22: How Do I Know Who I Am? – The Fast Track to Identity

[00:00] Stephanie: Season three, episode 22. Today we are starting a new series about identity and the brain.

Hello, Father.

[00:08] Marcus: Hello, Daughter. Here we are. Identity and the brain. That sounds interesting.

[00:12] Stephanie: It is also the most simplified version. Every time I try to title this series, it’s something neurotheological, resurrected identity, blah blah, blah blah. I kind of condensed it into not all of that stuff.

[00:24] Marcus: It’s hard to talk about the brain without five syllable words.

[00:28] Stephanie: But it’s fun. Anyway, this is going to be about a three episode little series and it’ll be fun

We just came off of a big breakthrough series where we were talking about our identity and brain, but in a different context. So yeah, I’m excited to talk brain science with you.

And I also really appreciate, Father, how good you are at making brain science not intimidating, or not as intimidating, because sometimes you’re like neurotheological what?

[01:02] Marcus: Yeah, it took a lot of work. I remember, Dr. Jim Wilder had come to a conference that our ministry put on back when we were called ICBC. We had a conference.

He was doing a breakout session on addiction from sexual…I’m sorry, addiction from? – recovery from! We don’t want the other thing to go – it’s recovery from addiction to sexual bondage. Right?

And he was laying out all this brain science in there that I had never heard in my life. And literally I was like, I’d play three seconds, I’d freeze frame, I’d take notes, I’d think, then I’d play five seconds, I stop, take notes and I’d think.

And that was my introduction because I mean, I had never heard anything about this. It was all brand new. And then I listened to his presentation on joy bonds and fear bonds from another conference that we did.

And then I got his book, which is now called Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You. Then I got to know him, and then we were going to write a book together. And so all of a sudden I had to really dive into it.

And then the first time I presented on brain science, Karl Lehman, M.D. and Jim Wilder are sitting in the audience critiquing me to make sure that I get this correct. And so the good news is, they both gave me the thumbs up, that I was simplifying it, but accurately enough. And so here we are.

[02:30] Stephanie: Well, and that is the thing. I think a lot of people know how to simplify, but I feel like one of your gifts is that you simplify without reducing. You don’t take away the meat of what you’re simplifying. You just help clarify.

[02:44] Marcus: Try not to.

[02:44] Stephanie: I appreciate, I mean, you’re pretty good about recognizing things like, okay, we’re talking left brain, right brain here, but recognizing that there’s a lot more going on than, yes, you know that.

So, I mean, on that note, as we’re looking at our identity, this little series is going to look a lot at the brain science side of things. But I thought we would address neurotheology, a lot like the neuroscience and the theology, I know you have different ways of phrasing that.

[03:14] Marcus: Yeah, I tend to call that our creation identity and our covenant identity.

[03:18] Stephanie: I love that. Could you quickly unpack that?

[03:20] Marcus: Yeah, sure. Creation identity is that God created you and me unique and individual, and our identity comes from who God created us to be. So he gives us our identity.

There’s a view out there in the secular world that the brain creates an identity and that there is no soul. But that’s not what we’re teaching. What we’re teaching is that God has given us an identity through creation.

Part of it is the creation of being in the image of God. And then, even beyond being in the image of God, are those unique things that are embodied in the idea of foreknowledge. That is, that before the foundation of the world, God foreknew us. Well, if he foreknew us, that means we have an identity of what he was envisioning in his mind and who he was already knowing.

And so part of what we do in discipleship and counseling and all these other things is that we’re trying to identify things that are not us, that are not the us that God created us to be, and trying to get rid of those things and trying to build up and strengthen what is true about us. So that’s our creation identity.

The covenant part is what is true about us as Christians, that is true about all Christians, because we are in Christ and our relationship with God is defined by the new covenant.

And so you think about it, a lot of our identity is defined by relationships. When I got married, my identity changed. I went from being single to being married. And so with that identity shift comes a foundation for a whole new set of behaviors and expectations that aren’t there.

