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The Faith Filled Therapy Podcast
The Faith Filled Therapy podcast explores the connection between biblical wisdom, neuroscience, therapy, and theology to support emotional wellbeing and meaningful inner change.
Each episode offers practical insights on renewing the mind, shifting thought patterns, and understanding the nervous system—grounded in both scripture and psychological science.
Whether you're curious about how faith and mental health can work together or looking for thoughtful, evidence-based tools to support everyday life, this podcast offers a grounded and insightful approach to personal growth.
The Faith Filled Therapy Podcast
An Intro To Your Left And Right Hemisphere With Dr Perianne Brownback
In this episode, Jo Hargreaves, faith-filled therapist and writer, is joined by Dr Perrianne Brownback for a thoughtful conversation about the left and right hemispheres of the brain, moving beyond pop-psychology myths into something far richer and more meaningful.
Together, they explore how simplistic ideas about being “left-brained” or “right-brained” have been largely debunked, while also uncovering the profound truth that how our brain processes the world really does matter. Drawing on the work of psychiatrist and philosopher Ian McGilchrist, this conversation looks at the distinct roles of each hemisphere, and why the left hemisphere was never designed to operate independently, but to be guided and interpreted through the right.
This episode invites listeners to reconsider how they think, perceive, and make meaning, not just cognitively, but relationally and spiritually. It’s a grounding, curiosity-stirring conversation that connects neuroscience, lived experience, and faith, offering a deeper understanding of how we attend to the world, to God, and to ourselves.
You can follow Perianne's work here and purchase her book here
For free resources, reflections, and regular encouragement, come join me over on Substack. You’ll also find the option to subscribe to The Faith-Filled Collective — a monthly space for women who are pursuing wholeness and holiness.
Hello everybody. Huge welcome to this conversation. I don't know whether to call it a podcast or a conversation. We've already had a brilliant preamble beforehand, which you probably should have recorded and just put that out. But a massive welcome if you found this through the Faithfield Collective. A huge welcome if you found it a different way, if you've downloaded it from a recommendation from somebody. Or anyway, however you found us, I'm glad you're here. And I'm with one of my dearest, most wonderful friends, mentor, inspiration, just general, brilliant woman, the wonderful Perri Ann Brownbach. Hi Perry Ann.
SPEAKER_00:Hello, Joe. It is so good to be with you, as always.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, we've done we've done two podcasts previously, haven't we? We did one videoed, one kind of audio, and maybe videoed, and both of them have got lost.
SPEAKER_00:It's a mystery, you know, and um we're gonna keep pressing in, aren't we?
SPEAKER_02:We are third third time lucky, not that we believe in any of that, but no, of course not. But like you said, we're just gonna keep on pressing in. Pressing, yeah. So when I talk about you, and I've talked about you on previous um podcasts that I've just done by myself, I've talked about you, excuse me, in um the an up-and-coming book that I'm writing. I have cited you, and um, whenever I do, I say, my friend Perry Ann, who is a real scientist, she's a real proper scientist, she is a church leader, she can really teach you about the left and right hemisphere of the brain. Um, so if you were gonna kind of introduce and summarize yourself, not just as a proper scientist that I was introducing, um what who would you say you are? Tell us about you.
SPEAKER_00:I would say I'm a researcher of the unseen. And I spent years, I had um my doctorate is in theology, but my master's was in microbiological research. And I truly was like, oh, I'm researching God's creation. And then my husband and I felt this call into church leadership, and so I always say that I only just switch my research interests to the spirit, and they were always there anyway. And um, by the way, there's a lot of sociological things to research in the church as we know it. So that happened too, but mainly I uh I used to say I'm a kingdom dreamer with access to PowerPoint. Um just and and the most recent description I think is I've been living a life uh using myself as a laboratory, watching the church as a laboratory. I mean with the Holy Spirit because I believe He loves science. And uh the fact is I've just been taking notes. So uh some of those notes have value. It seems they have handles on them, and interestingly, they're not boring. Uh they're not that kind of science. They're coming alive to how God made the world.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. I love that. I've been taking notes. You've just been paying attention, uh paying and paying attention inwardly, externally to what's going on around you in the body of Christ. And we are well, I'll speak personally. I personally have hugely benefited from your ability to pay attention, to see things, um, but then to be able to filter them through your spiritual and I guess scientific intelligence that very likely aren't two different things.
