thinking well

As a kid growing up, I had two favorite playmates, my cousins, Johnny and Robby.  Johnny was five years older than me, and Robby was three years older, so I found them to be fascinating and infuriating.  They could do so many cool things that I was too young to do: 

go to a friends house alone, go to school, read, ride a skateboard, and so much more!

One time, though, I got my chance to show them that I could do something they told me I couldn't.

Johnny had brought a "big" instrument home from school because he was going to learn to play it.  To me, it looked as large as a tuba, but in hindsight, i think it was more likely a saxophone.

Whatever it was, I was about six years old and wanted to try it out, but Johnny told me that it's too hard and that I wouldn't be able to play it . Johnny, then, took off up the hill in my grandparents' backyard and left that tempting instrument right there in its case on the ground right next to Robby and me.

Oh, Yeah!  I took the opportunity to take that horn out and put it up to my lips, then I blew into the mouthpiece with all of my six-year-old strength.  To the surprise and delight of Robby and me, I made that saxophone come to life for a brief moment.

Hearing the sound, Johnny came running down the hill to see who was playing his instrument, thinking he could yell at his brother, Robby, but Robby said with astonishment, "It was her!"  

I gained some "street cred" that day in the backyard with my cousins who realized that I could do big kid things after all, and I learned a valuable lesson that  "nobody gets to count me out, not even myself."

Limiting beliefs that try to hold us back are deceptions (from the enemy who tries to steal kill and destroy, John 10:10a)  and keep us focused on the wrong things so that we don't step confidently into the amazing and powerful purposes God has created for us to accomplish. If we count ourselves out, it stops us from fulfilling God's calling on our lives.

It's easy to believe the lies that we aren't good enough, qualified enough, good looking enough, skilled enough, etc..., and to fall victim to the comparison trap, especially if we've been judged or hurt by others.

And, it's also fairly easy and common to think that it's not the right time, we aren't quite prepared enough, we don't know enough, we haven't healed enough, we aren't yet confident enough or know the plan enough yet, or that we have to do more first, to prove ourselves first, or pray more before we take action.

Let me tell you that with that kind of thinking, a lot of people play right into the enemies hands and start counting themselves out, waiting for timing and abilities and circumstances to be just right, waiting to take that next step outside of their comfort zone and into the life they really suspect that they could be capable of living.... if they could just get past their insecurities, lack of confidence, hesitations, doubts, and fears.

To overcome limiting beliefs, self-doubt, fear, and insecurity, we need to not listen to the naysayers, to not let the negative voices take over our thoughts, and to keep God's truths about who He is, who we are, and what He's created and called us to do front and center of our focus each day. 

Now, I want to give you an overview of the top five things that often get in the way of progress for people.

    1.    Thinking that feelings and thoughts are facts. They are information gatherers and synthesizers, but truth comes from God alone and sizing up our feelings and thoughts in light of His truths about us and how life works.

    2.    Waiting for a better time or waiting to get to a certain place in time or achievement and finally "arrive."  If we wait for the "perfect" time, life will pass us by without much to show for it.

    3.    Confusing the hard times with stop signs when they are really just detours or rest stops.  Consistency is more important than perfectionism.  One step at a time, one thing at a time, one day at a time, one action at a time adds up to effective progress.

    4.    Thinking that things aren't working or will never change when you are already on the journey forward.  You may have to pivot and regroup at times, but consistent, healthy, movement forward creates momentum and produces good fruit.

    5.    Making comparisons and listening to lies that try to have you focusing on the past, the future, or the overwhelming nature of the present, when you can learn to be calm, powerful, and take effective action only from where you are in time.   

If there is one thing that I'd like you to remember from today's blog, it's the concept of the BOTH/AND.  Life is generally not an either/or.  It is often a both/and.  We tend to think in all or nothing, shoulds and shouldn'ts, and 
"what if" catastrophes, but in reality, we can both feel uncertain and take a step, want to try something new and need to lean on the Lord for strength, feel competent at some things and feel imposter syndrome with others at the same time, ask for what we need and be content with what we have, and rest but not give up.

Life is a journey, and no one experience tells the whole story.  

Where you are or aren't and where others are or aren't in life right now is simply a chapter, and we are responsible for the actions we take as we let God write our stories.  We know the author, so we know there is a happy ending, and if it isn't good, it's not over.

And to close this out, don't ever let someone else tell you what you are, who you are, or what you can't do, not even yourself. 

Take a listen to this week's podcast episode: Want to Stop Getting Down on Yourself - Flexible Thinking Can Help

I saw this really cool picture of Queen Elizabeth II recently. It was when she was on stage at a Live Aid concert in 1985, and she was wearing these cutoff jeans and this short sleeved white t-shirt. Actually, it was sleeveless, and she didn't have a crown on, and she didn't even have a tiara or jewelry. She just looked so relaxed and so cool standing there on stage and ready to perform. I had never known that she had done this, so it was really, really impressive. I was very impressed, and she really got my respect going there.

The thing is it never actually happened. It was an AI generated image, and I thought for a moment that it was real. That's something that our brains can do to us. If you've ever judged yourself and scared yourself, wondering why you've had intrusive thoughts or thought of things that you really are repulsed by or felt that because you had some fleeting thought or negative feelings, unpleasant feelings, that you were somehow causing something awful to happen, I want to help you have peace today. You see, just like that image of Queen Elizabeth was not real, the way you feel about yourself when you judge yourself simply by the messages and the way that your brain and your feelings put the messaging together when they receive it, can be faulty pictures, not actual truth, not based on fact, just mere images, creations that we ascribe meaning to that you think you're seeing clearly when that's not actually the case.

