Latest / Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk / Healthy & Redeemed _ Renewing Your Mind with Healthy Thoughts_ Part 2

Transcript

Healthy & Redeemed _ Renewing Your Mind with Healthy Thoughts_ Part 2 · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

0:24
Welcome to the Healthy and Redeemed podcast hosted by Healy
0:28
Eicherd. Healy is a licensed counselor
0:30
with a passion for helping Christians live healthier lives
0:33
emotionally and spiritually. Each episode combines the truth
0:37
of God's Word with practical advice to help you in your
0:40
everyday life. Whether you want to grow
0:42
emotionally, strengthen your faith, or handles life
0:45
challenges with more peace, this podcast is for you.
0:50
We're so glad you joined us. Let's get started.
0:54
To God be the glory. Thank you so much for joining me
0:58
today. I am your host, Haley, and this
1:01
is the Healthy and Redeemed podcast.
1:04
This episode is Part 2 of Renewing Your Mind.
1:08
In Part 1, I talked about what cognitive behavioral therapy was
1:12
as that is defined by the American Psychological
1:15
Association. And I also looked at several
1:19
scripture passages that I believe are the biblical
1:22
foundation to the importance of healthy thoughts.
1:27
And if you haven't listened to art one of the series, I would
1:30
encourage you to do so. And I hope that it will
1:33
encourage you because I believe healthy thoughts are the key to
1:38
being mentally and siritually well, O in this episode, I'm
1:43
going to focus on the cognitive behavioral triangle, just as an
1:48
illustration of how our thoughts, our feelings and our
1:50
behaviors are connected and how they influence each other.
1:54
And I also want to talk about how we can use that or how that
2:00
works as we want to change our emotions and manage those
2:06
better. I'm also going to touch on
2:08
neural pathways of the brain and automatic negative thoughts.
2:12
Do you have a lot of negative emotions and kind of choose to
2:16
wallow in those sometimes? Do you have a lot of self talk
2:20
that's very condemning and do you feel bad about yourself and
2:25
the things that you do? And have you ever tried to
2:29
change before and had no luck? I really believe that if you can
2:37
understand the concepts that we're going to talk about today
2:40
and in the next episode that your life will be transformed.
2:47
Like, I know a lot of people can say that, but I like really
2:51
believe it. I have seen it happen really as
2:55
quick as a couple of weeks if you really practice the skills
2:59
and you do those. Now of course the person that
3:03
did it in a couple weeks, they are very highly motivated to
3:07
change. But I do think the same is
3:09
possible. If you're very committed and
3:11
want to make the change. I believe that this will help
3:14
you do it. The only thing that it really
3:16
takes is some recognition of like what's going on in your
3:19
mind and then some OOMH to actually make the changes
3:25
happen. So the really important part of
3:29
it is though, that you stay consistent, not perfect, but
3:34
consistent. So it's important to remember as
3:37
we think about changing our feelings, changing our emotions,
3:41
that we are not viewing emotions or feelings as the enemy.
3:46
They are a gift. They have a purpose.
3:49
God has given them to us for a reason.
3:53
But we are called, like any good gift that we received from the
3:57
Lord, we are called to manage it well.
3:59
We're called to be good stewards of all good gifts, and even our
4:05
gifts can be things that hurt us if we don't learn to manage it
4:10
well. So this is not like when we work
4:14
on managing our emotions. It doesn't mean the emotions are
4:18
a bad thing. We're just managing them,
4:20
keeping them in line so we can do what God has called us to do
4:25
in life without getting hung up on what our emotions have to say
4:29
about it. So if you have a pencil and
4:32
paper, this cognitive behavioral triangle is helpful if you can
4:37
kind of sketch it out. And so that way you can just see
4:40
it as you think about it later, or you can see it kind of in
4:45
your mind once you sketch it out.
4:48
So I don't know, I just think sometimes a diagram or
4:53
something's always helpful in remembering.
