How To Fix Your Mind

[00:00:01] When the world is closing in on me and it gets so heavy. [00:00:09] Hey there. Welcome to Grace and Grit podcast, and I'm your host, Shanna Williams. So what is this all about? [00:00:19] Grace and Grit is a faith filled journey designed to empower you with spiritual strength and resilience. Each episode, we're going to delve into biblical topics, offering insights and teachings to help you overcome life's mental and emotional challenges. We're going to use scripture. I'm going to tell you stories. It's going to be a blast. I can't wait to see you today. [00:00:51] Hey there, friends. How are you today? I hope that you are good. I hope that you are at peace with the Lord and you are rested and you are ready to tackle this next week. [00:01:07] Usually I release these on Mondays, but I'm actually recording on Friday. [00:01:12] So I am really all about conquering the mind and the emotional struggles that we face as christians. That's kind of one of the things I feel like God has really put on my plate. And one of the life messages I carry is that if you do struggle mentally with just trying to stay positive, trying to stay up, trying to stay in sync, I guess, with the Lord and having a good mindset, I get it, because that is. That's been the struggle of my life. And a few episodes back, I talked about depression. I think it was called the lowdown on depression. And I told you guys about my struggle with depression over. Over the course of my life. [00:02:06] And so I've had to learn not just how to get out of depression, but I've had to learn how to change my mind. [00:02:16] And that is what I want to talk about today is, you know, how do you change your mind? Because there's nothing more miserable to me than to say you're a Christian. But to live so defeated mentally, to say one thing like, yes, I believe in Christ. I believe, you know, I believe that he wants me to experience joy and peace and that life in the spirit should be full of those things. And I believe all that, but the reality is I don't live there. Right? Does that sound like you at all? Can you relate to that? Is it like almost like pretending like you're pretending that you're okay all the time, but you're not? Like, if anybody could really just kind of sit inside your head for a little while, they would be like, holy cow, this person needs help. You know, I get that. I get that. And I was in, and still am in ministry, you know, just to some smaller degree now, I think we're all in ministry. Honestly, it's just a different perspective. You know, we're not maybe on a stage, but we're all called to minister. And the sad thing is, is a lot of us try to minister from. Yeah. So, like I was saying before I got interrupted and my phone rang, a lot of us try to minister or Orlando live, I guess, from a place of really having, I would say, toxic thinking patterns and pretend, but, you know, pretending like we're okay. And so that is not okay. Right. That is not acceptable as a Christian to have kind of this struggle internally of. I say that I'm a Christian, and I say I believe these things, but deep down, I really don't. You know, like, I really don't believe God has good plans for me, or I really don't believe God wants me to enjoy my life, or I really don't believe God is always good. So those are some of the. Those were some of the lies that I believed, and they really trapped me in a life that I felt all alone in my thoughts and, like, no one else really understood it. And people, you know, I would get around some people, and they just seemed so optimistic all the time and so happy. And I was thinking to myself all the time, are you really that way? Are you just pretending, like, you know, because I feel like I was pretending all the time. And that's sad, you know, because I consider myself to be a super honest person. But in that way, I felt like, in the church, you have to pretend like you're okay, and, you know, you have to walk into church and you're gonna be like, hey, how are you today? Oh, I'm blessed and highly favored of the Lord. And, you know, there were days where I didn't feel blessed and highly favored of the Lord. Right. And I didn't believe that I was blessed and highly favored. Do I believe that now? Absolutely. Absolutely. And. But that doesn't mean I don't have a day or two where I feel frustrated or angry or. Or go through things, you know, or just be like, lord, where are you? Right. But in. In those days, I remember thinking there was such a struggle, you know, that I was pretending to be someone that I wasn't truly convinced that God was good, that I was acting one way but believed another deep down inside. So there was always this struggle that I just found myself in, and it really led to dark, toxic thinking. And that, of course, we know that how you believe what you believe to be true, what you think is right, eventually spills over into behavior because you are going to act according to what you believe. [00:06:00] Okay? So, for instance, we have. We live in a world where people think that they are cats. [00:06:08] And because they think they're cats, they. They start arranging their furniture and their house, and they start dressing like a cat and acting like a cat. It's absurd, but they're doing it. And so people believe that whatever they