Heavy, Deep & Real ministries

Another morning on sabbatical and more revelations from God. I shared earlier the epiphany about how Negative Self Talk (NST) actually is inner child abuse. But NST isn’t my only problem. I also have other troubling thoughts that stem from my background of child abuse and being victimized (you don’t need the gory details…).

This morning as I looked out my hotel window the coastline blurred by a slight rain the Lord gave me this verse to chew on: “Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” Of course that is 2 Corinthians 10:5(b). I realized that when I work with others, I actually use this formula but use other words for it. I decided to break down each word to see what I would come up with and wanted to share it with you this morning just in case it would help you as well.

TAKE

To take something is to control it in your possession. You take something and it’s yours. That means you can do with it whatever you want; you have agency over it. In other words, it’s your choice what you do with it. Thus, when a thought comes into your head you TAKE it before it spirals out of control. We teach the folks we work with that if you can catch a thought or feeling at the top of the spiral you can control it but if you don’t catch it chances are good it will spiral all the way down to the bottom before you can control it.  

EVERY

This is pretty much self-explanatory but every means EVERY! I think most of us catch a lot of our thoughts but not every thought. In fact, we probably only catch about a third of our thoughts and let the rest kind of run their course. What thoughts do we let run amok? Negative self-talk, bitterness, anger, hurt, gossip, jealousy, envy, comparison to others, and all the “what if” questions rolling around inside our noggins. But the command is to take EVERY thought – even those that emotionally driven – captive. This will take A LOT of practice and intentionality.

THOUGHT

Our brains are incredible tools! It remembers everything even if we cannot recall those memories. While there is a conscious part there also is a subconscious part that affects how we think and see our world. There is the left brain logic side and the right brain emotion side. The brain is quite complex and our thinking is affected by both nature and nurture. That means our brains are formed with natural function and sometimes dysfunction do to genetic issue, and our brains pathways are developed via nurture – behavioral training we pick up from our environments. Trauma – especially childhood trauma – affects how we think about ourselves and our world. Mental health issues also affect the prism through which we see things. Our thoughts then are highly influenced by our experiences as well as our genetics.

There are what are known as cognitive distortions. There are 15 basic ones as listed here: 

1. Filtering

You focus on the negative details and magnify them, while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. A single detail may be picked out, and the whole event becomes colored by this detail. When you pull negative things out of context, isolated from all the good experiences around you, you make them larger and more awful than they really are.

For example, your boss gave you some feedback: “You did a great job on the report. I like how you captured a lot of the details and raised some important questions. There is just one part that I am kind of confused about. Could you explain a little bit more on that?” Then you focus on that one detail about your boss’ confusion, thinking: “My boss is not happy with my work. I’m gonna lose my job. This is terrible.“

2. Polarized Thinking

Things are black or white, good or bad. You tend to perceive everything at the extremes, with very little room for a middle ground. You have to be perfect, or you are a failure. We are either best friends forever, or we don’t talk at all or I don’t want to have anything to do with you. You can be having a good day, but as soon as something happens, then your whole day is ruined.

3. Overgeneralization

You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again. You tend to use words like “always“, “never“, “nobody“, or “everybody“. If you broke up with a boyfriend, you think nobody will ever love you again. If you failed a test one time, you expect to never be able to pass the test. You think all men are selfish and will take advantage of you because you met one guy who took advantage of you.

4. Mind Reading

Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you know how people are feeling toward you. Mind reading depends on a process called projection. You imagine that people feel the same way you do and react to things the same way you do. Therefore, you don’t watch or listen carefully enough to notice that they are actually different. Mind readers jump to conclusions without checking whether they are true for the other person. It is normal to have assumptions. However, it might not be helpful to act on those assumptions as if they were facts.

5. Catastrophizing

You tend to expect disaster or catastrophe. When you are confronted with different options, you imagine all the worst-case scenarios with each option, and get overwhelmed trying to prepare for all those scenarios. A young woman is scared of going back to school. She is paralyzed by the thoughts of “What if I can’t pass the test? What if I can’t juggle school and work? I will get fired from my job, then I will lose my house. What if I can’t finish school? Then I won’t be able to face my parents. They will be so mad at me or maybe even disown me.” There are endless disasters people can come up with.

6. Personalization

You tend to think everything around you is somehow related to you or directed towards you. For example, somebody makes a general comment about honesty, then you think that person is talking about you, accusing you of being dishonest, and wanting you to be truthful. So you get mad, feeling you are attacked and wanting to either fight back or defend yourself. You may get depressed or ashamed thinking you are a bad person.

7. Control Fallacies

There are two distortions related to your sense of power and control.

• If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as a helpless victim of fate or outside circumstances.
• The fallacy of internal control is when you feel responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you.

Feeling externally controlled keeps you stuck. Because you don’t believe you can really change your life, let alone make any difference in the world. I’ve had clients who think “I’m a hopeless addict. I have the genes. All my family use. What can I do?” Then they don’t take action to change and they stay stuck.

On the other hand, the fallacy of internal control leaves you exhausted. Because you feel responsible and attempt to meet the needs of everybody around you, and feel guilty when you cannot. A woman tries to help her parents, grandparents, boyfriend, boyfriend’s family. She needs to make sure everybody in her life is good, which gives her a lot to consider and to balance on a daily basis. She is exhausted most of the time and frequently has panic attacks.

