Discovering Courage in Difficult Times with Tana Amen & Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brain. Your question for today is, how do you discover courage in tough times? And this is a very timely conversation right now. And I'm excited to have a very special friend and this very special guest back on our podcast today. She's a New York Times bestselling author. She's vice president of the Amen Clinics. She's a neurosurgical ICU trauma nurse, health fitness renowned expert, podcast host. She has a love of martial arts, as I do. She has 2 black belts, and she's author of a brand new book, and this is called Relentless Courage of a Scared Child. Welcome back, Tana Amen. Thank you.

Oh, thank you so much, Jim.

Oh, this is, um, so first of all, thank you for writing this book. This is very— this is a very different book than, than your previous books.

So true. Yeah, if people, um, don't like your nutrition advice, it's not really that big of a deal. But if they, if they really, um, speak poorly about your memoir and your life story, then that, that's a little different. You have to be ready for that.

Well, this is an interesting conversation because kind of what the conversation is about, it's about courage. Uh, it's about, it's about a message of resilience. And I can't think of, you know, a more important quality to have nowadays. Now, um, in the book, when I was reading it, and when you share these stories about your past, you know, it's, it's a little bit uncomfortable. And then, and it's, it's hard sometimes for us to confront an uncomfortable past. You know, you talk about abandonment, you talk about abuse, you talk about battles with, with cancer, uh, with depression, with eating disorders. And now you've come out of this as being this amazing, iconic champion for people who need healing, who need help, who really need hope. And so, so thank you for writing this book. What was the inspiration for a memoir?

You know, it's interesting. It was a process because I think when I first decided to— when I first decided that it was finally time for me to heal the past, not just wear the facade. For so long, I hid behind this facade of perfectionism, of enough makeup, the right clothes, accomplishments. So no one really knew how broken I was inside because I was accomplishing plenty. So I looked like a pretty decent package on the outside, but I wasn't ready to deal with it. And even once I finally dealt with it, I then thought, well, I don't need to tell anybody. I dealt with it. Now I can actually— now the outside matches the inside. No one needs to know what really happened. And so if they don't know, then, you know, it's just easier. It's— people will love me more if they don't know all the messiness. But that's not true because I know people listening right now, I know even just from what we do at Amen Clinics, life is messy. People are broken, right? And it's okay. That's okay. Because as long as you— like, you know, you like martial arts. It's— you can't do martial arts and not learn how to fall safely. Falling isn't failing. It's just part of the process. As long as you get up, you haven't failed. And so, so for everybody listening, it's like, that's just a normal part of life. The brokenness is a normal part of life for so many people. And if we would stop hiding and feeling shame for that and just embrace each other in our brokenness and help each other up, you know, a rising tide floats all boats.

And vulnerability, you know, I appreciate because this was very— the book was very real, but it was also very, very raw. And, you know, in being an example, was it to help people to get unstuck with sharing your message, to help people get unstuck from their past?

Yeah. So if you don't want to change, don't marry a psychiatrist. That's the first thing I'm going to say. So my husband, Dr. Daniel Amen, he He kept nudging me to write this book for a long time. And, you know, one of the signs, we're talking about resilience. So one sign of resilient people is they tend to minimize what they've been through. And I certainly did that. It's like, well, my story is not worse than other people's. Other people have had it worse. You know, I wasn't chained to a radiator. I wasn't sold into sex trafficking. I mean, I would literally, those are the types of things I would compare myself to. You know, I would— and that's, believe it or not, is the sign of resilience. It's how we manage to survive. But it doesn't mean that it's a strategy that helps you with excellent performance. It doesn't mean it's a strategy that helps you meet your maximum potential. Right? So I would do this, but he kept encouraging me to write this book. When I finally decided it was time, and there were a couple things that had to happen. My daughter had to be of an age where she was going to understand some of the stuff that came out. So that was one of the things I waited for. But at first I thought, why is anybody going to relate to this story? Why does it matter? Why does my life matter? Why does my story matter? And I was just mind-blown at the responses I started to get because, you know, your life doesn't have to be some crazy, you know, celebrity-style life for people to pay attention. It's that we all have these stories that people relate to. And that's where we, we help each other. We help each other up through these vulnerable times, through these vulnerable points. And so when Daniel kept encouraging me to write this book, I decided that, you know, if I'm going to write a memoir, it's not going to end with me being a victim. I'll tell you that. I hate the word victim more than I hate just about any other word. I love the word responsibility, the ability to respond. It's my favorite word. So I needed it to be a message of hope. And really one of like, what were the lessons that I learned that helped me get through? So I don't think of myself as a victim at all. I think of myself as someone who's learned a lot. And so I thought, you know, I'm going to be as honest as I can. And there are some things I couldn't— I had to actually temper a little because everyone in my story is mostly, except for my dad, is alive. So I had to be very careful. But as you said, it's still pretty raw. But I wanted people to really grasp the truth and yet know that no matter where you've been, there's still hope for you.