In the same way, when my relationship with God changes, becomes defined by the covenant, that creates a foundation for a whole new way of life based on my covenant identity. So those two things, because they both come from God, are in perfect harmony with one another.

And collectively, that brings us to the two sides of the creation side, gets into also how the brain develops, and builds out our capacity to be that person. And that’s where the connection comes.

[05:31] Stephanie: Well, on that note, as I was researching for this podcast, I came across a short little excerpt in Jim’s book, Renovated, that I wanted to read, that I think kind of starts bringing that together and putting us on the track for our brain science conversation. So I’m going to read this quote from Jim.

If the heart is changed by attachment love, we certainly find that the physical brain is formed and transformed by the same attachment process. However, when we talk about the mind, we often only think about conscious thoughts. Since salvation is about the change of identity and character into the image of Christ, we want to know how the mind of Christ comes to operate through the human brain. Attachment would use the fast track and the conscious would use the slow track.

So I’m going to get your initial comments there, and then I want us to talk about fast and slow track.

[06:29] Marcus: So, notice first of all that he talks about mind and not brain. And because there’s a whole big philosophical debate on, are those the same thing? The answer is, no, they’re not the same thing.

The reality is that we can’t access our mind except through the brain and so there is a connection. Yet what he’s really trying to emphasize there is that we have only focused on the cognitive side of what it means to be mental, or the mind to be engaged.

Everybody knows transformation, Romans 12:2, we’re transformed by the renewing of our minds. But then we jump straight from that to we are transformed by cognitive thought.

What he’s trying to say is that our mind actually is largely formed by attachment at a much deeper level, a much more profound level, than simply by cognitive thought. And so that’s what my takeaway there was.

[07:27] Stephanie: Yeah. So let’s unpack these terms: slow track and fast track.

[07:32] Marcus: Okay, so in RARE Leadership, because we did not want to talk about right brain and left brain constantly, because it’s not technically accurate, Jim actually coined these terms fast track and slow track.

The idea is that there is a system in the brain that is largely on the right side, largely associated with the right hemisphere, that he calls the fast track because it has multiple functions.

But the reason it’s fast is that it processes data at six times a second. Now, our slow track is still quite fast. It processes data at five times a second. But five times a second will never quite catch up with six times a second. It’s always just a tick behind.

And so what happens in the fast track is, this is where we have things like intuition and sense. This is where our values and our character show up. Our identity shows up without having to think about it.

In other words, I don’t have to stop. “Okay, now who am I again? What do I value? What’s important to me?” Now, sometimes I do that, but that’s when I’ve gotten into a state of confusion.

The good news is that who I am, what I value, my character, and all these things show up kind of automatically because they’re happening in the fast track system. Because of that, I have also narrowed down my options of what my possible choices are long before my slow track gets that information.

The slow track, then, is where I am putting together narratives. I’m putting words to the things that are coming from the fast track. And it’s also where I am making choices.

[09:18] Stephanie: You’re problem solving.

[09:20] Marcus: So another image that we use besides fast track and slow track is the idea of a tree where the fast track is like the roots and the slow track is like the leaves.

And the idea here is that choices are fickle, kind of like leaves. And we all know this, right, because we have all tried to lose weight. We have all tried to get in better shape.

We’ve all tried to change our behavior with the choices that we make. And we know that I can make a choice now and an hour later make a different choice, because our choices tend to be like leaves. And so when we talk about the will.

[09:55] Stephanie: Or one part of me wants to do this…

[09:56] Marcus: Or one part of me wants to do…

[09:57] Stephanie:  wants to do this. It could even be happening simultaneously or just, like, conflicted inside.

[10:02] Marcus: So that whole idea of internal conflict and internal thing shows that in some ways, I have more than one will. Right? There’s a part of me that wills to do this and a part of me that wills to do that. And there’s a battle.

