I Will Not Live in FEAR!

Two more posts on challenging our thinking.  One of the biggest areas most of us struggle in with our thoughts is allowing fears to creep in and create havoc in our thoughts, emotions and even our physical health.  Joyce Meyer has a great chapter on this in her book "Power Thoughts."

To fulfill God's plans for our live and enjoy all His blessings we must refuse to live in fear.  In the world we live in that can be hard to do at times.  I have some personal challenges in my life that I could allow to keep fear alive in my thoughts and spirit but I have had to learn these concepts so I can enjoy life and allow God to use me.  I'm not saying it's easy and depending on what the situation is that we are dealing with, it may at times be a daily if not hourly process.

When we live in fear we can not enjoy anything.

This is how fear operates:
All fears come from the same source and has the same purpose.

• They all begin and come from the enemy
• They all steal from us

Types of Fears:

• Fear we won't be accepted - so we develop masks
• Fear of failure - so we don't try new things or stretch ourselves
• Fear of the future - this causes us not to enjoy today  

Fear is the opposite of Faith - so if you are living in fear you are not living in faith.

Fear tells you what you aren't, what you don't have, what you can't do and what you will never be.  Romans 8:15

If fear begins to overtakes you - begin to pray and confess "I will not live in fear"  We will still "feel" afraid but feeling afraid is not being afraid - being afraid holds us back much like anger - it's not the feeling that is the problem it's what we do with it that is.

Is OK to feel fear sometimes there is nothing you can do about that feeling.  Being Afraid means "to take flight" to "run away from"  It causes us to want to flee what God wants us to confront.

As Joyce Meyer's has said "Do it afraid!"

Next post - "I will not live in fear" Part 2

"For God has not given us the spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline" 
2 Timothy 1:7

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Well, after much preparation, a wonderful day of spending time with family, way too much good food, and ending up with fun games I am now sitting down.  :)

Thanksgiving is may very favorite holiday.  First because it's in the fall, next because it is mostly about family and just being thankful.  It's a time when we reflect on all the blessings in our lives.  We all have our struggles in different areas of life but no matter what those may be we always have something to be thankful for and usually it's many things.

This is a just a little photo journey of the day and once again I'm so grateful for my family, for the country I live in and most of all a gracious loving God who is always there for us and sees our every need and hears our every prayer.

 Dad and Daughter

 Some of the Girls

 The Turkey!

 My Sweet Sis in Laws

 Both Friends and Family

 The younguns

 My very cute girls!

The guys table

 The girls table

Challenging Unhelpful Thinking

Our last post we talked about Unhelpful thinking patterns and how they effect our feelings and our behavior. So now we need to pick out the unhelpful thinking styles that we most often go to. Now we want to challenge or get a different perspective on that thinking style so the following is what that looks like. The best way to do this is to chart it on a sheet of paper, with 5 categories:

• Situation When did the situation occur? Who was involved? What happened?

• Feelings Describe you feelings during the situation and it’s intensity
  ( 0 = no intensity, 10=great intensity )
• Automatic Thoughts What were you thinking before you noticed the unpleasant feeling or emotional experience.
  Unhelpful Thinking Style
  Identify the mind trap you fell into: filtering overgeneralizing etc.
  Alternative thinking or response Challenge your unhelpful thinking style using an alternative thought or response
  
  
  Now you begin at least one time a day to record any unhelpful thinking styles and challenge them with healthier alternative thoughts. The purpose of this is to learn to think in a healthier more flexible way. Do this for about 4 weeks to create new habits in your thinking.
  If you would like the worksheet that goes to this exercise just email me at katcu7@mac.com and ask for the "challenge your unhelpful thinking style" worksheet.
  
  
  The following is a list of alternative responses:
  
  
  • Instead of All or nothing thinking: (see things in black and white) use Seeing in Shades of Gray (ask yourself "Am I being fair?: Is anything except God 100% good or bad. What possibilities am a missing when I choose to see only black and white.)
  • Instead of Overgeneralizing:(focusing on the negative outcomes of events and use those outcomes as a general rule for everything in your life) use Being Specific (Ask yourself "What are the facts about this situation? Is it really as bad as I think? Avoid using the words always, all, none, never, everybody and nobody)
  • Instead of Jumping to Conclusions: (Making a negative conclusion even though there is no evidence to support it) use Sticking to the Facts (Ask yourself "What facts do I have that my conclusion is accurate?" What facts do I have that my conclusion in not accurate?
  • Instead of Magnification or minimization: (When thinking about yourself or others, or a specific situation you magnify the negative qualities or minimize the positive qualities.) use Keeping things in Perspective (Ask yourself "Is my opinion 100% accurate? What are some aspects of this situation that I'm not seeing?)
  • Instead of Emotional thinking (believing that your feelings are true judgments about who you are or the situation you are in) use Rational thinking (Ask yourself "What is the evidence that my judgments are 100% true? Is there another explanation for the way I'm feeling?)
  • Instead of Labeling: (The worse version of overgeneralizing. Instead of just being negative about yourself you label yourself or others or situations without looking at all the facts) use Remaining Non judgemental (Ask yourself "Am I being fair to myself, other and the situation? What possibilities am I cutting myself off from?)
  • Instead of Personalization: (You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event for which in fact you were not primarily responsible. Taking blame for things that you had no control over.) use Balancing Responsibility (Ask yourself "Am I really 100 percent responsible for this? if not, who should share the responsibility? Who else is at least partly responsible)
  • Instead of Should statements: ( having a fixed idea of how things "should" be and get angry when your expectations aren't met.) use Being Flexible (Ask yourself, " How can I be flexible in this situation so that everyone can be somewhat happy or satisfied? How can I make a fair compromise?)
  