SPEAKER_00:But anyway, let's take that. Uh let me say John G. Lake famously said he called it the science of the spirit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I just missed the memo early on that there was any gap between the two.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, brilliant. That's what makes you brilliant. And then I'm scrolling back for our photos because which of which there are many, and I'm just looking at you sent me a photo that you'd created through chat, and I love it. And I cannot find it now. It's something of you wearing a t-shirt and it says quantum something. Quantum Explorer. Oh, I'll I'll send you that. Send it again so I can put it in these in the show notes to this because it it's brilliant. I love it.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, I would love to. And one of the things that chat um just through things I had researched, it and I love this so much. It said that what I'm in search of is meta systems. So I love that idea. If if you know, I mean, I think some of your viewers would know the the prefix meta, like meta data is data about data, a meta narrative is a narrative that unites all the narratives. And I just kind of see God as the meta system for all these systems that He created, but they work. You know, your heart's a system, your head has a system, your body has a system, the church has a system, but he is the meta system. And that little phrase is on that funny chat GPT image, and uh I just couldn't love that more.
SPEAKER_02:Something that you do really easily is come up with concepts, and I was gonna say sound bites, but I don't want to reduce it to that. Come up with concepts that I really, really wish I'd come up with. So that idea of God being the meta, what language did you use? The meta system. Meta system, yes, and that just reminds me of Colossians. I think it's Colossians 1, where it talks about Jesus, everything finding its place, that he was the firstborn of all creation. Everything finds its place. And I love, in fact, I'm gonna find it. Um, this is what happens, by the way, if you're listening to this, what happens in conversations between Perri Ann and I. We write really nicely kind of formatted questions of I'm gonna ask you this and we're gonna talk about this, and then we go on a galactic journey everywhere, and this has just taken me too. I do I don't want to miss it because I love this. It's the message paraphrase of Colossians one, and I absolutely love it that it talks about oh, where is it? Talks about here we go.
SPEAKER_00:I know exactly what yeah, I've got this.
SPEAKER_02:It says not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe, people and things, animals and atoms get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross. That is just the kind of metasystem that holds everything, doesn't it? From our nervous system to our left brain, the universe. And this is why worshiping the universe just can't do, can it? Because you're like, but it's bigger, there's a whole bigger system that's just in a metasystem.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I um took that term universe and I made it uni, capital U, capital N, capital I dash verse, meaning it's all pointing to him. Yeah, so I don't really believe there's any area of life that if you come to it with an honest heart seeking truth, you will strike him.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:He is the uniter of all things. Now it may take a while, and you may have to do something. Well, you will have to walk through some dismantling of what your, shall we jump ahead and say, left hemisphere might have concluded without the Holy Spirit's help. But something about the peace of knowing He is the metasystem. And then you come and the Logos, the Word of God we've been given is expressing that metasystem. We would relate to the Bible differently if we didn't try to stick a scripture in a spot. I mean, you can do that, but let that scripture you stuck in that spot open up and reintroduce you to the whole. So it's a day of integration, it's a day of wholeness, it's a day of finding him as the all in all.
SPEAKER_02:It absolutely is. This is the phrase I've talked to you about this before about integration over amputation. And so often we're like, I must amputate this or I must separate it and put this here and this here, but actually the integration of all of it, which is actually, even from a therapeutic point of view, the point of like integrating it all into the whole. But that's not just it, it's into a whole and into a system that is part of a wider system that is part of the God who is the one over the whole metasystem. And then it's it then we begin to make sense, don't we?
SPEAKER_00:And we do, yeah. And that's why um, so my personal story coming, you know, I made it sound easy and glorious. I'm the scientist of spirit things, and I have had to work hard to stick to that because not having understood the role of the mind, I always laugh. This is a very um pop culture reference, but I don't know if you maybe this didn't make it big in England, but uh Will Farrell and Talladega Nights, there's a famous line that he kept going, he's he's he's having a picture taken, and he keeps going, I don't know what to do with my hands. Oh shit. And it's a famous joke, and then the camera's on him and he's got his hands like this. It's ridiculous. But I think the real truth of people is I don't know what to do with my mind. I think that's what the body of Christ has lacked. And thank God people like you are leading a movement. I mean, there's even contemplative Christianity that is arising in these um practices that we have. There, the Holy Spirit is helping us. No, we can do things with our mind. In fact, I I think I'll tell you my Signs and Wonders bag story. Yeah, do it. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:I love you bought props.
