The Mind Connection: How the Thoughts You Choose Affect Your Mood, Behavior, and Decisions (15 page)

At the beginning of this section I said that we should spend more time thinking about what we think of other people than we do about what they think of us. I just saw someone from the neighborhood who asked me if I was going to participate in a cleanup day the area had organized. I responded that I would not be, but later I found myself wondering what she thought of me because I wasn’t helping. I knew that my reason for not helping was a valid one, but I was concerned about what she thought. I know the agony of being a people pleaser, so I started thinking about the instruction in God’s Word to focus on pleasing God, not on pleasing people (see Galatians 1:10; Ephesians 6:6). This helped me to immediately refocus and get back on the right track mentally.

Do you ever get caught in the trap of thinking too much about what people are thinking and saying about you? I think most of us do at times. We want people to like us, to think well of us, and to accept us, and that is quite normal; however, if we are not careful, we can let concern for what people think of us begin to control us and cause us to lose sight of God’s plan for us.

What I think about other people is more important than what they are thinking about me! I am not responsible for their thoughts, but I am responsible before God for mine. So I decided to think some
on-purpose thoughts
about the neighbor that were good and beneficial. For example:
She seems like a very nice woman! She appears to be in her sixties but is in good physical shape! I like her hairstyle! She is friendly!
I knew from experience that if I purposed to think good things about her instead of worrying about what she was thinking about me, I would respond to her better the next time I saw her. If I continued to be worried about her thoughts about me, the next time I saw her I would have
responded insecurely, halfway expecting her to say something critical about me not being able to participate in the cleanup day. But by meditating on good things about her, I knew I would enjoy seeing her again and would have a few compliments ready for her, because they would already have been in my thoughts.

How we think about people when we are not with them determines how we will treat them when we are. I really want to please God concerning how I make people feel, and I am sure you feel the same way. I have spent many years letting the Holy Spirit teach me how to treat people, and one thing I am still learning is the vital role my thoughts play in the outcome of every relationship. It is exciting to me to realize that I can prepare myself for action by choosing my thoughts carefully. If I don’t want to mistreat people and leave them feeling bad after being in my presence, then I will need to think good things about them before our time together as well as during it.

Remember that people don’t always remember what we say, but they do remember how we made them feel. Plan to make them feel good. Another female leader and I were discussing how we want to grow in appreciating other people’s ideas more. We are both strong-willed and decisive, and when we are in meetings and people have ideas that seem unreasonable to us, we both find it difficult to keep what we are thinking off our faces. Even if we stay quiet, the face can tell all. I shared with her that I believed we could prepare ourselves to have good facial reactions
to opinions that differ from ours by purposely planning how we would respond ahead of time. We should pray that God helps us think of people the way we would want them to think of us.

Before going into a creative meeting where we know different opinions are going to be abundantly and openly shared, we can think things like
There will be lots of different opinions offered today and they are all heartfelt and worth considering.
Or,
Everyone in the room is valuable, and I am going to treat them as if they are.
Or,
When anyone shares an idea that I don’t like, I am going to remember that they have a right to their opinion, even if I don’t happen to agree with it.

There are countless ways that we can benefit from aggressive, positive, on-purpose thinking about people. Before meeting with anyone, even a friend for coffee, think of the things you enjoy and appreciate about them. Most of us don’t have to try to think of the things we don’t like—they come to our minds uninvited—but we can give them no entrance by already having our minds filled with good things. For example,
I am having lunch with a friend in a month. I am thrilled that I have a month to think good things about her, and I can’t wait to see the positive effect it has on our time together.

Prayer is what makes every venture successful, and we can combine our prayers and thoughts and accomplish two goals at one time. While thinking good things about any event or person, we can turn those thoughts into prayers offered simply to our Heavenly Father. Try it! “Father, I know that You love _____________, and I appreciate all the strengths you have given them. They are fun to be with, encouraging, and helpful. Thank You for putting them in my life.”

Relationships are a major part of our lives, and I pray that we will always remember how much our thoughts affect them. Be aggressively positive in how you think about all people. All people (including us) do have faults and weaknesses, but thankfully, with God’s help, we can focus on their strengths.

• It is vital that we learn to accept the differences in all people.

• God created each person to be unique. Life would be boring if everyone and everything looked and acted the same.

• Making people feel significant begins in how we think about them.

• The mind is connected to everything else. If you want better relationships, examine how you think about the people in your life.

• People don’t always remember what you say, but they do remember how you made them feel.

Some years ago I had to face the fact that although I said, “I trust God,” my mind proved that I really didn’t. I wanted to trust Him, but the truth was that I worried and felt fearful and anxious in many situations. Being truthful with myself helped me to begin dealing with the negative mental habits that were hindering my faith. I can’t say that I am totally worry free at this point in my life, but I have come a long way toward the goal, and the less I worry, the less stress I have! There is no doubt that our thoughts and our stress levels are closely connected.

Through various articles I have read over the years, I have learned that stress and worry can affect our physical and emotional health in many ways. Physically, it can affect the nervous system and cause a variety of problems; it can also affect the musculoskeletal system, causing headaches and muscle tension. The respiratory system can be adversely affected, causing hyperventilation that can lead to panic attacks. Stress can also affect the cardiovascular system (increased heart rate, artery inflammation), the endocrine system (excess stress hormones released), the gastrointestinal
system (acid reflux, stomach ulcers, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome/diarrhea), and the reproductive system (lower sperm production, absent/irregular menstrual cycle). Emotionally, it can cause anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, and more.

