Guest: Dr. Don Wood
WHY.os: Contribute – Challenge – Better Way
Dr. Don Wood is a neuroscientist, author, speaker, and Founder & CEO of Inspired Performance Institute. His work focuses on how trauma and disturbing events can keep running in the background and shape how someone thinks, feels, and performs.
In this episode, Dr. WHY talks with Don through the lens of Don’s WHY, Contribute. Don’s drive is to help people feel less stuck in their own mind so they can show up for life again. His HOW, Challenge, pushes against the idea that you have to live with intense emotional loops forever. His WHAT, Better Way, is his practical method for helping people reduce the intensity of the memories that keep pulling them back.
You’ll learn:
- Why the mind can treat an old painful memory like it is happening right now.
- A simple way Don describes reducing the “intensity” of a memory without pretending it never happened.
- How Don’s Contribute WHY shows up as a clear goal: help people stop fighting the past so they can live forward.
Listen to this episode if you want a clearer understanding of why grief and trauma can hit so hard, and what it can look like to lower the emotional volume.
Get in touch with Don:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drdonwoodphd/
- Instagram: N/A (Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrDonWoodPhD)
- Website: https://www.gettipp.com/
Watch the Full Episode Here!
00:01 – Why Don’s work matters right now
00:42 – The mind replays a painful moment like it is “now”
01:12 – “An emotion is a call for an action”
01:35 – High definition vs low definition memories
01:57 – How do you actually turn it down?
02:02 – The two-minute recall and process work
02:23 – When the mind stops reacting like it is happening now
02:35 – Moving from “last moments” to the full relationship
03:12 – “There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s just a glitch.”
03:33 – Sadness can stay; the urgent panic can stop
Listen to the Episode Here!
Turn Down the Trauma Loop: How the Mind Replays Pain and How to Change It
Some episodes land different because they start with something real, not theory. Dr. Gary Sanchez opens this one by talking with his wife, Julie, about losing her mother and what it feels like after being there at the end. It is that specific kind of grief where your brain keeps replaying the hardest moment, even when you want it to stop.
That is where Dr. Don Wood steps in. Don is a neuroscientist, author, speaker, and the Founder & CEO of Inspired Performance Institute. His work focuses on how trauma and disturbing events can keep running in the background and shape how someone thinks, feels, and performs.
To make the conversation easier to follow, it helps to know one quick idea from WHY Institute. A person’s WHY is the deeper driver behind what they do. A WHY.os adds HOW they naturally do it and WHAT they tend to bring to others, which is why two people can care about the same goal but go after it in totally different ways.
Don’s WHY.os is Contribute – Challenge – Better Way. Through Contribute, his focus is service: he wants people to suffer less so they can show up for life again. Through Challenge, he pushes back on the idea that intense emotional loops are permanent. Through Better Way, he brings a method and a process, not just motivation.
When the mind treats “then” like “now”
Don explains something that makes a lot of people feel seen immediately. He says the subconscious operates in the present, so when someone replays a memory, part of the mind reacts as if the event is happening again. In Julie’s case, Don points to how the brain can keep returning to the moment of her mother’s death because it was stored with a lot of detail.
He puts it in plain language: “Your subconscious operates in the present. It thinks everything is now.” That is a pretty big reframe for anyone who has ever thought, “Why can’t I just move on?” The problem is not weakness. The problem is the brain doing what it thinks it is supposed to do.
Why emotions feel so intense
Don shares a second idea that explains the intensity. “Anytime you have an emotion, an emotion is a call for an action.” If the mind believes the painful moment is still happening, then the emotion can feel like an urgent demand to fix it, stop it, reverse it.
He even describes the mind’s internal message when the memory comes up: it is like the brain is trying to prevent what already happened. That is where people can spiral, and why grief can start to look like depression or shutdown over time, especially when the mind keeps fighting an outcome it cannot change.
A Better Way: lower the “definition,” lower the pull
Dr. Gary asks the practical question: how do you take a memory from “high definition” to “low definition”? Don’s answer is process-focused. He talks about recalling a short memory and using a series of steps to reduce the intensity, so the mind stops reacting like it is happening right now.
He also makes a point that matters to anyone worried this means “erasing” or “denying” the person they lost. That is not the goal. The goal is that sadness can remain, but the urgent panic can stop. After the intensity drops, people can think about the full relationship again, not just the hardest moment.
And he adds something that fits his Contribute WHY perfectly: “There’s nothing wrong with you… it’s just a glitch.” That is the tone of someone who is trying to help, not judge. If someone is dealing with trauma, anxiety, depression, or addiction, it is still wise to seek professional support. This episode is education and perspective, not a replacement for medical or mental health care.
In the end, Don’s work comes through as a clear act of contribution: helping people stop wrestling with the past so they can show up for their life today. If you have ever felt like your brain is stuck on repeat, this conversation gives language for what is happening, and a grounded direction for what to do next.
Meet Dr. Don Wood!
Dr. Don Wood, PhD, author, speaker, Founder & CEO of the Inspired Performance Institute, and creator of the patented TIPP method focused on helping people resolve their trauma and get their lives to a place of high performance.
He has helped 1000’s of people live a better life and overcome the effects of stress, anxiety, depression, trauma and addiction with his neuroscience-backed program, TIPP.
TIPP program is designed to clear away the effects of disturbing or traumatic events, repurpose old thinking patterns and set the individual’s mind up for peak performance.
Dr. Wood is also author of two books, Emotional Concussions and You Must Be Out of your Mind and is releasing his newest book Don’t Mess With My DNA in near future.