Yeah, I mean, you being vulnerable gives people an opportunity as they read it to, to address the areas where they've had, they've had hurt and give them the courage. So how would, what would, what would your words be to somebody who's listening, um, to, to give them hope and help and courage to face those things in the past? Do they need to face it? And what part does loving yourself, if any, have a role in this?

So there was a lot there to unpack for one second. So first of all, when people used to say love yourself, I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. I could not even fathom loving myself. There was so much self-loathing. So I know people listening to this, or there are some people who are still struggling with that. When someone's in that place, these words self-love sound just insane.

Yeah.

So I understand that. If you can't get to this place of self-love right now, eventually it will make sense. But if you can't get there right now, focus on self-care and even helping others because you'll build it. It'll, it'll get there through self-care and even helping others when you feel miserable. You begin to take that focus off of your self-loathing and you start to feel better about yourself.

Honestly.

So that was one thing. To help people during those really, really difficult times, the one thing I would say, because so many people right now, we're in unprecedented times, we're going through such difficult times. The one thing I would say is I would have had no way of knowing that the very worst things in my life that I've ever been through, the points where I wanted to die, I prayed to die. Wicked depression. Just everything was broken. Financial. I mean, I filed for bankruptcy, dropped out of school, quit my job, going through cancer and going through wicked depression at the same time my mom had brain surgery. And there was no purpose for me on the planet that I could see. But those really, really difficult times in my life, I had no way of knowing that would become my purpose. That would be the thing that I would be able to use to help other people. In the future. So your tragedy literally could be someone else's story of triumph later, what they use to transform their life, their transformation. So just hang in there. Turning pain to purpose is one of the most fulfilling things we can do.

Turning tragedy into triumph. I like that. We hear a lot about post-traumatic stress. We, we don't often hear a lot about post-traumatic growth. Where going through struggles could lead to strength.

And that's what we talk a lot about is post-traumatic growth. And why does that happen? I mean, some people think you're born with it. You're either predestined to experience post-traumatic stress or you are predestined to experience post-traumatic growth. Just like people think that you're either, you know, born resilient or you're born a victim. And I don't know that I believe that. So I do, I definitely have people in my family, they share my genetics. Some of them, you know, are very much still in the victim mode. And there are people like me, my mom is one of them, and I got her grit, that are just, we don't stay stuck in that victim mode. It's like, what do I do next? How do I turn this into opportunity? When something's going wrong, one of the things I taught myself is to look in the mirror and go, what do I get to do? How can I change this? What's the opportunity here? And that is just one of the most powerful things you can do because it instantly takes you out of victim mode. So I don't know that I believe you're just born with it. I actually think it's a muscle. I think you can learn. And I think that you can actually, wherever you're born, just like if you're born skinny and kind of weak, you can still build muscle, right? So we can, we can still build that muscle. You just got to exercise it.

So grit and resilience. This is something that's Maybe it's not born, maybe it's built.

Right. I mean, maybe we are predisposed to it or not, but you can still build it. Just like with our health, Daniel and I often talk about how your genetics load the gun when it comes to your health, but your decisions decide whether or not that trigger gets pulled so often. So most of the time.