SPEAKER_00:I love I brought so many props because they're the best. And I'd have learned, you know, the right hemisphere and uh the spirit of God speaks story quite easily. Uh, in the words of somebody that put me put this in my heart years ago, stories have handles, and sometimes facts don't have quick handles for people. But anyway, okay, here's the story. This is hot off the press. I love it. Um, if um if you dabble any in what I've written for a dissertation, you will know why this interests me. But this is last Saturday. We are at an art show in Fort Worth, and uh I pass a booth and I see a brain with a left and right hemisphere. And can I just tell you, um, Joe, you will understand that I already own a few pieces of art with a left and right hemisphere. I can imagine. Yeah, you do know that. You've been in my home. Uh so my reason, my left hemisphere said, Don't go back to that lady's booth. You have that art, you own that. And uh I could not. I actually went eight steps in front and said, I'm sorry, I must go back to this booth. But the reason I bought it, she she actually is my new best friend, not really, but she's my new friend. She's uh she's gonna personalize one with my sayings as a poster. And one of my sayings is fill not kill. That and that's the same as your don't amputate, right? Yeah um, and that that's my story. This I'm my passion is not just that I needed a good thing to teach. My passion is I had to have this to live as a Christian. Because as I said, I'm all like, oh, everybody's gonna love the way that we think through Christianity with both sides of our brain. And I w came up in a tradition where a lot of people's prescription for receiving from God was literally, it was said to me, turn off your brain. And I could not um, I'm cerebral, I couldn't find the wiring, I couldn't find the switch. Later I found out that there is no switch, actually, it's fill, not kill, but you've got to cooperate with your hard wiring that God gave you. And that's another myth I'm passionate to break off. People think that if you're real cerebral, some say highly intelligent, that it's harder to know God. That's a myth. Yeah, it's just it's just you and God gives us all the wiring. We're hardwired to walk in faith, but we do need to press into cooperating with it. So here's the story. So the lady, she I said, tell me about this, and we got to know each other. She said, This is a seed of an idea. Now she didn't say the whole thing, she just said it goes through your brain, and she said, you know, she was saying the right hemisphere, creative, etc. And the left, these are over caricatured in culture, but there is truth. Um, and the left, you can see more logical. And then she said, it comes out, the seed becomes an idea. Oh wow. Yeah, thank you. That's what I said. So I was like, Thank you very much. I'll have that. Uh it was it's so beautiful, and I will be purchasing more, but I'm gonna have her put like my sayings on them. Okay, cool. So fast forward to Sunday. Isn't that amazing? I love it. I as uh fast forward to Sunday, and as Joe said, I'm a church leader, so uh we do a rally before we start and we just share from our hearts and pray before we start church. So I thought I'm gonna show my new piece of art. My point wasn't this. Uh my point was that I almost passed the booth and I had to turn around and come back, which was turn aside and see the burning bush.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right? Yeah. How easily we pass by things in our life and we just don't realize God could be speaking from them, right? So I happen to own this bag. See this bag, it says signs and wonders. I got this bag at Bethel. I um I love this bag, and it fit perfectly. So I came to church with this as my object lesson. And then when I got to the rally, I showed this and we talked about that, and I put the bag aside. And after the rally, uh a friend uh she stopped me and she said, she said, That brain was fine, but I just like the bag. And I thought, well, that I do like the bag too. Who wouldn't like signs and wonders? And later, and this is she's right to love the bag, who wouldn't love signs and wonders? But it struck me how amazing could this not be some of the sign and wonder?
