We have been talking about toxic thinking and how it damages us physically, emotionally,and mentally. God’s word is true when He says in Proverbs 17:22

A joyful heart is good medicine but a broken spirit dries up the bones.

When our hearts and MINDS are lined up with God and His ways they are like a good medicine, soothing to the soul, spirit, and mind.  They will pierce our brokenness, bind our negative thoughts,  and heal our soul.  This in turn, proven by medical research, will affect the positive growth in our minds and bodies resulting in the person that God has made us to be.

God made us perfect, in His image.  He wants us to be whole and complete.  But we need to line up with what are His thoughts and His ways.

Ecclesiastes 7:29 says

I have discovered only this: God made human beings for righteousness, but they seek many alternatives.

We were made to be perfect, in His way.  But we have chosen other ways in life.  We choose to listen and believe negative people, we choose to be fearful of things.  We choose to be anxious about the future.  We dwell on the “what-if’s” in life.  We need to get in line with God so that God can activate what He wants done in our lives.

Today you will analyze through your wounds and toxic thoughts.  Your list may be long and that is okay.  Maybe some of the thoughts you can group together or maybe once you work on one or two, a few more will come off your list.

Look at it and analyze some of your negative thinking. What is causing the wounds in your mind.    Here are some examples:

• Feelings of inadequacy.
• Worries that your performance in your job will not be good enough.
• An anxiety that things outside your control will undermine your efforts.

Feelings of inadequacy

 Maybe as a Mom you feel that you are not qualified enough to do the job.  Maybe you work outside of the home and feel inferior to those around you.  You might have a volunteer position in church and you don’t feel that you can “measure up” to the expectations of your position.  You need to first STOP and ask yourself these questions:

• Have you trained and educated yourself reasonably to do the job required?
• If you are a  wife, have you sought out older, wiser woman to help encourage and guide you as you walk your path in life?
• If it is a job have you equipped yourself with the education necessary to do the job?
•   If you are a volunteer at church, do you equip yourself daily in the word of God and study your materials to be prepared for your lesson?

If you have done all that you can, then you have done everything that you should sensible do.  The rest you leave up to God.  If you are still worried, then you might be setting yourself unattainably high standards for doing the job.  Just look at the place God has you now, seek Him, and He will do the rest.

Worries about performance

Do you sometimes feel that you can never “measure up” to where you “think” you should be in your performance in life?  Do you sometimes dwell on feelings of depression because you worry about how well you do in life? Instead of dwelling on anxiety about a job or negative feelings of self worth, ask yourself these:

• Have you planned appropriately in your day?
• Do you have all the information and resources that you need to complete a task?
• Have you cleared the time you need to get the job done and have no distractions?
• Do you have the training that a reasonable person would think is needed to do a good job?
• Have you prepared yourself, daily in the word of God?

If you haven’t done these things, then you need to do them. Do them now, stop waiting to become a good cook, start today.  Start by reading and watching videos of how to do basic steps.  Need to declutter your home—set up a time that you can do it, don’t wait for it to happen, set a time just like an appointment and do it!!!  Feel alone and away from God?? Get in His word each and every day —no excuses!!!

Problems with issues outside your control

Are your toxic thoughts about things and issues outside of your control? Do you constantly worry and have anxiety about things that you cannot do anything about? Do you worry about other people’s reactions?

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:34

We were wired originally for LOVE.  God wants us to walk in truth and love. FEAR is a learned habit.  We walk around fearing the “what-if’s” of life.  Stop looking at things that are out of your control.  You need to put your FAITH into action by trusting the Lord with ALL of your life.

Events and circumstances of life we can’t control, that is the result of everyone else’s actions. The ONLY thing we can control is how we RESPOND to them.  We can’t blame biology, parents, or circumstances that’s just part of life. Those are part of other peoples positions.  We can ONLY focus on what is in our life.  We do that by turning to the ONLY one who can heal our negativity and transform our minds by focusing on today, the here and now—God.

If you do all that you can do in your own life and it is the BEST that you can do, then that is all that you need to know.  If you perform as well as you reasonably can, and stay focused on what God has for YOU,  then that is it.  You cannot worry or dwell on how people respond to that.  If people are fair and respond well, then great.  But if people are unfair and respond negatively, then that is something out of your control.  You leave that part up to God.

Look at how your  toxic thinking has shaped in your own life. You can filter through them by asking these questions:

• Has this thought always been this way?
• Has it grown, as you continually add fuel to the fire by agreeing with it?
• Has your thought started out one thing and now has grown into something different and much larger?
• Is it leading to other toxic thoughts?

Answer some of these questions when focusing on your individual toxic thoughts.  Just by writing down and answering them, will help you deal with your toxic thinking.  You will be able to recognize your negative behavior and learn from it so you can change.

Deuteronomy 28 talks about the blessings that flow by living in obedience to God’s word.  You have a choice….you can choose blessings or curses in your life.  It is up to you.

We need to think on good things even if you don’t feel like it.  All this process has an impact on your brain.  Science proves now that what you think has a HUGE impact on how your body responds.  How a brain is impacted on certain thoughts can actually cause damage to the brain.  Our minds control our brains.  It isn’t the other way around.  The mind is powerful and we are NOT a victim of our biology.  Our thoughts are the same as memory. We are commanded to bring ALL thoughts into captivity.  We are DESIGNED to be aligned with God.  Thoughts are real things that change the physical and chemical make up of cells.  When you corrupt them by having toxic thinking they then take root in your body in the form of abnormal cells.  Those abnormal cells can grow causing illness and disease.  God did not plan for us to be this way.  We have the power to decide what type of life we will live.  A life of health or sickness.

