Heavy, Deep & Real ministries

As some of you may know, I spend a lot of time on continuing education focused on my pastoral counseling work. I am a Board Certified Mental Health Coach through the American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC). I am currently half way through upgrading that credential to Professional Mental Health Coach.

I have taken courses on a wide variety of topics including:

• Trauma Informed Care
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
• Dialiectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprossessing (EMDR)
• Addictions
• Personality Disorders
• Attachment Styles
• Anxiety and Depression Disorders
• Neurobiology and Brain Plasticity

There are more but you get the idea. In order to help people to the best of my ability I have to learn as much as possible about how the mind works and the various way to rewire it when there is dysfunction.

However, I am a pastor so I actually don’t do the work! The Holy Spirit is the healer not me. And as such I use God’s word as the foundation of the process.

There are three passages that outline the framework for healing.

“As a man thinks so he is.” Proverbs 23:7

“Do not be conformed to this world,^[c] but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:2

 ^“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5

You can see I emphasized three things:

• You are what you think
• Your mind needs transformation
• You must control your thoughts

Let’s go a little deeper with each.

As a Man Thinks So He Is

I often ask people when I’m preaching if their inner monologue – their self-talk – is more positive or more negative. Usually I’m told it’s negative. Our inner critic is quite active and very much colors the way we see our worlds.

Every one of us is developed through our life’s experience – what we call nature and nurture. Nature is our innate person – the way we were born. Our genetic make up. Nurture, on the other hand, is how we are emotionally nurtured and treated from conception and through our lives with the most vulnerable time being our early childhood.

Those who grow up in adverse circumstances, such as divorce, abuse, addictions, et al, will see their world through that broken prism. However, those who grow up in a normal “Brady Bunch” home also could have a prism through which they see negatively that includes failed perfectionism, lack of self worth for not meeting the mark, guilt and shame for not being good enough.

The reality is we are all broken – broken by our own sin, broken by the sins of others, and broken by the imperfections of our upbringings, culture, and even genetic make up – nature and nurture.

So, how do you think about things? Do you see life as a positive or a negative? Perhaps that’s too broad a question. Let’s try this: Do you experience your everyday world with expectations of positivity or negativity?

Our thinking has what are known as cognitive distortions. I want to share them here because they develop from our brokenness and very much influence the way we think and thus who we are.

Cognitive Distortions

1. All-Or-Nothing Thinking

Also known as black-and-white thinking, polarized thinking, or dichotomous thinking, all-or-nothing thinking is a type of cognitive distortion that involves viewing things in absolute terms: all good or all bad, angelic or evil, perfection or total failure. There is no in-between. Individuals who exhibit all-or-nothing thinking may express thoughts like, “If I’m not perfect, I have failed.”

2. Overgeneralization

In overgeneralization, individuals see patterns based on a single event and assume that all future events will have the same outcome. An example of this kind of cognitive distortion might be, “Nothing good ever happens to me.”

3. Mental Filtering or Negative Filtering

Mental or negative filtering focuses entirely on negative examples and experiences, filtering out anything positive. Individuals who engage in negative filtering, may notice all of their failures but not see any of their successes.

4. Discounting the Positive

Similar to negative filtering, discounting the positive involves invalidating or “explaining away” good things that have happened. Instead of ignoring the positives like negative filtering, individuals see the positives but actively reject the positive aspects of a situation or person. Some examples might be, “Well, that’ doesn’t count because I had help.”

5. Mind Reading and Fortune Telling

We engage in “mind reading” when we attribute thoughts, feelings, and intentions to another person, regardless of the lack of evidence. “They think I’m a loser.”

In fortune telling, an individual predicts events will unfold in a particular way, often to avoid trying something difficult. “I’m going to fail the test anyway, so why study.” “No one is going to hire me, so I have to stay in this job I don’t like.” Fortune telling can prevent individuals from taking actions to shape their own lives in positive ways.

6. Magnification or Minimization

Magnification cognitive distortions occur when an individual blows things out of proportion. For example, someone might view a small mistake as an epic failure.

Minimization occurs when we inappropriately shrink something—like an achievement— to make it seem less important. Some people may minimize their strengths and positive qualities and believe they are not “likable.”

7. Emotional Reasoning

Emotional reasoning assumes that because we feel a certain way, what we think at that moment must be true. This kind of thinking gives emotions total control of a situation rather than the facts of the situation.