SPEAKER_02:Wow. Okay, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, could could the body of Christ, that was a long story to get to this one point. Would our experience of God be enhanced if we didn't try to crawl out of these bodies He gave us, including these heads He gave us, and instead fully inhabit them, which is what I believe Jesus walked around the earth doing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I firmly, I mean, almost ritually like I hereby place this brain in the Sons and Wonders bag.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. It makes it makes so much sense, and I think it's such a redemptive narrative and such a different story to just switch your brain off. Yeah, just switch your brain off. And and actually, it's really valuing how how God's wired us. Of that, it's honoring and holy in and of itself to not just look at the bag, to look at the print within the bag, to look at the brain, to look at how you've been made, how you've been wired. I found that out of any form of worship, often for me, sometimes reflecting cognitively on the information of how God has made my brain. So one piece of brain tissue, the size of a grain of sand, a hundred billion synapses, all that kind of stuff. I sometimes find that brings me to a place of worship that no brilliant worship song could ever necessarily get me to. Yeah, a different place. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. I know exactly what you mean. And you know, just as you were saying that, I don't think I've had this thought quite like that, which again is why I love conversation with you. I mean, welcome to our conversation. This is amazing. But it just struck me that all great, all Christians who've been taught well would know the intricate detail of the Old Testament temple. Everything's a semiotic, everything's a sign, everything points to the wonder that is Jesus. And then fast forward to the New Testament and think go with me here. Fast forward to the New Testament, and we go, and now your body's a temple. And we reduce that to don't have sex with a prostitute. What? God is saying your body, it we miss. I know the context of that is keep your body clean and holy, but but the j it's just what you said, isn't it? We are a temple, meaning he wants to rule and reign and gut and heart and head, and that means both sides of my head. And I'll throw this in there real quick. I did do my dissertation on integration of the two hemispheres of the brain under Dr. Leonard Sweet. And uh and he has this one question at our dissertation defense that he um asked every one of us. And it was what one thing surprised you most from your research? Because he clearly wanted it to be a learning experience, not just getting a grade for telling what you do. And and I think my answer surprised him, but it was truth for me. You you do hear so much bad press about the analytical side of your brain, the left hemisphere in terms that's what causes people to say, just turn your mind off. They don't mean that, they mean step right. They mean integrate. But you hear so much bad press that there's a latent sort of oh that that stuff, that's the enemy. And certainly it can be the enemy. And I do believe it's kind of the seat of flesh, if you will. It can be the resistance, but I'm just blown away by how God loves that side of the hemispheres too. God wants to again, like you just said, it's the information, spiritual information that makes you fill with wonder and worship. Yeah, and uh so God, there's not a part of us that can't house the sacred.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Oh, that's a very beautiful sentence. And yeah, I love the idea. I hadn't actually made that connection about how intricate the temple is. What we read about it in I hadn't either until you until this moment. And then the body. And because unless we often what happens then is secular truths, secular packaged truths creep in. So, say, for example, the body positivity movement, like okay, in and of itself, great, but so diluted compared to actually the biblical truth of it. Like, love yourself, all this kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's literally like a minutiae of the bigger picture of that your body is a temple, that, like you said, your brain, your gut, your sinew, your spirit, your synapses, your soul are all covered in the fingerprints of the divine, of God, God who put skin on and walked among us as Jesus. Yeah. In with all of that, it unless we fully embrace that, is a that is a higher narrative, isn't it? The better story, in fact, the meta narrative. We just settle for little bits of like, oh yeah, body positivity, love yourself, instead of I am a temple.
SPEAKER_00:Um yes, it's not holistic. Like it makes me think of that old testament scripture here a little, there a little, a bit here, a bit there. And and you can you can live that way.
SPEAKER_02:can get i mean god brings the whole to every little part but i think that's what the stepping right if you will engaging our imagination because it's the right hemisphere that can perceive this metasystem the left's job is to break it down in fact if we did the I'll I'll correct my dear friend who kind of said it goes through both it really goes through this way the right specializes in the new the left specializes in the known and the goal according to Ian McGillchrist who's who's much of the basis of my work um the goal is for the left once it breaks it all down to present it back to the right that knows what to do with it so these fragments these parts this fragmented existence this here a little there a little is valuable like the new wow that's a new thought okay what do I know that corresponds to that what scriptures even what experiences you get curious again that's a good thing but the last step is instead of the left hemisphere ruling the left hemisphere is supposed to this is a kentsugi hole where it gets repaired it's supposed to present it back to the right and I actually because the right is the one that sees the big picture so isn't that amazing it's it's incredible it's incredible and I'm I'd love you to give us a uh a tour of this like give us the give us the basics what I notice is and this is classic Perry Ann and Joe is if we we've completely ignored all of the questions that we really nicely planned. We have done that yes that's okay that's okay um so let's say we're not we're just approaching different at them from the right hemisphere so if you were gonna because that there is as you mentioned earlier kind of like pop culture can really trivialize oh I'm left brain left brained and I'm right brain however there there is there is a seed of truth in that and if you can in terms of like the left side of the brain does this the right side of the brain does that how can you break it down for me in a way I can really understand that so another there's a couple of ways to look at it and and you're absolutely right the pop culture trivia what's ironic is the pop culture caricature like if you take a test that says are you right hemisphere or left hemisphere you're just dancing with the play.