  As you do this for at least 4 weeks you will see patterns in your thinking. Most people don't have all these unhealthy thinking styles just 1 or 2 that are dominate so once you see the pattern you can really zero in on it and correct it. It really does usually take 30 day to begin to break a habit so if you are serious about changing your thinking you need to do this for at least a month.
  
  Next post How to overcome 'Fearful Thinking"
  
  Watch your thoughts, for they become words,
  Watch your words, for they become actions,
  Watch your actions, for they become habits,
  Watch your habits, for they become character,
  Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
  
  -Anonymous

Unhelpful Thinking....

If you have spent a few days identifying your automatic thoughts you have possibly noticed some patterns of similar, repeated thoughts.  We tend to have some common unhelpful thinking styles that have become habits in our thinking. These unhelpful thinking styles generate many of the distressing thoughts that lead to distressing emotions. 

These thinking styles could also be called mind traps because we get caught in them.  Here is the list, look through it and see if there are any that are getting in the your way -

• All or nothing thinking: You see things in black and white - if your performance falls short of perfect you see yourself as a total failure.
• Overgeneralization: You focus on the negative outcomes of events and use those outcomes as a general rule for everything in your life.  you use terms like every, all, always, none, never, everybody and nobody.  "I'm the one that always struggles" "I never do things right"
• Jumping to Conclusions: You make a negative conclusion even though there is no evidence to support it.   Ex: you conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you without even checking it out as fact. You create situations based on emotions not fact.
• Magnification or minimization: When thinking about yourself or others, or a specific situation you magnify the negative qualities or minimize the positive qualities. Only seeing how bad or how much you messed up something or not seeing how good you are at something.
• Emotional thinking vs Rational thinking: With emotional thinking you believe that your feelings are true judgments about who you are or the situation you are in.  Rational thinking looks at the evidence not the emotions.  Emotions will lie to you - they aren't permanent and they are not accurate descriptions of who you are or the situation you are in. 
• Should statements:  Oh we all do this one....You have a fixed idea of how things "should" be and get angry when your expectations aren't met. 
• Labeling:  The worse version of overgeneralizing.  Instead of just being negative about yourself you label yourself or others or situations without looking at all the facts: 'I'm a loser" "They are just mean and evil!"
• Personalization: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event for which in fact you were not primarily responsible. Taking blame for things that you had no control over. 

So what you do now is go through this list and pick out the thinking styles that seem familiar to you - you recognize this pattern in your thinking.   Next post we will talk about how to change them.

"Lean on, trust in and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding."  Proverbs 3:5

Teach Your Mind to Work for You

OK, so now we get into what my dad used to call, "The Hard Work of Change" We've talked about why we think like we do and how that affects us in every area of our lives. So now we are going to look at how do we change the way we think. The two key words to this is "Hard" and "Work." Not to discourage anyone but we need to be realistic. We have spent all of our lives thinking a certain way, we have ingrained patterns of thinking - habits of reacting a particular way so it only makes sense this isn't going to happen overnight.

I have been working on this for quite awhile and I still at times fall into old thought patterns, the difference is I know it pretty quickly if not right away so I don't stay there as long as I used to. I know if I do the result is only going to be harmful to me.

We all have different areas of struggle but these tools will help no matter what your particular toxic thinking may be. The key to remember is that your mind will either work for you or against you - it's up to you to train it in the right direction.

One of the first and most obvious things we need to change is to make an intentional decision to think positively. Dr. Caroline Leaf, a leading Neuro-Metracognitive learning specialist and committed Christian, says that the "human brain takes eighteen years to grow and a life time to mature" The good news is that you don't have to be stuck in old thought patterns, your brain is in the continuous process of maturing.

I'm not going to go into all the benefits of positive thinking because I think most of us know that - we get how good it is for us but how do we do it on a constant basis? In our next few posts I'm going to give some practical tools that will help in this process. But for today lets begin at the most basic part of changing our thought process, Joyce Meyers calls it "on purpose thinking" secular therapy calls it, "Challenging and correcting self-defeating thoughts." Its all the same, it's becoming very aware of our thoughts, what triggers them and then challenge and correct them.

The best way to start this to log on a piece of paper for a week what your "automatic" thoughts are, especially when they are connected to a distressing emotion, such as anger, sadness or worry.

So this is how you do this:
Begin a "Thought Journal" Divide your paper into 3 columns, 1. the situation 2. your feelings, 3. Your automatic thoughts. As you go through your day and you experience an unpleasant emotion, see if you can identify the situation and the thought that went with it.

"For we are God's (own) handiwork (His workmanship) recreated in Christ Jesus, (born anew)that we may do those good works that God predestined (planned beforehand) for us (taking paths which He prepared ahead of time) that we should walk in them (living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live.) Ephesians 2:10 amp