Good thoughts…what do you do when a person struggles to stay focused on healthy thinking? One of my clients had difficulty changing her thoughts about self-abuse. She admitted that personal commitment was not happening! The black and white answer is “just do it!”
You see, recently this client had a breakthrough while managing her thoughts for the day. She reported that she was struggling with emotional eating and was procrastinating. Her work had a deadline for a project and she found herself “stuck.”
When we aren’t getting the results in our life, there is something else making all the decisions ~ Cindy Neeley
Good Thoughts are Conscious Thoughts
If we don’t manage our thinking we are not successful in keeping our focus on how much God loves us. Our thoughts default to our autopilot thinking. Autopilot thoughts are the old habitual thoughts created long ago based on how you perceived and judged life situations. It says in Proverbs 23:7 (NKJ), “For as he thinks in his heart so is he.” The word thinketh means doorkeeper of the heart and emotions.
Thoughts come from the soul–your mind, will, and emotions. Those thoughts communicate to the heart messages that can be positive or negative. Proverbs 4:23 (NKJ) says, “Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it springs the issues of life.” In other words, pay attention to your life. The painful decisions from the past run on automatic if you are not awake and aware!
It is easy to believe that our thinking is not faulty. Most of our painful thoughts are established before the age of five or six. It is scary to think that our pain as an adult comes from our 5-year-old or younger thinking. Of course, painful thoughts are also created at other times of your life,too. This is a good reason to spend time with God and allow His love to shine the light on those thoughts that cause you pain and bring fourth unhealthy and painful choices for the day.
Autopilot thoughts think they are protecting you
My client had a breakthrough when she was downloading her thoughts that did not produce what she wanted.overed something life-changing. Here was her download process.
Autopilot Thoughts
- Circumstance-I eat and avoid my life and work. I feel tired and unproductive.
- Thought-A lot of work to do for the project and I don’t want to do anything
- Feeling-Anxious
- Action-Eating and avoiding work
- Result-Going against weight loss and financial goals
New Thought Choice
- Circumstance – I eat and avoid my life and work. I feel tired and unproductive.
- Thought – I am productive and filled with love.
- Feeling – Peaceful
- Action – Working with ease
- Result – Work completed and making good choices toward my weight loss.
Enforcing Good Thoughts – A Meditation Exercise
Review your new thought choices. Get familiar with the new thought choice you want to establish in your heart and soul.
- Close your eyes and invite the Holy Spirit to influence your heart and soul with this new thought. Imagine the miracle-working power in your spirit strengthening your new thought. Keep your focus, repeating your new thought over and over.
- Now move into the new feeling. Feel this new thought and sit in it.
- As you experience the feeling, begin to see your self-do the action.
- Step into the result with your feelings and see the end result.
- Give thanks for healing in your heart and soul.
Good Thoughts – Where Did They Go?
My client said she felt a shift happen, and she established a good thought in her heart and soul. How many times do you receive a revelation, insight, or a powerful experience while at the altar in a meeting? I think most of us have. Many of us experience permanent change while other “aha moments” seem to vanish into thin air. Why is that?
So, the enemy comes to steal the Word. When you have an experience with God, generally your eyes are opened up to see the lie. Now you have the opportunity to change your mind, to go in a different direction. The Bible calls this repentance. This is where you stand on your new thought and speak the scripture into your life. You meditate, stay focused and present with what you want in your life.
Therefore, the intention is not to get God to believe that you believe the new thought, but to convince yourself of the new Biblical truth in your heart (Proverbs 4:23). Out of your heart come the issues of life. How could this new truth vanish? How did the enemy get the Word from yesterday?
Most likely, the new truth disappears because you have a deeper conflicting belief that wants to be released. That old thought will challenge the new thought you choose that lines up with God’s view of you. Our old patterns are habitual.
Autopilot in Action
In other words, our heart brain wants to be lazy and do automatically what has been established in the past thinking. This is what happened when my client kept going to the refrigerator to get something to eat when she was not hungry. She was avoiding perceived pain about her project. Her original thought had to do with, I don’t want to do anything.
When you notice this thought, you will recognize your avoidance at a deeper belief. For my client, she was unconsciously judging that she wasn’t loved. You see, her new thought was, I am productive and filled with love. That gave her peace. She could have decided on many other thoughts, but combining love with being productive created peace for her. Everyone is different. You will discover what you need personally.
