It has been life changing for me to learn that I am the voice in my head. I always thought, “I just think what I think,” and “what I think is true,” and “I can’t help what I think.” Then I learned that I could choose my thoughts. I realized that I was the one allowing the thought and ruminating on what my brain offered me. I realized had taught myself to think the way I did, and I could retrain my brain to think on better helpful truth thoughts.

Changing your thinking takes intention and effort. We have thought the thoughts we think for so long that they feel automatic. It feels like they are true and that we have no control over them.

What we think about grows. And our brains want to prove true the thoughts we think so we feel there is always evidence for our thoughts.

We often stay in the negative thought cycle because it is what we know, and it takes work to change.

We must believe change is possible. We must recognize, and take responsibility for, the thoughts we choose to think.

We have agency. We have power. We can decide to practice thinking new thoughts.

We start changing our thoughts by being aware of what we are thinking. This intention overtime makes way for a pause in our reactions. As we practice noticing our thoughts, we can get curious about when the thought occurs, and what are our “triggers.” Then, we intentionally decide to let go of the thoughts that do not serve us, that are not helpful. We decide to tell ourselves a better God’s Truth story about ourselves.

Another thing that has been life changing for me is learning to process my emotions. I used to think I was too emotional, and I wanted to figure out how to stop being so emotional. As I learned that I was the voice in my head and that I could choose the thoughts I think, I also learned how our thoughts generate our emotions. When I was feeling a certain emotion, I could practice paying attention to the thought I was thinking that was causing that feeling. Again, this took time, effort, and a lot of practice. (This is an on-going process, which hopefully you realize if you read the post before this one.)

Relating all this to what I shared yesterday, and my thinking as I put up Christmas lights, because I have practiced being aware of my thinking in the moment when I start feeling feelings I do not want to feel, instead of beating myself up and/or getting upset I am able to recognize and allow the feelings without judgment.

What we tend to do is tie our fears, or worries, or “issues” to something in our childhood. As I put up Christmas lights with my husband, I could have thought, I am sensitive to asking for help and people helping me because when I was growing up, I learned to not ask for help, to do things on my own so as not to upset anyone. When I tell myself that story it feels deep and entrenched. It feels bigger and heavier than it is because the story I have told myself has grown over the years, but thinking this story is not beneficial to me.

Thankfully I have been open to and practiced telling myself I new story. And I have practiced not making it a big deal when the old story comes back to my mind, because of course they will. I used to think that when the old story came back again, or the old ways of being, that I was not making progress. Again, I had to realize that this was just a story I was telling myself. Instead, I could choose to pay attention to all the ways I was making progress. I could choose not to define myself by one moment when I had human feelings. Because that’s the thing we are humans, and we are going to have feelings. The good news is we get to decide what we make those feelings mean with our thinking.

The other example from my post yesterday was my expectations for a holiday day. Looking back I choose to think, of course, I wanted to enjoy time with my family playing disc golf. Of course, I had high expectations of myself and all I could accomplish in a day. Of course, I wanted to be at home to welcome my sister and her family, so I was disappointed when I was not there. Of course, I wanted to cook a nice, good meal for my family, so I felt pressure to get it all right. When we were in the vehicle waiting for Chick-fil-A and I thought it was taking too long, I was rumbling with my emotions. I was recognizing and allowing them. Thankfully because I have been practicing awareness of my thoughts, I was able to move through them and not get stuck in them.

One thing that has been helpful for me as I practice being onto my brain is seeing the humor in what my brain offers me. We can tell ourselves, look at me thinking I could get way more done than is possible in a day. We can tell ourselves, there goes my brain again making a big deal out of something that is not really a big deal. We can tell ourselves, there goes my brain trying to protect me. Isn’t it funny how my brain works. When our brain offers us a thought or story that doesn’t serve us, we can talk back to our brain. We can tell our brain, thank you for trying to protect me but I am going to choose to believe all will be fine.

As children we train ourselves to be and act in a certain way to survive. We do not know any better than to take what our brain offers us and do it based on our experiences and what we see modeled around us. As we mature, we can choose to take responsibility for our lives by taking ownership of our thinking and what we are creating for ourselves. We can retrain our brains to focus on the good, on Truth, on Hope.

We must practice choosing to see ourselves and our lives a different way. It is not about living a different way because we are most likely already doing it, we just have to acknowledge it. We choose to look for and recognize the good positive things we are doing instead of focusing on the negatives. We choose not to define ourselves by our human moments. We choose to practice self-compassion. We choose to claim and speak God’s Truth over our lives. We choose to agree with God about who we are and the life we live. We root ourselves in His Truth and in His love. We receive His Truth and His love as our own. We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit inside us helping us. And we keep showing up. We keep practicing. We keep going. We keep seeking and discovering! And over time, slowly, day by day, we are transformed!