Examples of emotional reasoning could be:
“I feel embarrassed by what happened, so I must be an idiot.”
“I feel angry, so this person I’m talking to must not care about or respect me.”
“I feel guilty, so I must be responsible for this situation.”

8. Should, Must, and Ought Statements

Framing thoughts with words like “should,” “must,” or “ought,” can make individuals feel guilty, or like they have already failed. These kinds of statements may apply an unrealistic set of rules or standards to how we measure ourselves and our lives. Society and culture, particularly social media, is full of explicit or implied “shoulds.”

Examples could be:
“I should be so much further in life at my age. I’m behind and I’m never going to get on track.”
“I should be able to wear a size 4.”
“I should be doing more to help people.”

9. Labeling

Labeling involves defining yourself or another person entirely on one interaction or one behavior. Rather than seeing a behavior as something the individual did which does not necessarily define them. Often times we can view someone’s behavior as who they are.

Examples could be:
“I missed an appointment. I’m completely useless.”
“He was late to our dinner. He is completely unreliable.”

10. Personalization and Blame

With personalization and blame, individuals blame themselves, or someone else, for a situation that, in reality, involves many other factors. Good examples of personalization and blame are:

“My child doesn’t have any friends since we moved to a new city. I have failed as a parent.”
“My friend canceled our lunch at the last minute with no explanation. I must have made her mad.”

Personalization can lead to unnecessary self-blaming and guilt when there are many other contributing factors.

(List provided by Skyland Trail)

Do you see yourself in any of these cognitive distortions? Can you see how your thinking in a cognitively distorted way would cause you to live your life within that distortion?

How we think is vitally important to who we are. If you come from an abusive background your brain will always be on high alert for the next danger causing you to think that everyone around you is a potential threat! This makes perfect sense but it also makes you live your life in constant fear with your fight or flight mechanism releasing cortisone and andrenaline at extreme levels which will affect you physically as well as mentally.

God is correct – how we think is who we are. The tricky part is recognizing that our thinking is off, especially when our thinking as gotten us through impossible situations and we feel it is protecting us as we go forward.

The first step in any 12-step program is admitting you have a problem! Well, as I’ve said we are all broken so we all have a problem! And if you think in a distorted way (and there are more than just these 10 I’ve listed) then you most likely are seeing through a broken prism and when triggered will cause you to react in ways that are the antithesis of who you want to be.

Transform Your Mind

I love Romans 12! It’s is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. It tells us how to live and how to treat others. Just a tremendous chapter in an even better book!! Romans starts off powerfully by telling us that we are to be living sacrifices to God and that we need to transform ourselves by the renewing of our minds!

Basically that means we are to think differently!

But not just differently – we are to be transformed!

When I talk with people I share the difference between behavior change and transformation. It’s been my experience that when you tell people they need to change their thinking they really just change their behavior but still think the same.

For example, I could share with a person that their ciritical nature is causing them relational issues. In response, the person stops being outwardly so critical – holding their tongue (which isn’t a bad thing!) Yet, on the inside they are still that critical person; they’re just not vocalizing it. That is behavior change and behavior change never lasts. We all fall back to our default when we’re triggered or challanged.

Transformation is different. Your mind changes first which in turn changes your behavior. How? This is where the Holy Spirit comes in! We are told that we can pray for the things we want and if they are in God’s will they will come to pass. So, first we pray! “God, I don’t want to have a critical spirit! Change my heart, heal the wounds that cause me to be critical, and help me be the person you created me to be!” Prayer is the first step!

Then we work on the cause of the problem. In our example of a person with a critical spirit, the actual critical spirit isn’t the problem it is a symptom of the problem. The problem is deeper down in their psyche. Perhaps they grew up in a family that was critical of them. Perhaps the family’s communication style was critial in nature. Perhaps there are attachment issues from childhood that have funneled the anger of lack of nurturing into a critical spirit. There a a lot of reasons for someone’s behavior and finding the cause is critical to transforming their mind!

So, we’ve prayed and let’s say we’ve found the cause of the critial spirit! Now we have to work on healing that cause!

In our minds we need to reconcile and find resolution for the cause. Sticking to our example of the critical spirit, let’s say that this person’s mother was always critical of her. Never an encouragement but always words of disappointment and criticism. In this situation there would be mother wounds, attachment issues, guilt/shame, and a sense of worthlessness.

The next question is this: How does God see this situation?