4:55
So the cognitive behavioral triangle is a foundational
4:59
concept in cognitive behavioral therapy.
5:02
So unless you can Google this diagram, you can look in my
5:06
book. It's on page 85.
5:09
So if you can't Google at the moment or you can't look at my
5:12
book. If you don't, I mean you may not
5:14
have my book so you can't obviously look, but I want you
5:17
just to imagine a triangle or a sketch out a triangle and at the
5:22
top point I want you to put the word thoughts.
5:27
And at the bottom right corner of the triangle, I want you to
5:31
put behaviors. And then at the bottom left,
5:35
right feelings. This triangle shows us the
5:38
interconnectedness between those 3 concepts.
5:44
The the thoughts, the feelings and the behaviors, OK.
5:48
So understanding that these interact with each other is
5:53
really important for identifying and addressing and changing
5:57
unhealthy patterns in our lives. So each one of these concepts,
6:02
the feelings, the behaviors, the thoughts, they each influence
6:09
the other. We don't normally think much
6:11
about this process, but it is happening all day long as things
6:16
happen throughout the day. I want you to imagine this as
6:23
things happen in your day of thinking, what's influencing
6:27
what, how things are influencing each other.
6:30
Let's talk about an event that might trigger this process.
6:34
So if you have my book, you can go to page 92 and we're going to
6:37
use that example. That's in my book.
6:40
OK, I just said my book. And you, if this is your first
6:43
time joining us, you may have no idea what I'm talking about, but
6:45
I have a book called Changing Your Feelings, a workbook for
6:49
anxiety and worry from a Christian perspective.
6:52
And in this book, it will help people walk through managing
6:57
anxiety and worry and depression and anger too.
7:01
But so it's the diagram is in the book.
7:06
I've kind of got a little bit different diagram than sometimes
7:09
I use, but I thought that was more helpful.
7:12
Anyway, so outside the triangle you're going to put the event
7:17
and our event or situation is going to be this.
7:22
Our event is we walk up to two friends and they immediately
7:26
stop talking. OK, for kids, sometimes I have
7:30
them imagine that they're walking, you know, they've got
7:33
their tray, they're in the cafeteria and they see two
7:37
friends laughing while they're looking at them.
7:41
But for us, we're just going to go with the simple concept.
7:44
We walk up and the two friends are talking and then suddenly
7:48
they stop. For some people, we may think
7:53
they're talking about us. That might be where our thoughts
7:57
go automatically. Oh my goodness, they must be
7:59
talking about me. If we think they are talking
8:03
about us, how might that thought cause us to feel?
8:09
What might be our emotion? If we had that thought they're
8:12
talking about me or they were talking about me, we might feel
8:16
sad. We might feel confused or even
8:19
angry. And in response to those
8:23
feelings, how might you behave if you're having the emotions of
8:28
sad, confused and angry? So maybe you don't talk much,
8:32
Maybe you withdraw or leave the conversation or just kind of
8:37
maybe limit the engagement you have with them in that
8:40
conversation or for the rest of the day.
8:44
However, what if we have the thoughts, same situation, but we
8:49
have the thought they were probably talking about something
8:52
very personal, embarrassing, and they didn't want others to know.
8:57
What feeling might you have as a result of thinking that thought?
9:02
Maybe curiosity, maybe compassion or empathy?
9:07
And then how might you respond to those feelings?
9:11
Maybe you would be kind or engaged in some good listening
9:14
skills. Maybe we'd pay attention to
9:16
them, just making sure that everything is good.
9:19
So using that example, can you see kind of how we went
9:22
counterclockwise around the triangle, how each one
9:26
influenced the other? Now, in this situation, you may
9:30
not know the truth or you may not ever know, like why they
9:34
stopped talking. But if you don't know or you
9:37
never figured out, why not think something better?
9:42
That's going to bring about more positive feelings, right?
9:45
If we don't know the truth, why not just think something better?