So, here's the main point of all of this in today's podcast. When you think things, I want you to realize that while what you think may be fact may be true, there is no way for your brain to know the only thing that your brain can do is to make predictions and calculations based on information and experiences that it has had exposure to before. So, when you have thoughts, they are not actual things that need to be scary or need to be feared, they are simply chemical reactions. They're neurons firing. When you have feelings, same thing. It's nerve fibers, it's chemicals, it's energy. It is information that your body is encoding and decoding. That's all it is.

It is not truth. Now, it can represent truth and fact and figure that out. The way it can do that is from prior experience, ways that we've learned things before that we know to be true, such as there is gravity. We know that because we've fallen down, or someone taught it to us, or we read it in a book, right? We know things because we've tested them out, or because God's word says it, or because the Holy Spirit has told us. But we don't know things as absolute fact simply because we've perceived them. That could tell us something that isn't true, and we might confuse it with something that is true. Many times, when I work with clients who have thoughts that are intrusive or that they don't want, they fear that they are somehow some sort of deviant, or that they should be punished or put away because they can't believe that they had those thoughts and they're so awful and that couldn't be further from the truth. These are typically clients who are very decent people who want to serve the Lord and who just are very aware of how they don't want the awful feelings or the awful thoughts to hurt anybody.

It's actually the opposite of what they're thinking, but because they make a leap and associate negative thoughts or feelings, unpleasant thoughts or feelings, things that they would never want to think or to feel with a value judgment, they get confused, and then they get scared and get down on themselves. If that's you, I want to encourage you to remember this Queen Elizabeth AI generated picture. You see, I had different parts of information. I had what my eyes took in as I looked at the different parts of the picture. I had my context of what I knew about Queen Elizabeth II. I had my memory of the fact that there was a Live Aid concert or something similar back in the 80s. I was able to think, I can't actually tell if this is true or not, but what I was able to tell was that I was getting information and I was trying to figure out how to process it's meaning and to ascribe to it and figure out whether that picture was actually true or false. Then I put it against other information that I had, and that other information told me that the queen is not somebody who was into casual attire. She was someone who took the monarchy very seriously. Knowing that, I realized this is probably not true, because I used other information and backed it up with facts. I did know from experience, from learning, from prior exposure, and was able to make a more accurate picture.

They are no more real and true as value judgments and accurate pictures of who you are or how situations are than money is something of value. Listen to this. Money is something that has value because people ascribe value to it and put meaning towards it and know what it's worth, how to use it, what you can get for it, what you can do with it, but in reality, what is money? Money is paper. That's it. If we didn't ascribe value to this paper, these threads, this fabric, it would mean nothing. It would just be paper. Same with the chemicals. They're just chemicals. The neurons are just neurons doing their job with energy. It is what we learn to tell ourselves about the meaning and about the picture that we're seeing as we try to put the facts together, or what we perceive as the facts together that can sometimes cause us distress. That's why it's important to take every thought captive, put it against God's word, pray about it, be wise and discerning. Because if we just take it at face value, like I did, that picture of the queen, we might believe something that isn't true. No matter how true it feels, no matter how true it seems, no matter how scared we are of it, how curious we are about it, or how surprised we are, we're simply having a human experience of input and nerves and wiring that God created. There is absolute truth, but it's not something that we can tell right off the bat. Just like with an AI generated image of the queen at a concert, I had to run it through its paces and figure out how I could find what the truth actually was.

That's what I want you to think about. Whenever you have thoughts or feelings that are unpleasant or intrusive or you start feeling bad about yourself for having, I want you to realize that it's not a sin to simply have input or to simply have these chemical reactions. What you choose to do with the thoughts or what you choose to do with the feelings is where there's some substance of something that shows your character and shows what you believe in, what action choices you've chosen, and what you will do. Having the thoughts is just something that happens. Having the feelings is just something that happens. Putting meaning to them is something that happens, but putting meaning to them can be true or false, accurate or inaccurate, and it can cause you peace or it can cause you disturbance.

I've seen this so many times in the women that I've worked with, especially when I work with Christian women who really want to do the right thing and be pleasing to God in the way that they live their lives. These unpleasant thoughts or feelings can really, really cause them a lot of headaches. I want to just give you the understanding that you don't have to have a lot of disturbance because of the meaning that you ascribe to thoughts and feelings. They're just chemicals, reactions, nerves, fibers, energy, and they're your brain trying to sort through and figure out what's what. You get to determine through putting it against things that are true, like the Bible and prior experience, to figure out what you're going to do with it. That's something you can control, that's something you can choose, and that's something that you can take action in wisdom on. So just like that picture of Queen Elizabeth was not actually true, I could have ascribed meaning to it, but I might have been wrong. So, I needed to run it through the paces and tell myself what was actually true, not what seemed to be true.

If you're telling yourself things about yourself because you've had intrusive thoughts, disturbing thoughts, painful emotions, fears, and that you start to make the leap and think that things are going to go badly because you had some fear, or that things are going horribly wrong because you had a thought, I want you to realize those are distortions. There's not a cause and effect that is absolutely true. The only thing that is absolutely true is you're having information nation, and you need to put it against other stuff to determine what is true and what is false so that you can take every thought captive and learn to tell yourself the truth. It'll save you a lot of internal grief and disturbance, and it's something that can help bring you peace, hope.

Go take on the day.