SPEAKER_00:That's not real. Nobody is left or right. And it's not just a clear divide of imagination and reason. They both participate in both. So it's more complex more beautiful also um I have this quote I love this this is McGillchrist um each hemisphere inhabits a way of being not a limited set of functions so it's not like we got a list of what the left does it's a way of being that goes oh I need to see the small parts and um the research because this is true of birds of dogs of lots of animals as well as man it's the way brains are wired the left hemisphere you think of a bird the bird has to be able to pick out the seed on the ground against a bunch of background noise.
SPEAKER_02:So it has to go particulate to feed itself but the bird and the right hemis the left hemisphere does what I just described but also it has to see its context and scan its environment and studies have been done to show how frequently the eye scans its contextual its big picture its survival also right hemisphere relationship it finds its mate it finds its group it finds its flock fascinating isn't it so fascinating so fascinating and I'm thinking of it from a therapeutic point of view in terms of the people I work with who um can feel too much not enough um all of the stuff that we kind of carry as humans and do you think that actually just I mean this is probably skipping ahead a hundred steps but do you think actually honoring the left and the right and integrating the left and the right and seeing the value of both helps us make sense of all of the stories we tell ourselves about completely. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yes actually and you know I've you know this I've combined the the the fact is this is even more we are skipping but we're we're making a gestalt we're just looping it all together very right hemisphere style but it's the right hemisphere that actually takes notes from the heart and the gut like that whole Vegas thing. Let me let me maybe add this to what what's really important to realize and and um it's I do discuss it at length in my book um the left because it's not suited to do this whole it does a bad job when it tries to do it. It's suited to do the parts and what I believe this happened in the garden I believe the fall of man obviously that has whole spiritual significance but the knowledge of good and evil that was the beginning of the siloing the beginning of the fragment and if you imagine like a branch okay that's good that's evil rather than just knowing life as a whole and then that branch branches and branches and branches and we are analytical beings not experiential beings. So that taking over so what happens this is beautiful but what most people do is this is how the average person would look at this go, okay cool I need I need some creativity cool not realizing how much this is the way the Western world functions and we really can choose to move in the opposite spirit of this taking over like let me maybe this helps um I had this and this is I'll explain it it's hard to see kind of if the church has has really majored on study, memorized scripture nothing wrong with any of that. I do it all the time but if we plant that in the left hemisphere that just sees it as mechanical because you see the left deals with non-living and the right deals with living there's a problem. The first thing is we try to stick it we try to move the understanding of the cross to the right hemisphere that makes sense yeah so that's job one remedial like okay let's maybe instead of just memorizing scripture again I have things to say about that if you get too far away from scripture you got too far away it's how we interact with scripture how we inhabit scripture rather than trying to conquer scripture and overanalyze it. But the goal is this which is integration so it's like we have to lean into this but that's not the end. The end is getting free to dream about the world what I found I I have a ridiculous amount of object lessons. This is a glass cross can you see it? That's beautiful isn't it beautiful this cross we should look at it for ourselves for sure always we should also use it as a lens to see the whole world and when you look at the world that way I guess what this has done for me having both having integration is a big piece of my life gut, heart and head when I meet people and this comes to the root of probably both people that need help and all Christians. When I meet people I am now free from the need to fix them I just want to flow in relating to them and if they need fix Jesus is there for that and I that is a left hemisphere drive Coplay wrote that beautiful song I Will Try to fix you and we sing it and I cried the first time I heard it I also have been around people that I wanted to go please stop trying to fix me.