9:49
So another example might be that I hear in session a lot is that
9:54
we text someone something and they don't text us back,
9:59
especially if we might have done a joke or some sort of funny
10:04
sarcastic response. You know, sometimes tone is hard
10:07
to tell in text. So often my clients will think
10:12
that person, if they don't respond back, that they're mad
10:15
at them. So that's our thought.
10:18
They're mad at me. Now, depending on the context
10:22
and our own past, this could get really out of control in our
10:25
mind really quick. But we're just going to stick to
10:28
the simple thought that they're mad at me and we're going to put
10:32
that in the triangle. OK, so the situation is they
10:37
didn't text me back and my thought or interpretation of
10:41
that event is they're mad at me. So the feeling can stem from the
10:48
feelings that we might have, can stem from sadness to anger at
10:55
yourself, anger at them. Our behavior might be that we
11:01
might pull away or not talk to them the next time we see them.
11:06
So let's imagine a different thought of oh, they probably
11:11
missed my text. Or they read it and thought they
11:15
responded but didn't. Or maybe they just didn't have a
11:19
response to send. Or maybe they're busy, which is
11:25
highly likely when we're talking about text.
11:29
How might your feeling be based on that thought?
11:34
They probably just missed my text.
11:36
So it could be peace, it could be curiosity, or maybe you're
11:40
mentally making a note to follow up the next day.
11:44
And So what might be your behaviour based on those
11:47
feelings? Maybe your behaviour might just
11:53
stay the same, right? We might be still friendly and
11:57
care for them and love them. Now I believe it's OK just to
12:03
ask like, did you see my text? Did you, you know, whatever.
12:11
I don't think we should ever go around saying are you mad at me?
12:14
Are you mad at me? Are you mad at me?
12:15
Because that indicates something with us and we should know if
12:20
we're thinking are they mad at me, that probably we need to
12:23
work something out. That's something that we need to
12:26
deal with. But I believe that you can say,
12:30
hey, I'm curious, I sent you a text yesterday and you didn't
12:32
respond. Did you get, did you see it?
12:35
Or you could just let it go, which is, I mean, if it didn't
12:38
really require a response, then I would probably just let it go.
12:41
But if it was like, I don't know, a question or something
12:45
like that, that you didn't need a response, then you could just
12:48
check in later, right? So we want to be healthy and we
12:53
want to always presume the best in people until we know
12:58
something different. So if we do find out they're mad
13:02
at us or something like that, then then, you know, we want to
13:05
stick in truth as we're thinking, but we also want to be
13:10
healthy in that and that then we could apologize or something
13:15
like that. But we don't need to beat
13:17
ourselves up. We just apologize and then
13:19
continue our relationship. But if we don't know, we never
13:24
find out. We're presuming the best until
13:26
we know something different. OK, so let's do a common
13:32
situation where we start in the corner of feelings.
13:37
So we have an event and then we're going to start in the
13:40
feelings location. So those last two where we
13:44
started in the thoughts corner there up top, and now we're
13:48
going to start in the feelings corner.
13:50
So we wake up in the morning, we're feeling sad or grumpy or
13:54
down. And our behavior might be if
13:58
we're feeling that way, we hit the snooze or we decide to stay
14:01
in bed longer, or we just pull the covers over our head and
14:04
stay there, right? So from those behaviors, though,
14:09
then you may have thoughts of how bad of a person you are
14:12
because you can't get up when your alarm goes off.
14:14
You might miss making the kids breakfast or now you're going to
14:18
have to grab something and and now you're a bad mom and the
14:22
whole cycle can get pretty bad if you let it keep going.
14:27
So, but if somebody's like wanting to change the cycle,
14:33
they wake up and they're feeling sad or grumpy and instead of
14:36
hitting the snooze, you're going to change the behavior, you make
14:40
yourself get up. So that's a behavioral change
14:43
that you're going to do something, you're going to do
14:45
something different. You're not necessarily thinking
14:47
something different. Now you're doing something
14:49
different. You make yourself get U and then
14:54
maybe you do a behavior like pray or turn on some praise
14:58
music like. These are all behaviors that you
15:01
can do that you know help you feel better.