Yeah. And I, and I, it's wonderful because you and Daniel, you know, with the clinic, you have so much data. having done more brain scans than— including my own— with, with so many individuals, and then the stories that, that you must hear. Um, you and I were talking before we started recording on the 4 Circles exercise. Can we take everybody through that, walk them through it?

Yes, it's such an important exercise, and it's one of my pre-order gifts with the book. So if you pre-order this, you're going to get this exercise because When I wrote this book, I decided this was such a powerful exercise for me. Writing my story was so powerful in helping me. I wanted other people to be able to start to journal their lives and do some of the things I did. And one of them is this 4 Circles exercise. It's what we do with patients at Amen Clinics. It's what I do personally.

Hmm.

So 4 circles are biology, what's going on with your brain and your body. Then there's the psychology, what's going on in your mind? How are your thoughts? How are you disciplining your thoughts? Are you listening to the lies that are happening in your brain? Or are you putting discipline around them and challenging them? Then there's the social circle because people matter. People are contagious. Our community, right? They sought you out because they want a like-minded community because it helps them work that muscle. It helps them develop that part of their life. People matter. If you are a recovering alcoholic and you're hanging out in a bar, good luck, right? You're not— it's going to pull you down. And then there's the spiritual circle. And I know people from, you know, again, are listening from all over the world. That doesn't necessarily mean my brand of religion. It means what gives your life meaning and purpose? Because purposeful people live 11 years longer. They're happier and they're more fulfilled and they're more successful.

Wow.

So it's all of these 4 circles. I think of them like 4 tires on a car. So if one of those tires goes flat, The car will drive for a little while, not very well, but if more than one goes flat like mine did in my 20s, they were pretty much all completely blown and my car flipped. And that's what we see. We see that at the clinics all the time. People's— they're not, they're not paying attention to the levels in their tires, right? Their biology, their brain and body, what's going on with their brain. Did they have a brain injury? Do they have toxic exposure, hormones, thyroid? Like, all of these things matter.

Yeah.

But then their psychology, what are they doing with the software? So the brain is the hardware. You know, what you're thinking, what you're doing right now is software. And then there's the people you hang out with. And then there's what is your purpose and meaning. And so if you're not filling all of those circles all the time, those tires, eventually that car is going to crash. But also, when you are looking at your life, if you've been through childhood trauma, like my book is about overcoming childhood trauma, depression, anxiety, and grief. If you went through something like what I did growing up, writing my story was one of the most powerful things I ever did because we develop strategies when we are children that help us survive. And they work. They work when we're 2 years old, when we're 4 years old, when we're 10 years old. They help us to get by. But those strategies from when I was 4 years old didn't work so well when I was 40 years old. So, rewriting my story helped me see those childhood traumas from when I was 4 and realize, oh, wow, I was trying to use that strategy when I was 40. No wonder my life wasn't working. And I got to reprocess it as an adult. I got to— if you have a child and an adult look at a fire and they both try to tell the story about what they saw, it is going to be bigger, brighter, and hotter to the child, right?

Right.

So, it just helps you reprocess it. And when you do the Four Circle exercise, not just on yourself, but based on the people who hurt you when you were young or disappointed you, you begin to see them through a different light. I did this with my father who abandoned me and just constantly disappointed me my entire life. And it, it just helped me release all of my anger. I just, I had no more anger. There was forgiveness. And I realized it was only hurting me anyways. But, but seeing his biology, his psychology, His social circle, his spiritual circle made me see him through a different light, and I had more empathy.

And it takes the, uh, the judgment and maybe helping to be able to, to, to, to forgive, um, even when you apply that lens to yourself. So ask yourself, you know, what was my biology back then, or my psychology, or my social circles Or any of these things, or putting that lens on family members, you know, especially people, and that gives you your, you know, what is my spirituality?

What—

that gives you your power back, right?