SPEAKER_02:Sure that that I that is like a underline underline uh for me particularly sitting with people in therapy who have often and and help me understand this in context of hemispheres because my I am so so such a layman when it comes to this but am I right in thinking often people I see often people who are um pretty fluent in the right side of their brain or they they work there growing up in a either a family or a family system or a church that is predominantly left and I know we're not caricaturing left and right brain but then you have to Sam you're not just contextualize it. Then the their narrative becomes I'm too much I am over emotional I don't fit I need to submit myself to a more logical normal way of thinking and um it feels intolerable. So they kind of do it their life their whole lives kind of shrinking and fitting and diminishing that part of them and then I usually find they get to around 40 ish and go, I'm not doing this anymore. I do not want to fit in this model anymore.
SPEAKER_00:I'm gonna begin to myself but I don't really know how to do it because I've shape shifted to keep everybody happy is that a struggle of two hemispheres it's absolutely a struggle of two hemispheres and in fact would it surprise you that I might have another object I just made this two weeks ago um it just was a flurry of may I say right hemisphere inspiration I've had you you will have seen these graphics but I made them into a poster and what's surprised me about this is people under the age of 12 have fall in our church have fallen in love with this. And that tells me something because they have not been westernized yet if you will you know so this probably says the most to that person. And just to say I smiled all through your description I really would have been that person um for some reason my passion to research uh the only place I found the answer for that was in God. And and good therapy is also offering the answer for that. But I'm just passionate that the Holy Spirit is he is the therapy he's meant to be isn't he hosting that yeah so okay this top part is how the left hemisphere views grace and salvation and rightly so um the death burial and resurrection of Christ the work of the cross when a person believes when a person says he did that for me that is reproduced in them and most people don't know where to go beyond that because the left hemisphere ticks boxes the left hemisphere is logical again God fills logic this is remember that um years ago uh there was a book boy it was my teens I can bear I didn't even read it it's called Evidence that demands a verdict it was Josh McDowell and oh sure yes I didn't even read it it wasn't it was apologist it was evidence it was it was an appeal to the modern world uh back then but when the right hemisphere kicks in and this is where look I even covered it up I taped this over it just before we started when the right hemisphere kicks in that's what we have beautiful isn't that beautiful those are still crosses but every one of them is differentiated according to who you're meant to be if you're Carl Jung you would call it individuation uh there's a Christian psychologist that loves differentiation but to me it's just manifesting Jesus yeah and I have been I made these back before there was any good graphic design off of an old CD ROM I made this slide and it's still if it stops speaking to people I'll quit using it but every time I show it it tells people oh maybe I can be these these yearnings in me, these things in me maybe I need to speak to God about them. In fact maybe he's the metasystem in which I make sense Joe you always say this is one of the most powerful things you always say you make sense to God. And that we I think I know people hear that in a if there's been dysfunction or pain or if we've done a thing we're ashamed of what we do need to know we make sense to God. But what about those deep yearnings? What about I see it differently well I cannot tell you how much I throughout my life have heard something preached like this and I know it's true. I know Jesus is real I know you know I they they're using scripture but I go home and I live into now Holy Spirit I need to hear that my way um I need to lean into how you say that to me. Not like that wasn't good enough it just felt incomplete. Now I know what it is that's me using both sides of my brain. But recently even he reminded me Perry and that plain cross is still at the middle of every one of these yeah sure sure you know you're not at war with the others I actually once called um a British friend actually he once said he said um he said there are two kinds of people in the world he said everyone's creative but the other kind of people are helplessly creative and he said he's a filmmaker he said you and I are helplessly creative and he said for the life of us we can't understand how the others connect to God but in fact we would be wrong if we said they didn't yeah that beautiful it's really beautiful and it's it's really kind and it's really um it's really permission giving to show up as yourself.
