How do we change our behaviour and our thoughts?
It's easy to feel overwhelm at words like brain retraining, you are what you think, dwell on good things. These words and concepts are important and valid and true. Even God tells us in His word to take every thought captive, to give thanks in all things (not necessarily for all things), to dwell on what is pure and good, etc.
But the reality is, that thoughts come and it seems like no amount of trying or effort to think differently, actually makes a difference or change what is in my mind.
Again, how? How do I do this? The spring in the year 2020 was a very low and dark time for me. Dealing with chronic neuro-Lyme left me battling a darkness that seemed to haunt me, rejection pounded on my door, feeling alone, and as always not liking who I was or what came out of me. The question that rose from within me, that I asked a thousand times over, was, "How do I change? What do I do different? This person thinks I'm too much, I may be too loud for someone and too quiet for another. I may laugh at the wrong thing for one person and take too seriously when I should laugh. So, how do I act and who am I?
The answer did not come loud and clear, but looking back, I trace the Holy Spirit and the hand of God in my thoughts.
It was the thought that people can change their ideas and opinions of me, but God is faithful and what He says is truest and doesn't change - I am His beloved.
I needed to give wings to my thoughts and what was inside of me so I could deal with whatever it was. I then remember, quite clearly thinking - "What is truth?" God is. Nothing made sense to me, what was is no more, my worst fear of feeling abandoned by God was happening in my darkness, friendships were changing, and so on.
So, I began to choose the words of Jesus - the greater truth- in response to my darkness and the lies I was believing and to what I was feeling. I clung to them in desperation as a thirsty man in the desert reaches for water. I chose to focus on something different than my pain. I would pay attention to what was inside of me, giving wings to the voice of fear, abandonment, pain, and more. I would then choose - the one good thing - in the middle of all the angst and muck. I would cling to verses for my life depended on it.
Two years later I was struck with a reality that I never saw coming - a change within, a miraculous change. Something different was coming out of me. Slowly and choice by choice to believe Jesus, He transformed my mind and what was in my mind was now different.
Change can happen in a moment, in leaps and bounds, but change often happens in the slow and the choosing, again and again of something that is life-giving.
Our minds are like a sponge, soaking up what we put in it and allow it to soak up. Put in negativity and it will absorb it. Let it sit in a puddle of muck and mud and that is what a sponge and our mind absorbs. Put it in a bucket of clean water and that will affect it too.
What the sponge is absorbed with, is what will drip out of it and be wrung out of it. If I want a clean sponge I must let clean water flow through it.
So, I realized, that if I wanted to change, I needed to choose Jesus again and again, drip by drop. Just like the sponge is cleaned by the clean, pure water running through it, so our minds are "cleaned" by God's words of truth running through our minds
Our minds are like a sponge, absorbing the world around us and all that happens to us. Each word is like a drop. Every action comes with an interpretation. Each drop adds to the sponge of our minds. Our minds and hearts absorb what is spoken or done to us. We have interpretations of things done to us and situations that happen.
I could sit in and wallow in the pain and injustices and yes, mistakes of others that affected me or I could sit and soak up the truths of God.
I realized that each drop fills my mind and it matters what I become absorbed with. What I become absorbed with will eventually be what flows out of me. If I am soaked with God's truth, it will be what flows out of me. And so, I keep choosing God and His truth.
What fills your soul? What is your mind saturated with? Want to change your actions? - first change what saturates your mind.
Words are spoken. Hurt happens. Pain fills our hearts. (This is the gunk that can dirty our mind.)
Our minds and souls make interpretations based on what saturates them.
What do we do when life doesn't make sense?
Where do we go when the people around us are human too and sometimes we 'step' on each other or step over one another?
Where is hope now?
What words mean anything now and really, what is even true and truth?
Our responses and answers to these questions are in direct connection to what we have filled our minds with. What have you been feeding "the bear or the ravaging lion"?
Have you been feeding it negativity, believing the lies that we connect to the action?
-I'm not good enough.
-I messed up too much.
-Liar. Failure. Rejected (and so on)
Or have you been feeding on God's words of truth and claiming them as the greater truth to what has happened.
-God says when we choose Him in faith, He is pleased.
-He tells us to dwell on good things and to take our thoughts captive, to own them.
-He says His strength and His grace is sufficient in our weakness.
-He says He forgives when we confess.
-His name is Redeemer, Counsellor, Adonai
-He is Comforter and with me in my story and pain. (Oh, there are so many more - read His words and let them soak into your mind and soul.)
Let's pick up the sponge again. What the sponge is saturated with, is what will drip out. What the sponge is soaked with, comes out when squeezed.
What fills my heart and mind will show when I'm squeezed with the hardships of life. What I'm focused on and feeding my mind with will be revealed when I'm overlooked, experience rejection, feel uncared for, and so on. When death, disappointments, and doubts come, they squeeze me and what's inside of me will be what comes out. Is it negativity or is it what God says?
If we want to change, we need to choose Jesus again and again, drip by drop. We choose Him in the easy and the hard times. In the sunshine filled moments and in the darkest ones when I think God doesn't care or has left me or even when I want to walk away from Him. I choose to stay. I choose Jesus and His truth over and over until my mind becomes saturated with it and that is what will carry me in the darkness and flow out of me because that is what I am filled with, saturated.
We choose Jesus by believing Him and what He says. Read the Bible for it contains the words of Jesus. The words that are healing and life-giving and will slowly, drip by drop, clean up your mind
The same is true for you. It's not always easy and you won't always feel like it or want to - do it anyway - choose Jesus. That's really all you need to do when you don't know what to do because Jesus will heal you with His miraculous healing touch. He will touch you in the depths of your soul and in your mind with His truth and where healing matters the most.
Our thoughts affect our actions, so choose carefully what you dwell on.
Choosing Jesus is - your faith. And your faith is what saves you. Choose Jesus and He changes you. We choose Jesus by believing Him and what He says. Read the Bible for it contains the words of Jesus. The words that are healing and life-giving and will slowly, drip by drop, clean up your mind. Like the woman whose blood flowed for twelve years. When she choose Jesus, she reached for Him and believed that He could heal her. He did and she was physically healed right away. But Jesus tells her that her faith has made her whole, healing her where it mattered the most. Again, choosing Jesus is your faith and it is a faith that will carry you and save you, wholly.