Right. So it's easy to call people bad. It's harder to ask why. It's just, you know, behavior is complicated, and it's really easy for us to call other people bad. But, you know, some of us, like you mentioned self-loathing earlier, and that, and that, that can happen. But, you know, we so often we get stuck with that. So we call other people bad, but, you know, even in our own lives, we often don't meet our own potential because we get stuck in the self-loathing. We get stuck in self-hatred, in self-judgment. So it's important on both ends to do this with other people when you're feeling this anger and hatred towards other people. Forgiving other people is important, but really also forgiving yourself because we tend to see the world the way we are, not the way the world is. So doing that with yourself is so important if you want to really open up your life, not just to joy and happiness, but also success and potential.

So if somebody is going through that process of self-loathing or in there in that kind of stuck place, they could start with a simple question. And what would you recommend one of those questions be to redirect?

So, so one of my favorite exercises— yes, the 4-circle exercise is wonderful. It's actually a really good place to start. But one of my favorite exercises comes from our friend Byron Katie, and it's just this simple exercise of, is it true? Can I know it's absolutely true? How do I feel when I have the thought? And you gotta dig into each of these. And I have examples in the book. I actually take people through how this worked in my life, in real life, when I was, real time, when I was doing this with Byron Katie. How do I feel when I have the thought? How do I treat other people when I have this thought? Okay, so my thought was nobody would love me if they really knew me. So I was hiding everything. And so how do I feel when I have that thought? Who would I be without the thought? Peaceful. I'd be free. Right? And then turn it to its opposite. Nobody would love me if they really knew me. People would love me more if they really knew me. And then there's a second turnaround. I don't love me because I know me. That was the real work. So that's where the work started.

Yeah, sometimes it's that simple, and also it's sometimes it's that hard.

It was both.

It was simple.

It was really just the starting point. That was a good way to put it.

Yeah, I feel like curiosity is such a powerful thing to cultivate, you know, before judgment, before judging ourselves. And, you know, studies done in self-compassion, that kindness, especially kindness towards yourself, Yeah. Goes a long way. And instead of getting going quick to judge ourselves, is to just get curious and ask those questions. Is like, is it true?

Yep.

Is it actually true? To introduce some kind of, you know, doubt into it.

It's so true. One of Daniel's expressions that he often says, and I've sort of stolen it and I love it, is be curious, not furious.

Be curious, not furious.

Yeah.

Well, that's a great way, going from getting going To going from bitter to better.

Yeah, exactly.

And then also when it comes to that mental component, you know, when in mind, you know, the two of you talk a lot about, you know, eliminating or reducing ANTs, those automatic negative thoughts that sometimes are in there that is just this chatter that says we're not enough.

They lie.

No one can make you—

You gotta talk back.

Yeah.

You know, we know that, you know, people say things all the time they don't mean, but we don't ever think about our own thoughts and how we talk to ourselves. And oh, by the way, most of us have this self-talk that if anyone else ever said to us the things we say to ourselves, we would never tolerate it. And I think the big lesson, one of the big lessons for me besides, you know, this journey of self-discovery and letting this all go and forgiveness. One of the big things for me is how much holding on to all of that and not even recognizing how much of a victim I was earlier in my life held me back, held me back in so many areas. It held me back in relationships. It held me back in business. It held me back as a mother. It held me back in so many places. It's just you feel so free when you finally recognize it and let it go. And you feel less vulnerable to other people's opinions. You feel less, you feel less afraid once you finally do your own work.

I mentioned on your podcast, and I love your show, we were talking about responsibility and we're talking about superheroes and we're talking about Stan Lee. He says, you know, with great power comes great responsibility. But the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power. When we take responsibility for something, we have great power to make things better for ourselves and not be that— not be at the effect and not be that victim.

Well, I think that's why that's my favorite word, responsibility. There's a story in the book about that, about how I learned the word responsibility from my uncle, who was a heroin addict, who terrified me as a child. but who later turns his life around. And he teaches me, you know, he looks at me one day and he says, so how much responsibility are you willing to take for where your life is at? And I'm like, uh, okay. I just— the point where I wanted to die and I just was going through cancer and treatments and all this craziness. And I'm like, well, I can't take responsibility for cancer. I mean, give me a break. And he said, I didn't ask you to take the blame.