believe, they become and their actions start to. And the behavior starts to come from the belief system. So if you want to change the way you think, you have to attack that from the belief level. So that can be tricky. Right. That's easier said than done. Hey, you just need to change what you believe. Okay. Well, the reason I believe what I believe is because my experiences in life, the things I've gone through, have made me believe certain things were true or not true. And, you know, the sad thing about that is, is you could have viewed those circumstances that you went through, the things that you went through that were maybe traumatic. You could have viewed them from a lens that was super messed up, unhealthy, or jaded in your thoughts. And so now you approach, everything in life has this lens because you've been through this over here, and you're applying that same thought, that same feeling that you had there. You're associating it with now what you're going through, even though it's completely different, you're in a different season. But you just have this expectation of, you know. [00:07:30] Sorry. You just have this expectation of, well, I guess it's just going to be the same thing that it was the last time. And so I'm not going to expect anything different, and I'm going to live in this funky thought place that's super unhealthy. And, I mean, I did that, and a lot of mine came from disappointments. [00:07:53] So, you know, if you're a person who, you know, you had a lot of high expectations for your life, or you had expectations for your marriage to be one way or you had expectations, your career was going to be one thing or your ministry or whatever. For me, it was music. It was, you know, my career in music, my calling to music was going to go a certain way, and it didn't go that way. And so that caused me, in the core, in my belief system, to become extremely unhealthy. And I started to believe that God had favorites, and I wasn't one of them. And I started to believe I just wasn't good enough. And I needed to work harder as a singer, which, you know, some of that I wouldn't say it's true, but it's always good to, to become the best that you can be at something you feel called to do. So I went on, you know, I went into, like, taking a lot of voice lessons, which actually was good. So that necessarily wasn't bad. It was the underlying belief that I had that was, I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. I have to keep working harder. And so that just led to the behavior of feeling inferior to everyone else, feeling like I had to always try to be better or God wasn't going to accept me and people weren't going to love me. [00:09:12] Man, it's terrible to live like that, and that's miserable, and that's not where we're supposed to live as christians. I hope that that's coming across in a powerful way that you are hearing that and you're saying, you know what? I understand that. I can relate to that. I feel like I struggle with some of those areas as well. I feel like I think one thing or say that I believe one way, but I actually believe another, and my mental life is a mess. You know, my thoughts are toxic. I can't stand myself. And, I mean, that, that is the reality for a lot of christians. And it's not that they're not christians. It's that they haven't caught, you know, gotten to this place where they've understood that they can change this, like, that God has given them the power to change it. So I've painted a really strong, clear picture, I think, of what it can feel like to live in that. But now the question is, how in the world if, because if you're trapped in it, how do you get out of it? Like, how do you tackle, you know, fixing your mind? [00:10:26] How do you tackle changing your mind? [00:10:29] And I'm gonna throw some things at you that that helped have helped me. And, you know, things that I think are vital and I think work if you do it properly and you're consistent because your brain is a muscle and you have to teach it, your spirit has to, you have to allow the Holy Spirit to rise up within you, to lead you in this. So it's kind of this balance between or this dance between surrendering, but also, you know, you kind of stepping in and saying, okay, I am going to. Because I've been, I've been given the power by the Lord, by the Holy Spirit. [00:11:13] I can control this. I don't have to live like this. I don't have to hate myself. I don't have to feel like God's playing games with me, or I'm not good enough. Whatever. [00:11:24] Whatever the funky messes that you find yourself in, and then the behaviors that you have, the depression, the anxiety, the frustration, the overwhelm that you feel are coming from that belief system. So if we can get to the root of the belief system, then you can fix it. And a lot of times, the problem is you can't get to the root of your belief system by yourself. That's why I highly encourage counseling, because a counselor who is objective, someone who's not even super close to you, someone who's objective and can say, okay, you know, that what you just said to me, do you really believe that's true? And then they can help lay out before you, you're basing your whole life on this thing, and it's a lie. And let me help you see why it's a lie. And they can kind of guide you into that so that you can make