15:04
So you begin to do those retty soon though I would, your
15:09
thoughts will begin getting more in line with those behaviors,
15:13
right? If you might, as you're singing
15:15
the praise song or praying, that gratitude will come to your
15:19
heart, reminding yourself of how much God loves you and is with
15:23
you and and that he sent his Son to die for you.
15:27
That that can fill your heart with gratitude and make things
15:32
different. So regardless of where you start
15:35
on the triangle, what we're trying to intercept here is
15:39
we're going to either change our behaviors to be something
15:42
healthy or to change our thoughts to be something
15:45
healthy. We have talked about healthy
15:47
behaviors in earlier episodes when we talked about coping
15:51
skills and I've probably integrated some healthy
15:54
behaviors throughout all my episodes.
15:57
But today we're specifically talking about thoughts because
16:01
behaviors are good, they they can make, they can help you feel
16:05
better pretty quickly. Thoughts are a little bit
16:09
harder, but that's where our long term change comes from.
16:14
We need both. We need to be doing both.
16:16
OK, So as we begin to look at healthier thoughts, this is
16:22
going to affect the whole way we do life.
16:26
So if you think something bad, something this is bad in my
16:31
life, whatever that is, right? Like I hate my work, I have no
16:36
friends. My body hurts.
16:40
If you're thinking those thoughts, you are not going to
16:43
feel joyful. There's just no way that if
16:47
you're thinking I have no friends, for example, like how
16:53
are you going to derive joy from that thought?
16:56
You're not from that thought, you can feel sad, depressed, or
17:01
hopeless, and your behavior might be that you start pulling
17:06
away from others or sleeping long hours or not doing tasks
17:10
around the home. These behaviors will end up
17:13
reinforcing the very feelings that you don't like.
17:18
Now, I hope that you see how thoughts can have a big impact
17:23
on your life. Let me share a quick story with
17:25
you. When I was studying counseling
17:28
way back when, we were studying concepts like these and I have
17:33
about AI had about a 40 minute drive home from class all the
17:37
time. And so I often processed the
17:40
class that evening. Me and God just processing and I
17:46
had decided to try an experiment and I did try lots of things
17:51
when I was going through school, like I would just, you know,
17:55
like, oh, that sounds interesting.
17:56
Let me try that at home. So this is one of those
17:59
experiments that I did at home. I tested a lot of parenting
18:03
things during that time. But anyway, so I decided for 30
18:09
days I was going to wake up and say out loud, today is going to
18:13
be a great day. Now, I'm not big on cheesy
18:18
things like that. That is not my personality, but
18:22
I did do it and I did it the whole month.
18:28
And I really like, at first I was thinking, Oh my goodness.
18:33
But I've really noticed that my mood was better.
18:38
I even interpreted things like a flat tire as not even that bad.
18:44
I would be like, oh, thankful I have a Jack or thankful someone
18:47
stopped to help me, those sort of things.
18:49
It was a whole different way of viewing even bad things.
18:55
So you've probably heard the quote by Chuck Swindoll.
18:57
I read it in a one of the books I have by him, but I can't
19:00
remember which book. But he's he said life is 10%
19:03
what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.
19:07
Now I'm not totally sure about all the percentages of that, but
19:10
it is true. It is how we react to things.
19:14
Hard things happen. Hard things are coming, unfair
19:17
things happen. Unfair things are going to
19:20
happen. Loss and trauma happen.
19:23
They're going to happen. How we view and react to life is
19:28
going to either help or hurt our mental and our spiritual health.
19:35
That experiment proved to me that how I perceive life really
19:40
does affect how I handle life. Bad things happened, hard things
19:46
happened, but I viewed it differently.
19:50
Now I did stop the experiment, obviously after 30 days, but I,
19:56
I did, I that is grounded in me that how I view life is really
20:03
going to be how I react to life. So do we look at the good?
20:09
Do we see the good? Or do we only see obstacles?