When we worry, we are searching for answers to our problems, hoping we will find a way to control situations in our life, but the truth is that we were never in control anyway, because God is. Instead of using our power to attempt to control situations and people, we should use it to control ourselves. Instead of worrying about things we cannot control, we should control our worry!

We will never lower our stress levels unless we learn to think properly. By properly, I mean believing the best while trusting God to take care of our problems.

We can make any problem worse by worrying about it!

It is not God’s will that we live under the pressure of stress, and He has provided a way for us to avoid most of it.

There was a time in my life when I would have read these scripture verses and thought,
I wish I could do that when I have a problem, but I am just a worrier
. But now I know that God didn’t create me as a worrier, and since He has instructed me not to worry, there must be a way for me to avoid it! And here we run into the same principle I have been presenting throughout the book—to avoid worry, we must choose to think positively on purpose. If we are passive in troubled times, our minds will be filled with worry, fear, and anxiety, but we can choose to avoid the stress of those power-draining habits by
deciding
how we are going to think!

It is very important to remember to always lean on God and ask for His grace (strength, ability) to help you do whatever needs to be done. When it comes to renewing our minds and learning to think the way God thinks, I can tell you that mere “trying” in our own strength won’t work. We need God’s help every step of the way. He has equipped us with the “mind of Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 2:16). He has made right thinking possible for us, but we still need His help. God wants us to be totally dependent on Him rather than being independent. He is waiting to help you—just ask!

To
upset
is to make unhappy, disappointed, or worried. It is also described by words like
unsettle
,
disquiet
,
perturb
,
bother
,
agitate
,
fluster
,
ruffle
, and
unnerve
. I can’t imagine that any one of us would want to do this to ourselves, and yet that is exactly what we do when we choose to worry. Worry is meditating (thinking) about your problem over and over. While it may be wise to think through your situation and ponder if there is any action you should take to make things better, it is unwise to let the problem sit on your mind like a heavy weight for days at a time, interfering with good thoughts you could be thinking about.

The more we worry, the more tension we experience, and the more emotionally distraught and upset we feel. Our thoughts affect our emotions, and we can upset ourselves or calm ourselves down by what we choose to think about. If I continually think about the wrong things, I can get so upset that I feel as if I may scream! Some people say, “I feel like I am losing my mind,” and that is exactly what they have done. They have given up the control of their thoughts to an enemy who is bent on killing, stealing, and destroying (see John 10:10).

The main thing we must comprehend is that worry is a complete waste of time and energy. It creates stress in our bodies, and long-term stress has unbelievably destructive side effects.

When we feel emotionally upset, we can calm ourselves down by choosing to think on something other than our problems. Invite a friend who is a positive person to lunch, listen to some happy and comforting music, or go do something for someone else in need. I have found that reading material on the effects of stress may also be helpful. When we remind ourselves of the long-term
results of our actions, it may help us be wise enough to make a change in how we approach life before serious damage is done.

For a large part of my life, I had no idea what stress was doing to me, but I found out when I finally started having serious physical problems. I was working too hard and had done so for too long. I wasn’t sleeping enough, and I wasn’t saying no to people when I really needed to. My life was out of balance!

I kept praying for peace and thinking that if people and circumstances would just change, then I could have it. I finally learned that I was the one who needed to change and that it really wasn’t “my life” that was stealing my peace, but I was giving it up through wrong thoughts and reactions. My blood pressure was high, I had back and neck pain from tension, daily headaches, acid reflux, constipation, problems sleeping, and eventually an inability to relax the muscles in my body, which ultimately drove me to seek some answers.

Like most of us, I wanted an easy fix, so I went to doctors hoping for a magic pill to swallow once a day that would solve my problems. However, I became even more upset when the doctors told me that although my symptoms were very real, the root cause of my problems was stress. I actually got angry when they told me that, because I viewed stress as me not being able to handle life. I had convinced myself that I was strong and in control and that the doctors just didn’t know what the problem was, so they excused it away with the “stress diagnosis” that so many people hear.

As I continued to have more and more problems, God finally
got through to me by putting material in my hands that really helped me understand what stress was and how to begin eliminating it. I had to make several lifestyle changes, and if you are stressed to the point that it is becoming a problem, you will need to do the same thing.

Jesus said that when we are worn out and overburdened, our first response should be to come to Him!

Come to Jesus, talk openly with Him about the way you are feeling, and ask Him to reveal to you the changes you need to make in order to begin to heal. They say that only a fool thinks he can keep doing the same thing and get a different result. Prayer doesn’t always result in a miraculous delivery from our problems. More often than not, it results in God giving us wisdom and revealing what we need to do (with His help) to effect a positive change.

I like this short story that shows what a waste worry is:

Once when I went to Jesus about the stress I was feeling, He said, “Joyce, you think too much.” I do have a busy mind and tend to think about things that if left alone would work themselves out.

As I have had my “come to Jesus” meetings, I have received many simple but stress-relieving ideas from Him. For example:

These are only a few of the helpful things I have learned and now practice daily, but as you can see, they are all fairly simple things. Let me say again that the first thing to do when you are
ready for help is come to Jesus. He will guide and direct you into a healthy lifestyle.