that revelation on your own of, oh, my gosh, you know, I have, my whole life believed I was inferior to everyone else, and I've been doing XYz to try to make myself feel like I was an inferior, because I can relate to that. Like, but didn't realize you were doing it. Thought you were doing it from a place of love. Thought you were serving God from a place of love. But really what you were doing was you felt like you were such a loser, and the only way you could feel better about yourself was to do more, more and more and more. So that's not a good motive or good motivation for serving, right? I mean, serving should come from an overflow, not from a deficit of. I need to. I need to show everyone that I am not inferior, that I'm worth loving. Right. So that might hit some people hard, and. But I want to help you see. See this from a different perspective. And so I was drawn to Romans twelve today. I love the Book of Romans. It's such a. It's such a great book if you want to dive into, like, deeper into, you know, Christianity and just. I don't know, some of the topics that. That you wonder about and you don't have answers for. I feel like Romans is so good at just explaining things, you know? And so Romans, chapter two. And I'm reading from the passion, which, you know, I read from a lot. Love this version of the Bible. I don't only read this version, but I read it a lot. I like to read different versions, but this is romans twelve one and two. Beloved friends. [00:13:56] What should be our proper response to God's marvelous mercies, to surrender yourselves to God, to be his sacred living sacrifices and live in holiness, experiencing all that delights his heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship. So I just want to stop right there real quick. Most of the time when people read this, they're reading it in a different translation, and it's a translation that says, you know, submit your bodies to God, that type of language, and forgive me, because I don't have it right in front of me, but, and I believe that and part of our bodies, part of our being is our mind. So it's not just like, you know, humbling yourself before the Lord and don't, don't go out and do things with your body. Don't smoke and drink and don't cuss and don't hang around people who do and don't, you know, violate those kind of things against your body. But also offering your mind to the Lord, I think, is probably where we should start. Because if we offer our mind to him and he can fix it, then the behaviors that we hate so much, you know, those, those kind of fall away because now we're focused on the right thing, you know, instead of focusing on the consequence, we're focusing on the root, the cause, you know what I mean? So, okay, so that was verse one. Let me keep going just a little bit here. Verse two. [00:15:34] So for this becomes your genuine expression of worship. When you live like that, stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. [00:15:53] So you have an inward transformation by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation or reformation of how you think. [00:16:06] So here's what the Lord wants to do. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, he wants to reform how you think. [00:16:12] And that is like the best news ever for a person who struggles emotionally, who struggles maybe mentally, with overwhelm or anxiety, depression, frustration, all those things, all those negative things. Because if you can allow the Holy Spirit to reform you in the way that you think, like I just said a minute ago, a lot of those issues are going to fall away. They're going to be easier for you to deal with. You're not going to be so easily moved and swayed by every little silly thing that happens in your life. It's not going to be an emotional rollercoaster every time something happens that you don't like or you feel is negative. Because if you think like him, you start to realize he lives so high, he lives so much higher than we do. He lives in a place where he's unaffected by. By pressure. There is no pressure for him. Right. There's no pressure for him to be over, you know, to face the consequences that are. [00:17:18] Face a situation. I'm going to get this right. Y'all face a situation that's bigger than him because he doesn't have that struggle. Right. Nothing's bigger than him. So he doesn't. He doesn't understand that probably, except Jesus, I guess, came in the flesh to understand how we feel, but we have to learn how to live from that place. Ephesians says that we are seated in heavenly places with Christ. What does that mean? That means now I can. Yeah. So what does that mean, you know, being seated in this heavenly place with Christ Jesus? [00:17:53] This means that now we can see things from his viewpoint. [00:17:58] And his viewpoint is, hey, I never lose. I always win. I've already won. And so for him, there's never a challenge that's too big. It's not even a challenge. Like, it's not even a challenge to him. Right. So the things that we think are, oh, my gosh, I don't know how I'm gonna do this. Like, he's like, do what? Like, that's not even hard, you know, see it from my place because I'm helping you. You're not doing this by yourself. [00:18:27] And so if we can live like that, like, come up to where he is and think, like, he thinks it's