20:13
Obstacles are there, but there are also solutions.
20:17
Let's not ignore that part, right?
20:21
Another part of this thinking part, the top part of the
20:26
triangle is something that's referred to automatic negative
20:31
thoughts. And if you like acronyms, ANTS
20:35
is the acronym to Automatic Negative Thoughts.
20:39
And automatic negative thoughts are just that they're thoughts
20:42
that pop into your mind that are negative.
20:46
So now I don't know this for a fact fact, but my belief is that
20:52
everybody has these automatic negative thoughts.
20:55
How do automatic thoughts work? How do these ants work Well,
20:59
let's say I fail a test my automatic negative thoughts.
21:04
So the thought that immediately jumps into my mind is I'm dumb.
21:09
Now that might not be your automatic negative thought, but
21:13
to be because I believed this at a young age, that is the first
21:21
thing that comes to my mind if I have a failure of some sort.
21:25
So ants or the negative thoughts are the first thing that pop
21:30
into your mind. You're like, you don't have to
21:33
think about it. You're putting no thought into
21:35
it. It's just there.
21:36
It just pops in, and even if you don't recognize it, they still
21:44
have an influence on us at a subconscious level.
21:49
And so this is kind of the goal of the cognitive triangle, to
21:53
help us recognize that we do have these thoughts and that we
21:57
need to do something about them. Thoughts pop into our mind all
22:02
the time and I tell my clients we aren't responsible for that
22:07
automatic negative thought. We're not responsible for the
22:10
first thought that we have. We're responsible for what we do
22:14
with that thought, our second thought.
22:17
So what am I going to do with that automatic negative thought?
22:21
My first thought of I am dumb. Now the thought I am dumb is not
22:26
bad. That was an automatic one that
22:28
popped into my mind. But now that I recognize it,
22:32
what am I going to do with it? Am I going to think of all the
22:35
times that I did dumb things? Or am I going to think of every
22:40
time that I got something wrong, every time I failed a test,
22:44
every time I failed at anything? For will I take captive that
22:48
thought and remind myself I am smart and remind myself of all
22:53
the times I did smart things? Or even better than that is that
22:58
I have the Holy Spirit within me, and that makes me wise.
23:04
I have access to great wisdom, and I can remind myself of some
23:08
smart things that I've done or some wise decisions that I've
23:11
made in my life. Now, of course, they're not all
23:14
wise, but I have made some wise ones.
23:18
I can remind myself that I don't have to be the smartest person
23:21
in the room to be smart. I don't have to be Solomon to
23:26
have wisdom or to use wisdom. Another thing that we can do
23:33
when we have an automatic thought, besides dwelling on it
23:37
or looking for proof that is true, is to condemn ourselves
23:41
for that thought. So the automatic thought pops
23:44
into my mind. I am dumb.
23:47
And then starts the condemnation.
23:50
Gosh Healy again with the dumb thought.
23:53
You really just can't get it right.
23:54
You know better than this. Why are you thinking that again?
23:58
You were such a bad Christian. Get a hold of your thoughts.
24:01
We are called to keep our thoughts captive and you can't
24:04
even stop thinking this negative thought over and over.
24:06
Maybe you really are dumb. So that kind of self talk
24:12
doesn't work either. We don't beat ourselves into
24:14
submission with condemnation. That's not helpful.
24:18
And we those kind of those kind of condemning, beating ourselves
24:27
over the head that keeps us stuck, that keeps us doing the
24:33
same negative behavior. And we don't want to do that.
24:37
So what do we do with these crazy ants?
24:42
Well, yes, we've taken them captive and we make them
24:45
obedient. And we will take the negative
24:48
thought. And this is the practical step.
24:51
We're going to take the negative thought and replace it with a
24:53
healthy thought. In the next episode, I'm going
24:56
to take some negative thoughts that are very common.