Ooh.

I asked you how much responsibility you were willing to take the ability to respond. And it was like this light switch moment. And he said, if you take 50% responsibility, then you have 50% ability to respond and change the outcome. But someone else still has the other 50% or something else.

Yeah.

And I was like, I don't want anyone else having the other 50%. And for some reason in that moment, it just changed the trajectory of my life because I was like, I no matter what happens or how bad it is, from that point forward, whatever happened in my life, it's not that I would take the blame, but I would always look at myself and go, okay, what can I do? Like this, I'm taking responsibility. I want the ability to respond, all of it, not part of it. So what can I do? What's the opportunity here? And I didn't blame other people after that or my circumstances.

Yeah. Because it's, you know, we can, we could put blame or we could make excuses, but then nothing changes.

Nothing changes.

And we put an inordinate amount of energy and an inordinate amount of time and energy and attention. But if we fight for our own limitations, we get to keep them. I just got goosebumps. I, you know, I call them truth bumps. But we, so your belief is we are 100% responsible for our life, that our past might've shaped our biology, our environment, all that might've shaped who we are, our social circles, But we are responsible for where we are today, right now in this moment, and also moving forward.

So, and like, and I'll give you an example. This is gonna be a hard one for women listening, but it's, it's my truth. I was sexually assaulted, but I can take responsibility for that without taking the blame. What do I mean by that? It's my ability to respond to the situation. It's my ability to learn from it, to figure out what to do differently, to not be— then to not feel shame. If I'm, if I'm a victim, I feel shame. But if I'm not a victim, if I'm in this place of empowerment, I don't feel shame. I see it for what it was. I can do something about it. I can learn from it and move on and not do it again in the future and figure out what I'm going to do differently, like take martial arts. Yeah, right?

Yeah. Well, I appreciate this conversation about having courage and discovering courage in turbulent, difficult times. So, I recommend everyone go and get this book. Where is the best place, Hannah, you recommend people get the book?

So, they can get it anywhere books are sold. However, if you go to relentlesscourage.com, I have over $500, like almost $500 worth of gifts for you, including the Four Circle exercise we just talked about, a course that Daniel and I filmed for you. There is a One Page Miracle to help you get very clear on what you want for your life. And there's a digital journal. And it's really to help you, take you through this process of writing your story so you get to rewrite the ending, so you can make a more positive ending.

I love that.

That's what I want. And I'm going to donate one book for every book sold during the preorder time. I'm going to donate a book to someone in need.

That's amazing. That's so outstanding. And so what would you recommend to somebody listening right now besides going to get the book? And going to relentlesscourage.com. What's one exercise or one suggestion for everybody listening moving forward?

If I could say one thing, it is, it's responsibility. Yeah. So, I mean, there are so many things we talked about. 4 circles, question your thoughts, is it true? But if you can do one thing today, the minute something goes wrong, Don't sit and whine. Look in the mirror and say, what's the opportunity? What do I get to do right now?

Yeah, we change our questions and we could absolutely change our life. I would recommend everybody right now, I'll give them one more thing, is to screenshot this episode and post it on social media because you never know your friends, your followers, your fans, your family, who needs to hear this conversation. And I think kindness is such an important superpower right now for us all to develop, 'cause we never know the battles people are struggling with. People could be fighting the battle for their life and we might not know the difference. And maybe somebody in your community could benefit from this conversation. So tag Tana, tag myself, and share your one aha, one thing that you're committed to doing. And I'll actually repost some of my favorites when you tag us in it so I get to see it. And actually, I will gift a copy of this book also to one person just as a thank you. And Tana, I wanna thank you so much for just being a living example, like literally like living proof that no matter where you come from, whatever your past is, no matter how bad you've had it, you've mentioned it, that we could rewrite our own story and have that new ending.

Thank you so much, Jim. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Hi, Kwik Brain.

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