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Phillipians4:6-8

Need more detox…..keep reading on how we can heal these wounds in our minds.

 

Image courtesy of samuiblue at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We talked last week about toxic thinking and how harboring and thinking negative thoughts can actually cause damage to your brain resulting in sickness of your body.  Today we learn about awareness of our wounds or negativity and  then we will learn how to begin changing from those negative thoughts.

All of our thoughts put together determine our attitude towards life.  This in turn reflects that state of our minds.  As we think, our brains release chemical secretions which cause either a positive or negative attitude.  These chemicals then translate that information of our thoughts into a physical reality in our body and mind as emotions.  These emotions impact our bodies in either a positive or negative way.

Our brains have many opportunities to reject these toxic thoughts before they become a part of us.  The bible tells us it is a sin to worry about things.  Worrying stops us from receiving God’s best for us.  It distorts the natural flow of chemical secretions in a healthy mind. This interruption and flow of negative thoughts can lead to disease and sickness in our bodies.  Think about how many people you know that gets sick after going through a stressful time in their lives. We don’t have to put our bodies through that toil.

 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:10

The first thing we are going to work on is taking note of what is in your thought process currently.   This might seem like an easy task.  Think about what types of thoughts you have in your brain.  When you hear good news do you instantly think of the negative aspects of it?  When someone gives you a compliment do you automatically cut yourself down and degrade their remarks?  When faced with a negative situation or person do you join in and add more chaos to the situation by being negative as well?

Sometimes we are so programmed from our past to think a certain way.  But we can change that.

 If a situation happens in your life, do you look to the bad that will happen?  Let’s say you have been praying and believing in faith for someone close to you, the moment you see that person backslide, what are your thoughts??  Do you listen to Satan who is right there saying “see, they aren’t worth it, praying didn’t help at all?”  Or when a situation doesn’t go the way that YOU expected and had been praying for, do you immediately dismiss God and think, “well, that’s my luck?”  NO!!!  That is Satan coming to steal all your peace.  We need to STOP listening to him and START focusing on GOD no matter what.

Some of us have just been harboring thoughts for years and they are deep down in the subconscious mind.  Those are sometimes hardest to recollect.  They have been playing over and over again for years and they are so deep seated that they can be hard to bring up to the surface and remember.  You might be harboring ill feelings towards someone who has wronged you in your past and that you have never forgiven.  That will play as a bad signal over and over in your life.

Here are some steps to help us become aware of our thoughts:

1. We need to love ourselves. How do you do that?  By loving the One who created you.  In Luke 10:27 it says to love the Lord your God with ALL of your heart, soul, and MIND.  Once we learn to love God with all of us, everything else can start to fall into line.  If you realize that God loves you and cares for you, you can better look at yourself and see that you are important, you are loved.  God made you a certain way, in His image and likeness and we ALL have a task and plan to do while on this earth.  Instead of loathing in self-pity we need to BREAK that cycle and look to the heavens to see what it is GOD has for US.
2. Stop believing ALL your thoughts.  If you haven’t been trained—which you are doing now—then you can allow thoughts from Satan to take part in your mind.  He will put doubt right in the middle of good things, to make you think his way.  Philippians 4:8 says to think on things that are PURE, LOVELY, COMMENDABLE, EXCELLENCE, or WORTHY of PRAISE, think about these things.  That list didn’t include negative or bad thinking—-God knows what is best for our minds!!
3. This is not a quick fix situation, it has to be long term.  We would all LOVE to goto bed and ask the Lord to rid us of all our bad and negative thinking and life would be perfect right??  But, the moment we wake up and are faced with a negative situation, we will crumble again.  We need to learn how to train our minds to accept negative situations and deal with them effectively.  Dealing with obstacles in life and going through the motions of healing, is sometimes hard, BUT it is much better than being trapped in a situation where you have no where to escape to.
4. Distance yourself from people who won’t accept the REAL you.  Stop with putting on a “front” for the world to see.  If you have friends that you wear your “mask” around, more than likely they are wearing their own “masks.”  People that hide behind a mask are putting on a “play” for everyone to see because they are afraid of what is under their own masks. A person who chooses to be REAL around fake people, will always be rejected. The fake people choose to reject that part of real in their own lives so they can’t accept it in others.  There are people out there that will accept the REAL you. Sometimes they are just waiting for you to get off the stage so they can join you.
5. Stop with the self-help books.  There is nothing wrong with the self-help industry except that it misses that one important point—–GOD!!  They will direct you to become aware of your feelings and thoughts but then leave you hanging so that you are always searching for more awareness, more self discovery.  There is only ONE person who KNOWS the REAL you.  That person knows exactly what you need to clear your mind of negative thoughts, heal, and move onward to a life full of greatness.  Only one person can do that–God.

Philippians 4:6-8

The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

God’s word is truth.  If we read these verses, believe them, and put our trust in the Lord, then these things will come to pass.  We guard our hearts and MINDS with the word of God.  God wants you to have a life of peace.

 Analyze your thought life.

 I would recommend taking some quiet time and asking the Lord what are some negative things that you are harboring.  Quiet your mind, avoid any kind of distraction, get out your pen and paper and ask the Lord to show you what it is that is causing negative thoughts.  Then start writing.  Make a list and write every thought that keeps coming.

Your list represents your wounds. Most of our negativity in our brains is caused from how people have hurt us.  Somewhere at sometime in our life someone has offended us or hurt us.  Those are wounds that affect every part of our lives.  We are going to be learning how to heal those wounds so that we can have a life that is free from sin and toxicity.

Convinced you need a detox?? Keep reading part 3 Analyze