25:00
I'll use some of my own, but I'll use a lot that I hear in
25:05
session also. And we will practically learn
25:09
how to change that, the criteria of a healthy thought and how to
25:13
make that change. So, but just knowing that you
25:18
can make that change is good and you can start right now.
25:23
Remember when we change one place in the triangle, the other
25:27
ones are going to be influenced. We can't necessarily will our
25:33
feelings to be different. And so we work on the other two
25:36
areas of the triangle, our thoughts and our behaviors.
25:40
If you can identify and replace your negative thought, you are
25:46
going to change your feelings. Hence the title of my book,
25:51
Changing Your Feelings. You are going to be able to
25:55
change your feelings. I know we hear people say all
25:57
the time, I can't help the way I that I feel, and that's not
26:01
true. We can help the way that we
26:03
feel, but we're not going to do it by just trying to change our
26:06
emotions. We change our emotions by
26:09
working in one of the other corners of the triangle.
26:12
We change our thoughts or we change our behaviors.
26:14
Our last point today that I want to talk about are neural
26:19
pathways. Did you know that repeated
26:23
negative thoughts create neural pathways in your brain?
26:28
OK, we've got all these connections between neurons that
26:33
form in our brain and those are pathways.
26:36
The stronger the connections become, like the more that we
26:40
think negative thoughts, the stronger the connections between
26:44
the neurons, the stronger the pathways are going to be.
26:51
Sometimes my clients get very discouraged when I tell them
26:54
about the neural pathways because they're like, Oh my
26:56
gosh, my pathways are very strong.
26:58
I've been thinking pretty negative or anxious or worried
27:02
for many years. I'm not sure I can change that
27:07
because those pathways are very strong and that's true that it's
27:14
going to be hard. So I had a neural pathway of I'm
27:19
dumb or I'm ugly. So I had very strong connections
27:23
in those areas. It was a well worn path in my
27:26
brain. And when I started thinking
27:29
something different that would create a new neural pathway, God
27:34
has created our brain in which it can be changed so we can
27:42
create new neural pathways. So even though we have these
27:46
strong pathways over here on the negative tilt, we can make them
27:51
to go more positive, more healthy.
27:57
It does take a lot of practice and consistency to make sure
28:00
those connections grow strong. But so and people have some
28:03
different analogies of how they compare these pathways to like
28:08
an example. And but I like to use like
28:12
imagine that you are in the woods and there's a pathway that
28:15
you've been taking lots of years, OK.
28:18
And it is really well worn and it's kind of smooth and you
28:24
know, so just imagine that. So like our we have a trail that
28:28
goes down the hill and it goes down to the Creek.
28:32
So, but let's say I don't want to take that path anymore.
28:36
It's not good. For whatever reason, I want to
28:40
create a new path. So the first time I take the
28:44
path that it's going to be really hard, right?
28:47
Because there's no worn pathway. I'm kind of trudging on the new
28:52
thing. It is going to be hard.
28:54
The brain works the same way as those trails.
28:57
Like as we continue to travel down this new path, it will get
29:03
better and better As we keep traveling down.
29:06
Now we do have to stop going on the other path so that it'll
29:09
kind of grow up and disappear. I, my personal belief is that
29:15
the old pathway, even though we're taking this new one a lot
29:19
more often and it's becoming really worn and strong, the
29:23
neurons are those connections are getting stronger and
29:27
stronger. I do believe that other pathway
29:31
is like maybe if you, if we're imagining like trails in the
29:36
woods, especially a pathway that's been worn a long time and
29:40
that's been there for years. I think at some level there's
29:44
always a weak connection there, but it's still there.
29:48
And I'm, I'm guessing this because I don't have thoughts of
29:52
I'm dumb or I'm ugly all the time.
29:53
I don't go there. And if those thoughts pop into
29:57
my mind, that's why I think they're still kind of there, but
30:00
weak. If like there's an event that
30:02
triggers it, like I fail a test, like that would be the first
30:06
thought that would pop into my mind.
30:09
But I can quickly change that. And I have no scientific
30:14
evidence for this at all. This is just like my personal
30:17
opinion, so take it with a grain of salt.