SPEAKER_02:So I guess not saying that we don't uh need sanctification and we go from glory to glory of course um that Jesus that Holy Spirit is always softening the rough edges in us I'm so grateful for that part but that we don't need to squeeze ourselves into that conformity in order to love Jesus in order to bring the kingdom in that you can do it as this this the truth of who you who you are exactly isn't that I that for me is really good news and that for me is actually I guess um you talked about Carl Jung whether it's Carl Rogers like self-actualization all of these kinds of secular words that have been put around it but really it's about becoming everything that God has created you to be and that doesn't just happen through that kind of yeah the conformity it's got to be an integration of both hemispheres no that's exactly right yeah it's more stuff I'm really conscious like I said that we haven't asked any questions and I also have no idea how long we've been recording for because this is what happens I know is your husband Paul still sat in the room will he know does he know he says we have 40 minut we have gone 40 minutes that's what he says no well since no I can't believe it either since we actually press record since record since we pressed record or since that close 35 to 40 well 35 to 40 oh okay well let me um I I just want I want to ask one question and then I would just like you to flow for a little bit and just okay give us some downloads because um let us download from your brain um and then anything that we've missed we can put in show notes we can link people to new Substack I know that you've got um a book which I'm gonna give do a giveaway to which I feel excited um let me have a look this let me have a look I'm gonna look at one question which one should I go to um let's talk about whole brained faith um how can we know if our head heart and gut so left brain right brain are really working together or what does it look like to for all every part of us to be working together and approaching God with a whole great whole brained faith I think that really does I I would I would venture back to this and say you actually start learning the feel of this it's an intuitive part it's a it you can feel the sense of this is the real me it it is a I would say instead of a learned helplessness it's a learned authenticity if you oh I love that I've had the phrase learned helplessness batting around my head um because sometimes we like that in church at least or church in general or the wider narrative church because we're like oh good then you'll be nice and submissive and do everything that we need to do to get this machine churning whereas actually we don't want learned helplessness we yeah we want learned and practiced authenticity submitted to submitted to God not to our own systems um yeah I love that would you would it surprise you I Joe Hargreaves I literally have had the phrase learned helplessness batting around in my head for about two weeks so how amazing is that and then yesterday you remember our little white dog JJ JJ the little sweet dog he is getting older and um he's developed a really bad habit I I know we should train him better.
SPEAKER_00:When we leave he gets on the dining room table because he can see out that front window and uh so if you forget something and you run back in the house he uh he is on the table and he looks at you like you're gonna move me like I'm here I'm doing this. Well he when he jumps on the table his little back legs push and the chairs are lightweight and he's ended up pushing all the chairs away from the table and now he can't get down. So now when we find JJ at home he's on top of the table crying we can't we think where are you and we have to lift him down because he has and it just struck me he's developed a learned helplessness. He thinks he can't get down without us anymore. He's learned a ritual and you're exactly right there is there is a when you preach Down, and I'm not I I know lots of there are so many great churches that don't do this. But if you preach down to a person to show them their need, it's easy to create in them a learned helplessness. And if they receive Jesus, it's always great to receive Jesus. But it's hard to get from here to here if you've been told how horrible you are. What the problem is, is we don't understand the image of God. The image of God, being made in the image of God, the whole redemption is to get us back, not just to heaven, but to the image of God. So our life mission is that learned helplessness works against the learned authenticity. And I just really feel like the Holy Spirit is saying I have always been the tour guide for learned authenticity, but it's it's inner, it's inner, it's inner coaching. Um I'm an ex I myself am an extreme example of having to personalize, but he has done it. And that wasn't through um, that was really just through communing with him because my head couldn't wrap around it. You learn to reverse engineer authenticity when you walk with him. You go, this does this feels like Saul's armor.
SPEAKER_02:Sure. Big, clunky, not right for me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. And I recently was thinking about Saul's armor and I realized how much David the history of those five smooth stones that he picked up to hurl at the giant. That wasn't just, oh, I'm not getting in the flesh. That was his history of what he learned in the wilderness. He was hurling at the giant the lessons of alone with God.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And they mattered in that battle.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. That's a very beautiful thought. Five suits five smooth stones. Well, I guess that's the picture of redemption, isn't it? All things working together for good for the for God for those who love him. Yes. Nothing wasted, the God who wastes nothing.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:And there's a phrase that you said just previous to that about God being the ultimate tour guide for learned authenticity.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yes. I think he's the ultimate tour guide to the land of redemption. Yeah. And all that I can see redeemed through the cross because Jesus took all into himself. But then he's also it is not self-absorbed to be self-aware. And he came to make us self-aware. I mean, how I wired you. Search me know me. Search me know me. Exactly. I I have maybe we I don't know. I'll do this fast. I won't show it till the end. I'll just tell you the story. Because I really felt it when you talked about um people who've struggled to and they don't fit, they feel they don't fit in. It's that back and forth. And most creatives feel this way. Um, but but I know some people who feel they're not creative who also, if you start talking about creativity, they get intimidated because they think, oh, that's what we're doing now. That's what's spiritual. Well, I don't do that. So it it's it's really integration. But I did go through a long period of my life and um I the church was so logic-based in in terms of teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching. But life with Jesus seemed so different to me. And so in a certain period, I felt like I was really trying to solve this issue of Father, do I just love you for information and science and fractals and you know, do I love you like just and this sounds silly, but I'm just I'm bearing all that like, am I like those real Christians who just cry at the mention of your name? Because I always feel like I need some, like, you know, like I'm all up in here. Anyway, so this happened. I was meditating into that and I had at least learned to just let visuals come. I had learned that much to step right, step into Jesus. And I just saw myself as this little young girl, like in a meadow, you know. I knew I didn't create it, I just kind of saw it. And I was and Jesus was there as a lamb. And it was a very simple, like I embrace the lamb. I embrace him. Little girl like it was almost like he was assuring me that yeah, you have that love, you have that plain cross. You you have that. That's at the root of you. And the minute I felt assured in my little picture, in my heart picture, the sky's filled with charts and graphs.