going to solve a lot of these overwhelming problems that we seem to be having. [00:18:41] And I love, you know, just going back to romans twelve a little bit more, where this transformation happens through the Holy Spirit, and it's a total reformation of how we think. So here's where most people go wrong with this, I think, and I did this for years, we put this pressure on ourselves to fix our own thoughts. Like, we feel like we are going to do this, we're going to make this happen. We're going to work really hard at it, and we are going to overhaul our thinking, and we're going to do, like, X, Y, Z, one, two, three. We're going to do it like this. We're going to pull our bootstraps up. We're going to work harder and harder. And it's almost like this work of the flesh thing. Wherever you're doing it and you're doing it with good intentions, but you're not doing it the way he wants you to do it, which is a surrender to the Holy Spirit. So here's what you have to do instead of trying to attack it and you do it. You say, holy Spirit, I'm surrendering in this area. Help me, show me what to do. Show me how to fix my thoughts, fix my mind. I have no idea how to do this, but I know that you do because he is the best teacher. The Holy Spirit is a way better teacher for you than the greatest mental health expert out there that has like 14 books and like a, you know, a PhD and all these letters behind their name, I applaud them, and I'm sure they know a lot of great, wonderful things. But, you know, it's not going to compare to what the Holy Spirit can teach you and show you because you, you need specialized instruction from him. He knows exactly what's going on inside your head and how to fix it. And so if you can learn how to come to him with this and say, I'm surrendering, because I know you're the one that's going to teach me and you're the one that's going to reform my thoughts. So in conjunction with the Holy Spirit is the word of God. They work together. [00:20:48] They work together. So I would not be surprised if the Holy Spirit starts saying, okay, I want you to read, let's just say, the book of Romans. Let's just say that I want you to read that every day. And you'll know in your spirit, like he can, he'll talk to you. Jesus said, my sheep know my voice, and a stranger, they won't follow. You know the voice of your father when he talks to you, right? So if he's telling you, okay, what we need to do is we, you need to get in scripture more. You need to read my word. Because his word washes us, right? [00:21:18] His word cleans us and it cleans out the impurities and the things that don't need to be there, the things that are lies. And so, you know, at first, you might start reading things like Romans 828, you know, let's just read that real quick. [00:21:38] Romans 828, you know, this, but I want to read it in the, this translation to keep it all fluid. [00:21:53] So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together for good, for we are his lovers who have been called to fulfill his delighted purposes. [00:22:05] So we're convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together for good. So you might read that and say, I don't really believe that I'm a Christian, but I don't really believe that because you might think I have evidence that that has not happened because this happened to me, and this happened to me, and this happened to me, and it was traumatic and terrible and destroyed my life. [00:22:29] Ah, so there you go. You're already uncovering something that's deep within you, that you believe that is is faulty and it is a lie. But you've incorporated into your belief system, and now you have built your life on this lie. That there. That God is not really good and that he's not really continually weaving things together for your good or turning them for your good, is what some translations say. [00:23:00] So if you feel that way, you're probably not a very happy person. You probably don't have a lot of joy. You probably don't have any peace. You probably have a lot of anxiety because why? You don't trust God. You don't trust him. You think that he's not helping you. He's not turning things for your good because you can't see it with your eyes. Therefore, you don't believe it, or you think, well, he didn't help me in the past, and so you have to keep, you know, turning these stones over and say, but is that really true? Did he not really help me in the past? Like, let me go back to that and. And think about that a little bit more. So, like, for me, let's just say I uncover the stone. Oh, he doesn't really work things for my good. If he did, why was I born with some facial issues? You know, that I've talked about a little bit before. I don't want to go into detail about that, but I could stay there and just say, yeah, I mean, why did he do that? That wasn't fair. Right. [00:23:56] But how did he use that for his good? Well, I can tell you how he used it for his good. It's what brought me to him. My brokenness, my pain, the suffering that I felt in my heart. That's what drew me. Or actually, it drew him to me. He was drawn to my brokenness, and I wouldn't know him the way I do without, you know, this that I went through. I wouldn't know him. I never would have. I wouldn't have needed him the way that I did. And so that was a huge, you know, service