“Why can’t I escape the past?”
A scientific and spiritual key for those who long for transformation in relationships and a richer life.
A spiritual guide to the brain that integrates neuroscience and spirituality!

Recommended by Kim Geum-mi (CEO of Daum Psychological Research Institute), Noh Sang-heon (Senior Pastor of Namseoul Jesus Church), Park Young-sik (Professor of Seoul Theological University), Lee Jong-cheon (Professor of California Baptist University), Jeon Woo-taek (Professor of Yonsei University College of Medicine), and others!

Do you want to improve your relationships? Do you want to make lasting positive changes? Do you want to discover the amazing blueprint for change hidden within you? Psychiatrist Kurt Thompson offers a way.
The author says that by changing our brain patterns, we can become who God intended us to be and rewire our minds.
It also shows how twisted relationships can be transformed through the interaction of spiritual practice, Scripture, and connection with others.
By looking into one of God's miraculous creations—the brain—we can enrich our lives, our relationships, and the world around us in amazing ways!

There is good reason why I mention the problems that arise between cultures.
It's not hard to imagine how discussions about the brain might enhance our inner lives.
It can even affect how you interact with your spouse or children.
But what does that really have to do with peace in the Middle East? It might seem like a stretch.
But consider the conversation Jesus has with the Samaritan woman in John 4.
(Although I am not a neuroscientist) consider how Jesus' self-awareness bridged the deep cultural and gender divides that divide people.
---From "Chapter 1 Neuroscience: A Window into the Mind"

If you open your heart to being known to God, you will have a different and, frankly, more frightening experience.
Now we are in a vulnerable position.
When we allow others to get to know us, they can form their own assessments of our worth.
They can react to us.
They are influenced by us, and in turn, we can be influenced by them.
It is about giving that power to others.
We give them the choice to love us or reject us.
Essentially, we have to entrust ourselves to someone else.
That's how it has to be.
---From "Chapter 2: As We Became Known"

The left hemisphere focuses on the past and future.
The left hemisphere systematically absorbs all the information that the right hemisphere is transmitting through the corpus callosum and compares that information linearly and logically with what is stored in the neurobiological history of the left hemisphere.
The focus of the left hemisphere is on the 'I' as a being distinct from the rest of creation.
The left hemisphere analyzes who we are and what we want, and it distinguishes us from one another.
We enjoy experiencing the idea of ​​having a sense of individuality, of a separate 'I'.
That is, until we begin to feel the separation of loneliness and isolation as we gather all the emotional lumps that are uniquely 'mine'.
---From “Chapter 3: Love the Lord your God with all your heart”

Implicit memory also uses what neuroscientists commonly call mental models.
The implicit memory models we form early in life tend to arise automatically in response to certain internal and external stimuli.
For example, when you were a child, you may have experienced a life where your parents would frown and eventually explode in anger.
As a young man, whenever you see your girlfriend frowning, you are likely to feel threatened.
The problem, of course, is that she may not be angry, but just confused.
But your mental model ignores signs that indicate you are in an environment different from the one you grew up in.
(As a result, your bewildered girlfriend will either be very interested in your efforts to form a new model or try to find a new boyfriend.)
---From "Chapter 5 Remembering the Future"

Why is it so difficult to connect emotionally with God? Simply put, our emotional response to God is often clouded by our own narratives and implicit memory processes.
The neural pathways corresponding to well-encoded states of shame or guilt leave little room for new pathways of joy and delight to operate.
This is why we need to pay attention to the experiences of others that remind us of God's true nature, rather than to what our implicit memories and basic emotional states perceive God to be.
But we must remember this point.
God does not want any part of us to be distorted or contradictory.
He uses every means to reveal everything that needs healing.
He is always interested in revealing those densely wired, very old, implicit neural networks that correspond to emotions that do not fit into the larger geography of our minds.
---From "Chapter 6 Emotions: Experiencing God"

When a baby is born, he or she interprets his or her sense of self through the experiences of seeing, hearing, touching, and feeling directly from his or her primary caregivers, and furthermore, interprets his or her sense of self.
Babies do not have an independent sense of their own mind.
The baby will acquire that sense.
But that feeling is based on what the baby sees of himself through his mother's eyes.
And what a baby 'sees' will primarily be influenced by what the baby's parents see.
If a baby's mother is good at mentalizing—that is, responds to the infant's needs in a healthy way—the infant develops a specific sense of self and a specific sense of the mother's mind.
The infant sees his mother looking at him with affection.
If the baby's mother is not good at mentalizing, the baby will experience different results.
Either way, babies see themselves and understand themselves primarily through what they witness in their mothers' responses.
---From "Chapter 7 Attachment: Connecting Life"

We all need to pay attention to aspects of God's story that we often ignore, fail to recognize, or struggle with because of our particular neural networks.
For example, how often do we carefully read the passages where God expresses His "joy" for us? Or how often do we pause to reflect on the words of the author of Hebrews: "For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, despising its shame" (Hebrews 12:2).
Most people feel some degree of shame anyway, but few stop to consider the corrosive effects of shame on their minds.
This tendency sometimes reflects our own insecure attachments.
But God also draws those with secure attachments much deeper into safety, into what Paul calls faith, hope, and love.
It's not just those with unstable attachments who desperately need a savior.
We all need a savior.
---From "Chapter 8: Acquired Secure Attachment: Pointing to a New Creation"

Both David and Jeremiah make it clear that we cannot unite our hearts on our own.
This is a creative process that God must initiate and activate, and He did.
God who raised Jesus from the dead, Jesus who ascended to the throne of this world, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
God has thus unlocked the ability to integrate our prefrontal cortex.
These new neural networks reflect and suggest the new heaven and earth that will culminate in the appearance of Jesus.
Vague signs of a new heaven and a new earth are already appearing in our lives.
The kingdom of God is manifested whenever saved people practice justice, mercy, and love in our families, communities, workplaces, and physical environments.

---From “Chapter 9: The Prefrontal Cortex and the Mind of Christ”