Make sure your new thought works for you today. When a client tells me their new thought, I look at them and ask, “Can you believe this today? How does it feel?” Sometimes you pick a truth that you don’t yet have the faith to believe right now.
So, we grow in our new thoughts every day by continuing to choose and challenge the painful thoughts and create thoughts that are consistent with God’s love for us. We are to stand on the Word of God not how we feel.
This is what Jesus experienced in the wilderness. Jesus stood on the Word. He didn’t have a judgment from the past. When Jesus encountered pain, He didn’t self-evaluate. He felt uncomfortable feelings but didn’t blame the devil, others, or His Father.
Jesus is our example of how a heart can see God, His Father, as being loving towards Him, no matter what is happening or has happened.
Good Thoughts Take You Deeper!
As you can see, when you want to change your thinking, you have to notice what the fruit of your thoughts is. The morning after my client had her breakthrough, she realized that she had experienced a disturbing dream. In the dream, she was invaded by an abusive person. It brought up things she had done in her past and her feelings of abuse. As she lay in bed, she prayed about the dream.
Thankfully, she knew enough to say to herself, It doesn’t matter. I am a new creature in Christ. Therefore, I am a daughter of the King, and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. She made good choices by confessing the truth, but it didn’t change her feelings or actions.
Therefore, as a result, she stayed in bed late and felt depressed. After she got up, with a work deadline facing her again, she went to the refrigerator to get something to eat. She wasn’t hungry; she was avoiding her life.
However, she continued saying that she was a new creation in Christ! To know is to experience God’s love. We all know the truth in our intellect, but we must have it in our heart and soul. The questions she asked herself were:
- What happened to my renewed thinking?
- Lord, what new thought will it take for me to be free from this pain?
And so, with these new questions, she processed again.
Autopilot Thoughts
- Circumstance – A disturbing dream that moved my emotions
- Thought – The abusers are invading me. I am trapped. I must agree with them.
- Feeling – Destructive
- Action – Slept late, don’t feel well
- Result – Life is not fun agreeing with the message in the dream.
Earlier, when my client made a new choice, it challenged deeper judgment toward herself. A dream about her past revealed that she still had autopilots, unconscious thoughts about herself based on the past. The new thought, I am productive and filled with love, took her out of the victim mentality.
Simply, the dream challenged her thought life at a deeper level within her heart and soul. She discovered another layer of thought that drove her feelings and behavior after she made a new thought choice. You see, this came from her past abuse circumstances–The abusers are invading me. I am trapped. I must agree with them.
She thought it was wrong to come out of that victim mentality. She didn’t think this consciously, but it is so easy to not be present in our thinking.
Using the observation of painful fruit in your life gives you a cutting edge in transforming your thoughts. ~ Cindy Neeley
New Thought Choice
- Circumstance – A disturbing dream that moved my emotions
- Thought – I am redeemed, Jesus took my pain. It is safe to be supportive to myself
- Feeling – Hopeful, peace
- Action – Exercise, write and create
- Result – Another day closer to success in weight and finances
Go back to the first process of thought choices above and meditate on your new thought. Establish it.
Stay Connected to the Doorkeeper!
The Amplified version of Matthew 13:23 states: As for what was sown on good soil this is he who hears the Word and grasps and comprehends (understands) it; he indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundred times as much as was sown, in another sixty times as much, and in another thirty.
The Strong’s Concordance says:
Hears – to attend to, consider what is, or has been said. To give ear to a teaching or teacher. To comprehend, to understand.
Understand – To set or join together in the mind
In light of this, good thoughts come when you think upon, ponder, and agree with what the Spirit of God (Who lives in you) says. If you have bad fruit in your life, something that isn’t from God’s promises, then connect to your doorkeeper–the thoughts within your heart and soul–and welcome Jesus. He believed His Father in painful experiences, and He helps you become rooted and grounded in His love and truth.
Therefore, I encourage you to abide in your heart and soul with Jesus. He is the Healer. Jesus is the light that heals our heart and soul. Managing your thoughts is the key to living in the blessing of God. It was purchased for you through Jesus Christ, our Lord. By faith and your thoughts, take what is yours and be a contribution to the world.
For we are His workmanship, created inChrist Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10 NKJ
Conclusion
I hope this helps you see how you can apply these same tools to your own life. For more processing tools, click here. As always, if you would like for me to help you work through some issue in your life, please contact me at Cindy@CindyNeeley.com. I look forward to hearing from you.
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Blessings!
Cindy