Latest / Mental Health and the Mission of the Church / 8-Minute MindShift Wk 16

Transcript

8-Minute MindShift Wk 16 · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: All right, you early birds.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get started here in just a second.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: All right, good morning.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let me be the first to tell you happy Thanksgiving.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna kind of use that to guide our thoughts this morning.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're always talking about the whole eight-minute mind shift, how to change what's going on between your ears.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um I just believe if we can learn to think more like God intended us to, we'd enjoy life more the way God intended us to.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: So something we talked about from the very beginning is that uh our brain's designed to deal with a hostile environment.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, we as Christians believe in uh the fall, we call it, uh, back in Genesis chapter 3, when we we, in a sense, made a decision to break away from God and as a result brought all kinds of craziness into the earth, uh, you know, whatever, don't have time to chase all that.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: But uh the brain's equipped to deal with uh hostility, uh danger, you might say.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there's two particular things I wanted to talk about to set us up for talking about Thanksgiving today.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: But uh one is selective attention.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, your brain has a capacity to filter out everything it doesn't feel is uh essential to its mission.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, its primary mission is survival, its uh secondary mission is is you know happiness or whatever, and then thriving or pursuing uh notable and noteworthy noble things.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So your brain's designed to where if you kind of say, you know, this is what I want, or this is what I'm looking for, your brain, again, subconsciously, your brain looks for that thing.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing I want to mention about this uh hostility brain is, or you know, a brain that's suited for an environment of hostility is a negativity bias.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what that means is, you know, if this is negative and this is positive, it our brains are kind of predisposed to look for things that could hurt us, harm us, get us off track, uh inhibit us, obstruct us from getting to what we want, whether it's in a relationship, whether it's um uh financially, health, whatever.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And um so selective attention and negativity bias.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what I wanted to talk to you about today is this beautiful thing we call thanksgiving.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Giving, thanks.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh of course, another word for it is gratitude.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But what I wanted to talk to you about today is thanksgiving as a weapon, thanksgiving as a tool in our battle to you know renovate our mind.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a thanksgiving used properly, practiced, key word practiced properly, is a brain-shaping superpower.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I just obviously say things sometimes just to make you think a little bit, but gratitude, thanksgiving, can be a brain-shaping, in other words, it can literally remap some of the regions of your brain in a in a really, really cool and powerful way.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And um it can be a poison, uh, an antidote to the poison of uh life and and what life's done to us.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I want to do for a minute is talk to you a little bit about gratitude.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Philippians 4, 8 and 9, you might want to look at it later, talks about to think on these things, things that are lovely, and every one of them is positive for lack of a better word.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, 2 Timothy 1 7 says, We've not received a spirit of fear, but of power, love.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: One translation says, and a sound mind.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I just want to talk to you a little bit about gratitude today.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna post after we get off the live here, I'm gonna put another uh post up there and I'm gonna link you to an article.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the title of the article 29 Scientifically Proven, Scientifically Proven Benefits of Gratitude.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: 29 Scientifically Proven Benefits of Gratitude.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a really pretty cool article.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what it does is it it walks through benefits to you and me, all of us.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh like let me just give you the broad categories and then I'll zero in on a couple of them.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude improves your emotional life.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And these are, again, remember, these are all research-verified.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I don't have time to read the studies and whatever that they've done, but the article will kind of give you some insight into that.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: But let me give you a couple under each of these categories.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude improves your emotional life, it gratitude makes us happier.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude reduces symptoms of depression.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, these are all scientifically research confirmed.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude increases our resilience.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude improves our positivity ratio.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And what that means is the number of positive thoughts to negative thoughts.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when you practice gratitude, your ratio, instead of being one positive to five negatives, for instance, it could go like three to two.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I promise you, if you can change the ratio of positive to negative thoughts, you're going to feel better.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they've found that it improves our self-esteem.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude improves their physical health.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And again, please remember, these are things that people that study this stuff have verified.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it improves your sleep.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: When you practice gratitude, it improves your sleep, it makes you exercise more often.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's an interesting one.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude makes you exercise.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude reduces pain.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude can lower your blood pressure.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of interesting.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude can strengthen your immune system.