Free yourself from patterns and habits of irrational thinking …

As a Christian clinical therapist, I practice an integrative therapy that includes key elements from Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT). At the heart of CBT is a concise understanding about human beings that can be summed up in a single sentence:

Our thoughts create our emotions, and the combination of our thoughts and emotions creates our behavior.

Given that insight, you know that if you want or need to change your behavior, you must change your thinking. If you want or need to change your emotions, you must change your thinking. And, of course, if you want or need to change your thinking … well, you have to change what and how you think.

Changing our thinking is the greatest need of humanity! It’s the place God starts with us because we must change the way we think to be disciples of Jesus Christ:

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect,” Romans 12:2.

“Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God — truly righteous and holy,” Ephesians 4:21-24.

Not only are our minds fertile fields of sinful thoughts that need to be transformed, we human beings tend to habitually think more irrationally than rationally. In fact, we’re capable of creating whole irrational dialogues in our minds about others; those irrational thoughts then generate corresponding emotions, which result in behavior from our irrational thinking. A great example of this was captured in a short story published in Our Daily Bread by an unidentified writer:

I read a story recently that made me smile and set me to thinking.

One dark, rainy night a salesman had a flat tire on a lonely road. But to his dismay he had no lug wrench. Seeing a nearby farmhouse, he set out on foot. Surely the farmer would have a lug wrench, he thought. But would he even come to the door? And if he did, he’d probably be furious at being bothered. He’d say, “What’s the big idea getting me out of bed in the middle of the night?” This thought made the salesman angry. Why, that farmer is a selfish old clod to refuse to help me!

Finally the man reached the house. Frustrated and drenched, he banged on the door.

“Who’s there?” a voice called out from a window overhead.

“You know good and well who it is,” yelled the salesman, his face red with anger. “It’s me! And you can keep your old lug wrench! I wouldn’t borrow it if it was the last one in the county!”

We might laugh at such a seemingly silly story, but we don’t laugh when our own streams of irrational thinking generate the same kind of irrational scenarios in our own minds. So let’s look briefly at a few simple steps to help us think more rationally:

Develop greater self-awareness. So much of our thinking isn’t even done at a conscious level, and we live such busy lives that we rarely take time to be aware of what we’re thinking! By becoming more self-aware, we can better determine the rationality of our thinking.

Develop a greater awareness of your “self-talk.” We’re always talking to ourselves, constantly streaming thoughts and “conversations” with ourselves, but often with little awareness of what we’re saying, even to ourselves! By becoming more aware of what we’re saying to ourselves, we can then redirect those thoughts to more rational thinking.

Allow God to transform your mind. While we’re instructed in scripture to change our thinking, only God can transform our minds. Cooperate with God to let His Spirit work within you to do a work of transformation that only He can do. You can cooperate with His transforming work by:
– Filling your mind with scripture.
– Be guided in your thoughts and life by prayer.
– And yield to the leading of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Let a professional clinical therapist educate and equip about thinking rationally. A competent, skilled clinical therapist can not only teach you how to examine your thinking for patterns of irrational thought or habits of cognitive distortions, they can also help you learn how to overcome such patterns and habits to think more rationally.

Let a mature Christian disciple you. In the middle of a wedding ceremony, a jewelry store manager exchanged rings with his soon-to-be spouse. As he slipped the ring onto his bride’s finger, he said, “With this ring … we guarantee a full refund if the customer is not completely satisfied.” His sales pitch was so deeply ingrained in his mind that the words came out automatically!

What’s ingrained in your mind?

The Bible has much to say about what should be in our minds, such as:

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise,” Philippians 4:8.

Being discipled by a mature Christian is a key way to learn how to cooperate with God’s transforming work in your mind, and how to fill your mind with things that will lead to a more rational, holy way of thinking, complete with the emotions and behaviors that come with such thoughts.

Scotty