psychology, but in neuroscience, as you talk about, but also in spirituality and Buddhism. And they all point it back from millennial old wisdom to modern day thought leaders. They're all pointing back to the same thing, how the mind works. You know, it's not spirituality, it's how the mind works. And the sooner people understand that, that they're in charge, they're actually the boss. Right. So they're not that they're not the paid intern just taking orders.
Yeah, I like that. That's a great way of saying it.
Yeah. Yeah. But without that clarity, you, you're, you're living on autopilot.
And it's just the way the brain works and the mind works. And that's what I do. And I basically do about a four hour session with them. And the first two hours is all science and education about what I learned.
Yes.
And what I get constantly in that part of the know session is, gosh, this is making so much sense now. Now I understand. One of the very first things I say to them, there's nothing wrong with you and there's nothing wrong with your mind. And Holly, I'll have people sit and cry when I tell them that because that's not what been feeling. They feel like they're broken. There's something wrong with them. I go, there's nothing wrong. The experiences you had created the mind you're you're working with right now. So all we have to do is basically reboot the system. Right. So that old data is constantly running, activating your nervous system. And it's going to show up in, you know, mental health things. Anxiety, depression, you know, post traumatic stress. It's a glitch. Yeah, we can reboot the system.
That's right. That's right. Everything points to it. Right. And that's what the per love practices are all about. One of my classes is called simple and Obvious question mark.
Because it is pretty straightforward. You know, when you look at it. But it's just our minds that make it so complicated. And you're right, our minds are habit based, you know, there are no questions asked, appreciate the familiar or work with the familiar. So if a new idea doesn't match the programming, it's going to be rejected or manipulated. And that's where all that, a lot of that anxiety can come up. It's like, what are you talking about? You can't do that. Are you crazy? So just even being aware of that, that you're going to meet this resistance when you start.
And I talk about that because people say, well, I sabotage myself. What I say to them, I go, it's impossible. The brain's a survival brain. It can't sabotage you. It's protecting you from what it believes is going to be something that's going to hurt you. So it'll move you in a direction and you'll interpret that as, oh, I sabotaged myself. Because I went and I did this. I said, but in actual fact, your mind was trying to stop something that would possibly hurt you based on the experiences that you had.
That's right.
That's not sabotage. That's actually a brilliant brain trying to protect you.
Yeah, I like that. I like that. Yeah. I called it, you know, obviously not, I didn't come up with it, but the bio computer and it's just, it's just feeding back what you've given it and what you're trying to give it something new, it doesn't match. And it's like error, error, you know, but you're like, no, you have to just be the architect of your mental landscape. Right?
Yeah, that's exactly it.
And you can start to change those, those neural connections and, and create new ones, but it takes time and patience and repetition.
Yeah, I always say, think of repetition as research for the brain. It likes the research. Give me more data before I make a change. I want enough data. Yeah, I always use the story of if you walk two miles every day to get food, but every day you had to navigate through snipers and landmines, but you got there and back every day. And then somebody says, why are you doing that? There's a grocery store 100 yards down that road and it's well lit, it's really safe. Your mind won't accept that right off the bat.
Right.
So you got to start going 10 yards down the road, 20 yards and teach it that this is safer. And then it'll change. It's designed to change.
It is, it is malleable. I had a class last night and I talked about, you know, people. A lot of people think this is their world, it's solid. But. But when you start to break it down, I just happen to have these, you know, Right.
Oh, I love this.
Okay. No, right. And then you break it down more and you're like, oh, wait, I can move these things around a little bit. And finally you realize that these are just kind of thoughts. And in the middle is that powerful you. Right, that powerful. That can really do anything. You know, like you said, it's a. It's a brilliant. The mind is brilliant. The brain is brilliant. If we use it that way, we can create our lives in whatever manner we want. But if we don't, then we can really get hurt and in trouble. But it's all inside.