And so we tend to make that battle all about, well, let’s make sure that your final choice is the right choice. And we’ll call that the will. And I get that at some level, but there is deeper than that.

Most of the choices that we make are already largely laid out in front of us by attachment. And so they don’t predetermine the choice, but they significantly narrow what the choices are that we will realistically consider.

[10:42] Stephanie: Can you pause just briefly there and explain what you mean by it being attachment-based?

[10:47] Marcus: So attachment based means, for example, if you or Ben come in, and we have an attachment with one another, and you ask me for something, more likely, my answer is going to come out of our attachment and out of our relationship.

Whereas if somebody else asked me the same thing, I go through a completely different process for deciding whether or not to do that. In the Bible, the word that is very closely connected to this is “hesed”, which is one of Jim’s favorite words.

Hesed is this idea that I will be good to you because of our attachment. That’s kind of at the heart of that word. A lot of people have called it covenant, or they call it just loyalty, but it’s deeper than that.

Because loyalty, when I think loyalty, I think mafia, honestly. And I’m like, hey, are you going to be loyal to me or not? And that’s not what chesed is about but the idea of, you and I are connected, we are attached, we share a bond.

And because of the bond that we share, I’m going to do what is good for you. And that’s essentially what God is saying to us, is that we share a very deep bond with him from the creation of the world because we’re in his image and his likeness, and an even deeper bond through the covenant.

On that basis, there’s good that he’s going to be doing for us. And so I think that’s the essence of hesed.

[12:21] Stephanie: Okay, thank you.

So how does fast track – and I guess if it helps to counter fast and slow at the same time, you can do that, but how does fast track affect or influence our identity and our understanding of our identity?

[12:36] Marcus: So the part of the brain that we think of as the identity center is in the fast track. And let me give an example. What I mean when people say, what do you mean there’s a location in your brain that is associated with the identity center?

If I, for example, was in a severe accident and I damaged that part of my brain, I would forget who I am, right? I’d get amnesia. I can lose my sense of who I am and actually have to rebuild my core values, even about life, because the part of my brain that was storing all of that got damaged. And we see this happen a lot.

There are movies that are built around that theme, where someone gets a gunshot wound or some other kind of trauma to the head and now they forget who they are and they have to rebuild that, that’s why that happens.

When I say there’s a part of the brain that is the identity center, that part of the brain is in the fast track. The part of my brain that thinks of itself as me, that holds my values, that holds my character, God designed us that that shows up automatically in the fast track before we have to stop and think about it. Which is a good thing. Yes.

[13:50] Stephanie: And so how does the slow track affect our identity?

[13:55] Marcus: So slow track comes when I have a problem.  So if I have a problem, it’s the problem solving part of my brain. So when I have a problem, and that is, I’m not feeling like myself and I’m not sure what it would be like me, how it would be like me to act.

And I’ve got to stop and think about it because right now I don’t know how it’s like me to handle this situation and I’ve got to give it some thought. That’s where the slow track comes in because what I’m doing at that point is I’m trying to solve a problem.

And so it’s not just automatically showing up and happening. I’ve actually got to stop and I actually don’t know what it’s like me to do right now. Okay, so that’s where the slow track comes in.

[14:33] Stephanie: So we’ll continue unfolding this in the next episode a little bit. This might all be a little bit, Woo! Like, this is still a lot! So what might be a takeaway for somebody right now? Just that they could hold on to for fast track.

[14:48] Marcus: How to don’t get shot in the head. No, no, I’m sorry. Wrong takeaway.

[14:54] Stephanie: Like in terms of fast and slow track, if fast track is happening even faster, and again, we’re going to get more into this, but if fast track is happening faster than I can consciously think about it, what can I do?

[15:10] Marcus: What can I do about it? Right? Okay, so the fast track can be trained just like I learned to walk, I have to be trained to do that, but once I get it, I don’t think about it anymore. It just happens.