that he did for me, was letting me go through that so that it would bring me to him. And so you have to change the way you look at things. So you may have to look back at your life and say, I want to look at each of these things that I consider to be trauma, and I want to rewrite the script. And I want to say, well, what did God do that was good from that? And that is how you begin to transform or reform your mind, because you take the experiences that you've been through, the things that you consider terrible and horrible, and they probably were, and no one is discounting that or saying that they weren't. But what I'm saying is take them and flip them over and say, but still, even in that, was God good? Yes, he was. He did this out of it. He did this out of it. And it's super important to do that. And that's just one way that you can start reforming your mind with the word of God. And so do you see how I just pulled this one scripture out, and this is what you can do. You can decide to know based on what the Holy Spirit is showing you. He might be showing you a particular passage or book in the Bible or topic, whatever, and you just begin to study that, and you really begin to kind of put your thoughts on trial. That's the best way I know how to say it. Like, when you read something, do you, you ask yourself, do I really believe that? And if not, then why don't I believe that? See, because we got to get down to the belief system. We have to attack the belief system and correct it if we want to change our behavior, if we want to transform or reform our mind, our thoughts, into something a lot healthier, a lot better. So that is a little bit about how to do it. And I also think, you know, in addition to, you have the Holy Spirit's involvement. He's the one that initiates it. And that's where you need to let go of that pressure on yourself and realize that he's actually doing it. You're just kind of partnering with him. [00:26:45] Then you involve the word of God. And I think the other missing component is, who are you surrounding yourself with? [00:26:54] If you want to change the way that you feel, you want to change where you end up in life, then you need to change who you hang around, or you need to evaluate who you're around. Like, are you around people who don't share any of your beliefs and they actually make you feel worse, reevaluate. Like, you need to be around people who are so positive. If you're. I'm saying if you struggle with this, okay, like, if this is your thing, you struggle with depression, you struggle with toxic thinking, and you're tired of it, you're gonna have to really be careful who you're around and intentionally get around people who have amazing thought lives who have cleaned up their. Their thinking, and they are thinking on that, playing with the Lord. They're not allowing toxicity into their mind. They're not believing lies of the enemy, because, really, all these are lies. They're lies that the enemy has spoken into your mind, and you have taken them on as your own thoughts. But they weren't your thoughts. They were his. They were his lies that you embraced and pulled into your belief system. [00:28:09] Think about it that way. [00:28:12] The only offensive weapon that the enemy has against us are his words. He really can't touch us unless the Lord says yes. Right? We belong to Christ now. We're covered. We're sealed. He can't really do. He can't take authority unless we give it to him. And the only way that he can do that is to lie to us and convince us to let go of authority. And in our case, it would be, hey, my. My sound mind. I'm gonna give you my sound mind because I'm gonna believe your lies. And that's really what we're doing. We're kind of like. I kind of see it like Esau giving up his birthright, you know, to Jacob for some beans, basically some lentils. You know, that's what we do, and we don't know we're doing it. And it is. [00:29:00] It doesn't have to be the place that you stay in the rest of your life. [00:29:05] The more aware you are of it, and the more that you can see that it's going on. And that awareness is that first step in this. So, I don't know where you are today, but I pray that this maybe opened your eyes to some things. [00:29:22] I would highly encourage you to see seek the Lord more than anything. More than a book, more than a podcast, more than a counselor. All those things are great. But seek the Lord. If this is something you really struggle with, ask the Holy Spirit to help you. He wants to help you. He's the best at it. Better than anyone else that you could ever talk to. [00:29:44] Of course, there are resources out there for people struggling with these kinds of issues. You can always go to my website, shannastrange.net. i've got all kinds of blogs that I think would minister to someone who struggles in this area. You can go back and listen to my other podcast, and then I also had my other podcast from 2019 to 2020 that was called embrace your beautiful destiny. And I do talk about a lot of these topics so they can help you as well. [00:30:13] I am so glad you joined me today. I hope that you feel better and that you're blessed. Hey, make sure you subscribe to my podcast and leave me a. A review. And until next week, God bless you guys. [00:30:27] I won't walk out. We'll run to the cell, close.