30:19
But I think especially when we've come to believe things
30:23
when we were young, that those stay like this old trail that we
30:28
can still kind of see, but nobody takes it anymore.
30:32
And that's kind of what I imagine that as.
30:34
Again, no evidence for that at all, but there is evidence for
30:40
as we take the new healthy thinking route, we create new
30:46
neural pathway, we create new neural pathways in our brain.
30:52
And that is so important and so exciting that God has made our
30:56
brain to be able to do that, that although we may have these
31:00
negative unhealthy thoughts, and that has created a certain
31:06
pathway in our brain that God has enabled us as we think
31:12
healthier thoughts, we're creating new neural pathways in
31:15
our brain. I don't know about you, but that
31:18
is so encouraging to me that God says I'm going to create you
31:23
like this so you can change it if you want to.
31:27
I mean, we have free will, so we can stay negative and unhealthy
31:30
if we want to, but I personally don't want to.
31:33
And if you're here, you probably don't want to either.
31:35
Looking at this and we're going to talk more about this next
31:39
time, but just looking at if we have a thought like I can't do
31:44
this. And then we Start learning to
31:48
replace that thought with I'm learning how to do this.
31:52
That is a new pathway. And every time that we replace
31:58
the negative unhealthy thought with a healthy 1, that pathway
32:03
is going to become stronger and stronger, and the unhealthy 1 is
32:07
going to become weaker and weaker.
32:11
Our thoughts are powerful and learning to manage them is the
32:16
key to long term emotional, spiritual, and mental health.
32:22
There isn't a whole lot we can control in this life, but we can
32:28
control those three things. We can control our thoughts, our
32:31
behaviors, and our emotions. So if you struggle with negative
32:36
thoughts and you were able to identify some today, I'm going
32:40
to give you a homework assignment, OK?
32:42
And I'm going to encourage you this week to keep a log of all
32:47
your negative thoughts. I know that sounds very
32:50
exciting, right? A little encouraging, No, a
32:54
little discouraging. But I don't want you to be
32:58
discouraged. If it's a long list, who cares
33:00
if it's a short list? You know, sometimes it's just
33:03
because the same things are repeating over and over.
33:05
But don't even worry about that. Look, we're looking forward to
33:08
change, and it's going to be easier than you think.
33:13
Well, maybe not OK, Maybe it isn't going to be easier than
33:18
you think, but it'll be hard. But it's totally achievable, OK?
33:23
It is achievable. I'd like you to keep a list of
33:28
your negative thoughts. So it'll just be a statement
33:30
like something like I have, I'm done.
33:33
I'm not a good mom, I'm lazy. I'm, you know, whatever it is,
33:38
write those down. Even if you have negative
33:42
thoughts about other people, write those down too.
33:45
In this log. I want you to yes, write down
33:47
your negative thoughts and then write down the situation also.
33:52
OK, what I'd like, So what I'm going to do next time is teach
33:58
you how to replace those negative thoughts with something
34:01
that's healthy. Because that's the way we change
34:05
our thinking. We don't just push the negative
34:07
thoughts out of our mind. We have to actually replace
34:10
them. We have to actually address what
34:13
the thought is. I mean, if I just shove I am
34:17
dumb out of my mind, that does nothing to fix my thought.
34:21
I have to replace it with something that is healthy.
34:28
Healthy is hard. So please don't shy away from
34:32
doing this. We want to do the hard stuff and
34:35
you can. Healthy is hard, but it is so
34:39
rewarding. I want to encourage you, you can
34:43
definitely do this. OK, let's go now.
34:47
Living healthy and redeemed, reflecting Jesus Christ rightly
34:53
in all that we do. Thank you so much for joining
34:56
me, and Lord willing, I'll see you next time.
35:02
Thank you for listening. The information provided is to
35:05
be used as a resource. If you have a serious mental
35:08
issue, we would encourage you to contact the therapist in your
35:11
state.