I can train myself to feel emotions and recover from them. Once I have trained myself to do that and it becomes a habit, it takes place without me thinking about it.

The whole premise of RARE Leadership, for example, is that there are habits that can be built in the fast track. And those habits help us remain relational, act like ourselves, return to joy when we get overwhelmed, and endure hardship without losing those first three skills.

So that’s RARE Leadership in a nutshell. And it is, what are the habits that I need to be building? And it is the habits of remaining relational, the habits of acting like myself, the habits of resilience and bouncing back from things. And that’s kind of where that’s going.

[16:17] Stephanie: Well, that was a beautiful transition that you probably didn’t know you were setting up for me, but thank you. More in your arm reach than my arm reach are two lovely books.

Oh, okay. I can still pick them up. You wrote two lovely books with Jim Wilder, RARE Leadership and RARE Leadership in the Workplace.These have tons and tons of helpful brain science things, including the fast track and slow track breakdown.

So I wanted to make sure people saw them, heard about them, and if they were like, “Oh, I need to just go sit in all of this because this sounds fascinating, but it’s a lot.” You can check out these books.

Would you like to give a quick pitch as to the difference between those two books?

[16:59] Marcus: Sure. The white, thicker book has the most brain science in it. It’s also written for Christian leaders and so there’s a lot of biblical support.

In fact, just this week somebody said, “I was reading your book RARE Leadership and thinking, ‘man, I wish there was a version of this I could take into my workplace’ because this is a little too Christian for me just to bring into the workplace.”

And then they looked on Amazon and there was, sure enough, Rare Leadership in the Workplace. And they were like, “Well, you already did. So thank you.” So that’s basically the difference.

The Rare Leadership in the Workplace is written in a way where you can use this anywhere, whether the people there are Christian or not. Because both of these books focus on maturity. What does it mean to be a mature leader? Which starts with being a mature person, which starts with habits. And so that’s where they go. So if fast track and slow track are specifically explained most extensively in leadership, the white book.

[17:56] Stephanie: Yeah, the original. The OG.

[18:00] Marcus: OG.

[18:02] Stephanie: Very good. Oh, man.

[18:05] Marcus:  I don’t even know what that means. What does OG mean?

[18:07] Stephanie: Okay, so. Oh, yes. Okay, I’ll wait to talk about that next episode.

But I did want to shout out, a month from now, Father and I and a whole bunch of the Deeper Walk crew are going to be in Houston, Texas, for the Disciple Making Forum.

We’re very excited about it. We met lots of wonderful people there last year and we’re excited to further connections and meet new people. And if you are going to go, let us know in the comments and that will be exciting to see you.

I feel like we’ve got a lot of little overwhelms right now, so I’m going to just have you do some final thoughts and we’ll continue the conversation next.

[18:52] Marcus: Yeah, well, let’s face it, neither neuroscience or theology is simple, right? There are a lot of levels to all these things, like how does the brain actually function? What are the names of these parts of the brain?

How do they relate to each other? What do they do? There are so many layers to all of this that if it’s a little overwhelming, it’s completely understandable.

In trying to make it simple, we tended to focus on practically, what does that therefore mean? What do I need to know in order to understand why I’m practicing what I’m practicing?

What we want people to know is that your brain operates in levels and with two engines. And these two engines are the fast track and the slow track. And the levels have to do with, the deeper I am in my brain function, if that is malfunctioning, it’s going to affect everything above it.

And so we dive into this to help us to identify what is causing the problem and where do I need to focus in order to find a solution. So all this does take quite a bit of understanding.

So in simplifying it, we’re like, there are two engines, there are four levels, and we’ll explain those in the future. All of these are designed to run on joy.

And so if you don’t learn anything else, just know that joy makes the brain run at its best because that’s the fuel the brain wants to run on. And that’s one of the reasons we keep coming back to joy in a lot of our conversations.

[20:22] Stephanie: Well, I’m looking forward to next week’s conversation. Thank you.

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