I was chatting with a client this morning. We were talking about how our negative thoughts can be a reflection of our environment.
The messages we've heard, and store in our minds, are rarely what we truly want to believe but we never stop to ask ourselves why we keep on speaking them.
I want to talk a moment about recycled thoughts and how they are linked to conforming to the patterns of this world. Recycled thoughts are just the thoughts we've been thinking over and over again without questioning them. These thoughts can drain our energy and keep us stuck in thought, feeling, action loops that leave us feeling defeated. This is why it's so important to stop saying the things that get in the way of us truly living a life designed by God and to start speaking more of the truth.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve God's will-his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2
Maybe you've memorized this scripture to help you overcome the pull that the world has on your ability to truly live in God's good will. Maybe you are not even aware that your current negative thinking is just conforming because you've never asked yourself if these thoughts are even true.
I used to think that I was unworthy of love. The Bible tells me in John 3:16 that for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. So why would I spend my days telling myself that I was unworthy of love? Possibly it was because when I was a child I was afraid that others would take their love away from me if I didn't behave like they thought I should. I wasn't really aware that I had created a belief system that was overriding the truth because I had conformed to the lie of the enemy, who doesn't want children of God to know and understand that He so Loved us, we are worthy of His love. Now when this little thought lie comes up I renounce it completely. I know and understand that it is not true and that it is not useful for how I want to live.
Looking further into Romans 12, I realized we needed to ask the question, Is transformation possible? If we believe this passage to be true than the answer is YES! The definition of transformed (which is past tense) means to make a thorough or dramatic change in the form, appearance or character of. So in order to be transformed by the renewing of our minds we live in a way that changes our character because we test and approve it with God's truth.
So those negative thoughts that keep us from transforming, from having the results we desire, can be changed.
It starts with awareness. Many times we are unaware of the thought we are thinking and we tell ourselves more untruths. Why not just pause for a moment, discover what thoughts are causing you to feel like, (a failure, unloveable, not good enough......fill in the blank) and just notice how that thought makes you feel? Often times when we are using negative thoughts to describe ourselves we end up feeling shame, fear, isolated, doubtful ect., and when we feel this way we may try to hide from ourselves and others through pulling away, hiding, withdrawing, or we may blame our feelings on someone else because we haven't learned to take responsibility for our own feelings yet.
What if instead of going down this path of destruction we just... choose a new thought? The part about Romans 12 that tells us "so that we can test and approve God's good, pleasing and perfect will" is our way of getting back into the right kind of thinking that will allow us to live in His perfect peace.
We can't change our circumstances. We can change how we choose to think about them. When we use the lens of love, God's truth, we are able to let go of our old patterns and take hold of something new.
So here's the deal, it is not always easy to catch our thoughts and know how to change them. Specially when we are believing them to be the truth. That is why working with me can be so beneficial. I am a thought catcher. I help my clients discover what they are thinking and feeling and we work together to build new thoughts and feelings, so that they can go from stuck to living more freely.
Message me to sign up for a discovery call to find out how you can learn to become a thought catcher too and get the results you want in life. shel@dammgirlcoaching.com
Coach Shel
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