8. Fallacy of Fairness

Kids often say this: “It’s not fair.” And adults do the same thing. You think you know what’s fair, but other people won’t agree with you, which makes you mad. However, fairness is often relative. What’s fair for you may be unfair for others. It is just so easy and tempting to use it. Because you can avoid being vulnerable and stand on a seemingly higher moral ground. It is more difficult but healthier if you just ask for what you need and accept others’ perspectives when they can’t/won’t give you what you need.

9. Blaming

Other people are to blame for your problems, or you blame yourself for both your own and everybody else’ problems. You may think: “If only my boss is more understanding.” “My wife nags too much.” “My son needs to listen more, or I won’t be able to control my temper.” When the blame is placed on others, you don’t have to change or do the hard work. But you also give up your power and control. It is actually easier to change yourself than trying to change others. If you blame yourself for everything, it hurts your self-esteem and self-worth, makes you feel guilty unnecessarily.

10. Shoulds

You subscribe to a list of rules about how you and other people should act. The rules are right and indisputable. You get mad when people break those rules, and you feel guilty or ashamed if you break them. Notice when you use words like “should” “must” and “ought.” “I should be perfect.” “I should be able to handle it.” “She should give me a call before coming over.“

The thing is people are different. And a lot of factors can come into play in a particular situation. It would be nice to have your preferred result/situation. However, holding yourself and others to inflexible rules will only increase your stress level.

11. Emotional Reasoning

You make a judgment based solely on how you feel. For example,

• If you feel like a failure, then you must be a failure.
• Feeling guilty means you have done something wrong.
• If you feel anxious, then it must be dangerous.

The problem is: if your distorted thinking has led to those negative emotions, then those emotions can’t be wholeheartedly trusted. If you are used to taking care of everybody else and thinks it is your responsibility, then when you try to take care of yourself, you will most likely feel guilty, but it doesn’t mean you are doing something wrong.

12. Fallacy of Change

This one corresponds with blaming. You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them.

The truth is the only person you can really control or have much hope of changing is yourself. The underlying assumption of this thinking style is that your happiness depends on the actions of others. However, your happiness actually depends on the thousands of large and small choices you make in your life.

13. Global Labeling

You generalize one or two qualities (in yourself or others) into a negative global judgment. “I’m a failure.” “I’m lazy.” “He is a jerk.” “She is a hypocrite.” “He is an addict.” These labels come to represent the whole person and ignore all contrary evidence. It can have a damaging impact on your self-esteem and can lead to relationship problems and isolation.

14. Being Right

You feel the need to prove that your opinions and actions are correct, even when there is no right or wrong in certain situations but just differences in opinions or perspectives. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness. Being right becomes more important than an honest and caring relationship. It also means you don’t have to change.

A guy often argues with his wife about parenting, about the family’s diet, about activities they should do, thinking he has good reasons for his points of view and he is right. However, it makes it difficult for him to listen to his wife’s points of view, and then creates an uncomfortable environment with negative interactions and negative feelings.

15. Heaven’s Reward Fallacy

You expect to be rewarded in some way because of all your sacrifice and self-denial. You feel resentful when the reward doesn’t come as expected. Especially in relationships, you keep giving to others without setting healthy boundaries, hoping they would appreciate and return the favor at some point. However, a lot of times, what really happens is people take you for granted and then you end up feeling used. Or people come to expect that from you and when you start setting boundaries people get mad at you.

As you can see there are a lot of ways to think!! Chances are good you call into one or more of these categories which means you have stinkin’ thinkin’! These are the thoughts we are to take captive! All the list from EVERY and how we project them via our cognitive distortions.

CAPTIVE

To be captive means to be powerless. To take a thought captive means that that thought is now powerless to do anything. It can’t fight back; it can’t control anything. It just sits there impotent. Taking the thought captive means stopping it as soon as you recognize it is in your head! Yes, it’s easier said than done but we can work on it!

For me, I simply say “STOP” when I hear that thought in my head. I purposely stop the thought and then basically ignore it – push it to the side. Think about something else. Get refocused. Ground myself. The trick for me is realizing I’m having the thoughts! They are so automatic and natural to me that it usually takes me a few seconds in the thought to realize I’m doing it again. Obviously, I pray about it and ask the Lord to strengthen my mind and resolve to take the thoughts captive, as well as ask that He keep me focused through the Holy Spirit on thinking of all the good things I should have in my mind (Philippians 4:8).

Once the thought is captive you can control it! And again this is where you have agency over what you do with the thought.

Obedience to Christ

In our faith we all want to be “Christ Like.” That means think like Jesus, act like Jesus, be like Jesus to the best of our ability. As the Word (John 1:1) this means more than just reading the Gospels – it means following the Word of God in its entirety because Jesus is the Word!

Thus, when I have a thought captive then I have to compare that thought to what scripture says I am to think. If that thought is out of line with scripture then I have to repent from that thought – turn away from that thought – and turn to the thought scripture says I am to have! That is taking a thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Rather than me give an example let’s try this: I want you to think of a thought that you know is out of line with scripture. Then I want you to search your brain for what scripture says about that thought. Can you now turn from that thought and embrace the scriptural thought? That is the method! But it means you have to know what scripture say which means you have to read your Bible! If you want to take a thought captive to the obedience of Christ, you need to know what the Word says about those thoughts!!

Anyway, these are my thoughts this morning as I wrestle with God over my own internal struggles regarding my thought pattern and thought life. Perhaps you have the same issues and this has been useful. If not, just pray for me that God continues to mold me into the person He created me to be.

Blessings.