SPEAKER_02:Oh wow. That's a very paryan picture.
SPEAKER_00:It's such a paryan picture. I even tried to commemorate it. I it was really hard to do, but you can see I've got I really worked on this. Listen, the art I have, I need a hefty full-time graphic designer because it's all unique. But that's not saying charts and graphs are in everybody's sky. That's saying he was saying, I affirm you, Christ in you as you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it never left me. It it was literally like he said, Does that answer with a smile? He said, Does that answer you? And I was, I was like, I am so completely answered.
SPEAKER_02:I'm so completely seen. That's just El Roy, isn't it? The God who sees, the God who sees me. He sees me in um in all of my psychedelic cross or whatever the cross might look like. He sees me. And you've mentioned two things there that I think this absolutely gonna have to do some follow-up conversations to this because we haven't even touched on it. One is fractals, which I would love us to touch on at some point, and two is step right. I know you've mentioned it a little bit, but I'd love just to be able to unpack that for people in a way that they can integrate that into their everyday, ordinary life. What does it look like to step right? And I know we've kind of danced around this idea of a scientist and a therapist working to walk into a bar. And I just think we need we need um, I would love, even just personally, I mean, even if nobody listens, but I mean, I I like having these conversations.
SPEAKER_00:I'd listen to us.
SPEAKER_02:They would listen to us too. Um but uh I think we need more of these. So as we conclude, which I really don't want to do because I feel like maybe we've been talking for about a maximum of seven minutes, though the clock tells me otherwise. Um, where can people find you? Um, and actually I said I was gonna put all of this in the show notes, really. Um, so I I obviously will. Um, but if people were like, okay, I know I can read in the show notes that I can find Perrianne here, there, and everywhere, but I I need more of this woman immediately. Um where can they find more of your work?
SPEAKER_00:So I have just um I am getting a Substack presence happening. So it's Perri Ann Brownback, and I'm calling it Prisms in the Dark. And the first article that's uh gonna be up there later this week uh actually tells the story of why I called it that. It meant something to me to really brand that presence with every everything I am. And Prisms in the dark uh incorporates science, it incorporates art, it can incorporates fractals and everything. So that's that's there. And and the link to my book is there, but you've already mentioned that as well. It's on Amazon. I am working on um a more um hands-on version of that book. The book that Mind the Spirit, A Tale of Two Hemispheres, is my dissertation, and it is on Amazon. And it's actually it's a it's a it's a long meditative read, but people have said it's still worth the journey through.
SPEAKER_02:It absolutely is worth the journey through. It's incredible. And this is why I want to do it as a giveaway as I want to give a copy away. So I will be doing that. I need to I need to think of a way of doing that. I think I'm gonna do that via Instagram. Um, so uh, but if you're like, oh, I don't want to wait for that, I just want to get into this book, then you can go to Amazon. I'll put all the link in the show notes. Um, and I think TBC to be continued this conversation.
SPEAKER_00:I say yes.
SPEAKER_02:I love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Perrianne.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Joe. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:I love chatting with you, and I really hope that people have enjoyed being part of our conversation.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Bless you. Speak soon. Bye.
