02 December 2009

Renewing Your Mind - Taking Every Thought Captive

by Karl Benzio, MD and Joan Esherick

When responding to your circumstances or life events, remembering these thingswill help you process and respond  in healthier, more productive ways:

1. Most events are neutral.

2. How we think about these events determines how we feel.

3. Depending on your initial thoughts and feelings and how you process these (producing a final summary thought), you will view the event as either an adversity or an opportunity:

Adversity: something that interferes with your growth and functioning
Opportunity: something that enhances your growth and functioning

4. Your beliefs, culture, social network, past experiences, and emotional baggage dramatically influence your thoughts and feelings.

5. We all have a lens through which we look at the world and what happens to us. For the Christian, that lens should be the lens of biblical Truth. Two key principlies to remember when taking thoughts captive are these:

Vital Truth #1: All things (not just some) work for good for those that love the Lord
Vital Truth #2: God's definition of "good" differs from ours.

Let's look at an example of how these principles work:

Event: Sixteen-year-old daughter, a second child, gets her driver's license.

Possible initial thoughts: Good for her! I'm really proud of her accomplishment! I don't think she's ready for this responsibility. She's so young and inexperienced, she'll surely have an accident. Wow...I don't have to drive her everywhere anymore!

Possible resulting feelings: happiness, pleasure, pride, fear, anxiety, relief

Possible other contributing factors: Perhaps you, as a teenager, wrecked the car on your first solo drive; maybe your best friends don't allow their children to get their drivers' licenses until the children are seventeen years old; maybe you live in a traffic-congested area where accident risk is high, or maybe you live in rural farmlands with no other cars around for miles; or maybe your oldest child was killed or disabled in a motor vehicle accident.

Can you see how culture, beliefs, social network, past experiences, and the like would influence how you respond both in thought and emotion to this event? While we can't remove these influencers, we can recognize them for what they are and filter them through a lens of Truth (e.g.: just because you wrecked the car when you got your driver's license doesn't guaranteed your daughter will).

Your initial thoughts and feelings will ultimately drive you to a conclusion: either this event is an opportunity or this event is an adversity. And that determination will impact your emotions and actions to an even greater degree.

The point is this: it's how you veiw (and then react to) the event, and not the event itself, that determines how it impacts you.

APPLICATION EXERCISE #1:

1. Think of an event or circumstance you're currently facing.

2. List your intitial thoughts (what runs through your head) about this event/circumstance.

3. List your initial emotional responses to the thoughts you listed in #2.

4. What is your summary thought: is this event/circumstance an adversity or opportunity.

APPLICATION EXERCISE #2:

1. Repeat steps #1 and #2 from the preceding exercise (list event and thoughts).

2. Now step back, look at your list, and evaluate your thoughts: Is the thought true?

• Is it accurate?
• Is it biblical (does is line up with what the Bible says)?
• Could it be an overreaction (all-or-nothing thinking using terms like "always" or "never" fall into this category)?
• Would a friend, loved one, or trusted advisor say it's true, accurate, and biblical? What past experiences could be coloring your thoughts?
• Could this event be viewed differently by others? If so, how?

3. Now list your emotions.  Do they differ from your first list (they may dramatically, or they may not, depending on how accurate your first thoughts were)?

4. Now make your determination about adversity or opportunity, remembering that for the Christian, all things work together for our good and God's purposes.