DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK....STINKIN' THINKIN'

DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK

 

Many of us live with the scars of growing up in a dysfunctional society. I know those who have grown up under the unfairness of apartheid, those with alcoholic or verbally abusive parents, those who have been bullied by peers etc etc.  What do we all have in common?

 

Stinkin’ Thinkin’!

We need to bear in mind that the way we think greatly impacts our behaviour. Thinking negatively or harmfully is bad for our physical and mental health. It can cripple our spirit, lead to depression, and hinder our ability to live a happy, fulfilling and contented life.
 
We may even be suffering from “learned helplessness” i.e. we had no solution to our past circumstances and no support therefore we still believe the same applies in our present circumstance.

We have absorbed so much; pictures of trauma, names we were called and the shame that we felt.

Being unconscious of this negativity, we engage in internal conversations throughout the day that still include the pessimism of the past. We believe what we think. 

Instead of saying, “I made a mistake,” you tell yourself, “I’m a jerk” or “I’m a loser” or “Don’t I ever learn.” This process is known as ‘labelling’ and is a distortion within our cognitive processing and can
become detrimental to our growth and our faith. 

David Burns believes that these labels are just a useless preoccupation that lead to further anger; anxiety, frustration and low self-esteem, only compounding our problems. The outflow of this can also impact us physically, our immune systems can take a knock and we become just miserable!

Faith means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse~ Philip Yancey.

 When we look back, we really want to hope for change in our lives, to see change in our thinking.  If we start having the faith to reprogramme our thoughts today, we can trust that it will happen.  

A lesson on my journey has been this:-

If I change my thinking and have internal conversations of truth, rectifying the lies I have believed for so long, eventually the truth will become my daily experience. I know it takes courage to reprogramme but with just one step at a time, I can reform my ‘Thinkin’ process. 

Truth is the key......for every ‘Stinkin’ thought I need to replace it with truth.

I would like to leave you with this; as Paul left these words with the church he visited in Philippi so long ago :

I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.(MSG)

 

 

 

 Break the bond of 'Stinkin Thinkin' in your life.