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude can lower your stress.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it can activate the healing relaxation response.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: It can help you find that centered place of peacefulness.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as a cumulative effect, it can potentially help you live longer.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude also improves your social life.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: It makes you a more understanding, compassionate, helpful, kind person.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: When you practice now, practice gratitude, you can be a more understanding, compassionate, helpful, kind person.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: A person who practices gratitude is it's more likely that other people are gonna like you and they're gonna like you better.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: It improves your relationships, it creates a positive feedback loop.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: When you practice gratitude, remember, and we were I wanted to tie this back.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Remember selective attention, and we're gonna talk about a couple of practical things you can do.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: But when you practice gratitude, in a sense, you're telling your mind to notice good things happening in your life and to acknowledge them, key thought, as a gift.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, what a beautiful day today.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: What if you see it as a gift?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the cool thing for us as believers is um a gift has to have a giver.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so what it does is it creates this interesting connection where we can sort of feel and concentrate and be aware of God.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, you come in and for my in my case, my you know, my wife's warm and friendly, which she virtually is always.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um what if I learn to not notice that?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what if I learn to acknowledge it as a gift?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, if as I practice gratitude, so what happens is I um um I I cr I initiate that selective attention.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: If I if I practice noticing things I should be grateful for, guess what?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: My brain starts looking for them.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what that does?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that negativity bias?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm doing is when I practice gratitude, I'm pushing, and I want you to kind of see my hand shaking, because it takes an effort.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain wants to lean negative.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's not right, what's not good.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what you're doing when you say practice gratitude is you're pushing it this direction.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And what if you could create, after enough practice, a tipping point to where it's as easy or easier to be on this side of the positive-negative scale than it is this side?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when you've really, really, really made some progress.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you just one more section.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude improves your professional skills.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was interesting.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: It improves our decision making, our achievement of our goals, it builds our social capital, makes us more effective leaders, makes us more creative, and increases our productivity.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let me give you a couple practical things you can do.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard of this, but one's called the the a gratitude journal.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that is where you literally every day, not every day, I'm gonna correct that, because they found if you do it every day, it becomes uh it's just not as alive and fresh.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the studies, believe it or not, indicate that you shouldn't do it more than about three times a week.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine one to three times a week, you stop, get quiet, get your cup of coffee.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you probably notice I like my coffee.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: How about my Christmas, man?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: My wife and I are already tuning in, man.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and you think about things that you're grateful for: people, things, situations.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Another one that's probably one of my favorites, and um, we happen to have a porch off of our condominium that we live in.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but let me let me that's where we would do some of this.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: But what about a gratitude walk?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Get a cup of coffee, whatever, and go for a nice walk.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Leave your phone back at home, and and here's the thing walk take a nice slow keyword slow walk and notice, notice everything that's with you on the walk.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Deliberately, intentionally fight off things that aren't with you.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by that?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Don't think about what you gotta do today.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Don't think about what happened yesterday.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're not with you.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Be with the birds that you hear chirping, that gentle breeze you feel, um, the temperature, you know.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, it's this time of year is my favorite time of year.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: But but in take a walk where you you notice, and maybe you even receive as a gift the things that are walking.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Look at that, that beautiful tree over there is walking with me.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, oh look at that cute little dog.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you notice, and what's happening is again, you walk slower than you normally walk.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Don't bring future or past stuff into the moment with you, and practice I promise you guys, practice noticing and being grateful for what's on the walk with you.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that makes sense to you.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I just want you to to realize that the brain's kind of like a muscle, and if you exercise certain muscles, they get stronger.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And gratitude is a muscle that you can exercise and make stronger and stronger, and it will really, really, really help you.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Love you guys.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Please have a happy Thanksgiving.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Please have a safe one, and uh see you next week.