Obviously God wants us to forgive those who have done us wrong. But there is A LOT more to this scenario. God would say that the person is of GREAT value to Him. God would say what is the truth behind the criticism and what is the lie? God would explain that Satan always speaks in half-truths thus you have to discern that. God would say that what happened to you was wrong but probably was due to the person’s mother having childhood experiences that caused her wrongful actions. God would build the person up and encourage them. And God would begin a healing process that included reconciling the past and finding resolution in the person’s mind regarding the past hurts.

As God does His work, we do our work! We use various techniques to compliment what God is doing! As we do this, each individual episode is brought to light and reconciled even if that reconciliation is realizing that it can never be changed or reconciled!

I remember sitting down at a bar with my dad when I was about 22 years old and asking him what in the heck he was thinking when he did what he did and caused my sisters and I so much pain. He simply avoided the issues and took no responsibility for any of it. Certainly there was no reconiliation on the issue that night but it did reconcile in my mind who this person was and that gave me resolutation – closure – on my father. It allowed me to set the proper boundaries and carry on in relationship with him knowing full well who he was and what he believed. God did change me in that moment from being beyond angry with him to simply agreeing that it was what it was and we move on from him.

I hope that you can see how tranforming your mind by allowing the Holy Spirit to work in you not so much on the symptoms of your issue but the deep-rooted cause can be life altering!

Take Every Thought Captive

If you read my blogs you’ll know I wrote an entire piece on this verse while on sabbatical a couple weeks ago. If you want a deeper dive on this part go ahead and look up that blog!

For our purupses today we’ll say that once we start that healing process of transforming our mind, then we have to ensure our thinking stays in its lane!

Have you ever been praying or studying or working on a project and then just out of the blue your mind shifts to a completely different thought or scenior or even fantasy? What the heck! It wasn’t as if you weren’t focused on your first thoughts but your mind just changed lanes without even using the blinker!

Or how about this: you’re in the middle of something and then you get an intrusive thought – something you didn’t think of yourself that intrudes into your current thinking that can be pleasant but most likely unpleasant?

I think we all get that but those of us who have suffered abuse or trauma get them more often. I always have intrusive thoughts but God has taught me how to take them captive!!

The first step is the hardest – recognizing you’re having a distorted thought! I can be three minutes into one before I recognize, “Hey! I’m not supposed to be going there!” Whether youi can realize your thought right away or it takes a minute the key is recognizing the distorted thought and STOPPING it.

Most of us just let our minds run when this happens so it is counter-intuitive to stop it which means we have to train our brains (Neuroplasticity) to recognize these thoughts.

When we do recognize these thoughts we have to grab it by the throat! We already know from the previous two steps that these thoughts are deceptive so we don’t have a lot of discerning to do here. What we do have to do it take the thought captive to the obedience of Christ!! That means we have to take that thought and compare it to what Jesus says!

What Jesus says is the truth and THAT is the thought we keep not the other one which is deceiving us.

Yes, this is the hardest part because our cognitive distortations don’t want to let go of our faulty thinking. Let’s go back to our critical spirit lady.

Let’s assume she’s been working with us and she’s gotten to step three here. She has a critical thought that intrudes into her mind and she needs to capture it. Because of the work of the Holy Spirit she no longer feels the need to blurt out her critical thoughts and she also recognizes the lie behind the critial thought. Yet she is still comfortable in that critial thinking pattern (her default) that letting it go completely is difficult.

This last piece is always a work in progress. Critical spirit lady will have to practice and practice and practice taking those thoughts captive and allowing Christ’s truths to penetrate.

Since my sabbatical I have been working on this quite diligently and can tell you it works. I’ve been able to put my brain in neutral when it wants to speed off into a distorted thought. I’ve been able to control my tongue and my negative predisposition. I have compared my thoughts to the thoughts of Jesus (Yikes!) and am working on transforming. I have asked the Holy Spirit in me to help do all this! So, yeah, it works.

Once you’ve realized that how you think is who you are, that you need to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and that you need to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, then there is one more verse to consider.

What are we to think about instead of the garbage inside our heads?

Philippians 4:8

^“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Fill your mind with a safe place, a happy place, a joyful place. Think about positives in your life, with your family, in your community, in your world. Enjoy things that God enjoys. Think things that God loves. Transform yourself by filling your mind with all the great things in God’s creation. Do this and your life will change.

Thanks for sticking with me through this dissertation on changing our stinking thinking! Let me know if you have questions about how God works through his Biblical CBT!