Renewing Our Minds Study: Wrap Up!

We have been on a journey of many weeks, and today we get to turn our focus to how you can integrate all this information in order to use it to keep growing.

Let’s begin by summarizing all that you’ve learned along the way

All of our emotions and behaviors begin with our thoughts

And we have the ability to choose our thoughts. It isn’t easy, and it takes a lot of time and practice and patience, but with the right tools and support, it is possible to build mental habits.

We used a combination of scripture, neuroscience, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as our foundation to learn how to choose our thoughts. 

That’s a lot, so let’s break that down into smaller components!

Neuroscience: 

We learned in the very first week that our brains are incredibly and wonderfully made. Science supports that God actually made our brains with the ability to create new neural pathways. In other words, with the right practices, plus repeating those practices a great many times, we can make it easier for our brains to access the thoughts that serve us best.

It takes a lot of practice, but the science is there, so we can trust that if we put in the practice, it will happen!

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy:

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy essentially teaches that trying to run away from challenges rarely works, so instead it embraces the idea that life can be hard, but when we learn to accept that reality, it is the first step in developing psychological flexibility.

Psychological flexibility is the ultimate goal of ACT therapy, and it can be thought of as the ability to ride the waves of life. 

Psychological flexibility is the ability to be present, open up to difficult emotions, and take action guided by personal values, rather than by rigid thoughts or avoidance.

ACT helps us become more resilient, and reduces distress by fostering core skills like acceptance, cognitive defusion, and mindfulness.

Once we can learn how to accept, then mindfully unravel from challenging thoughts, we can then choose the actions we want to choose.

And through ACT we learned that the ultimate goal is to be able to choose actions based on your values!

So, while life will always present us with challenges, with psychological flexibility and mindfulness and acceptance, we can become capable of living out our values even in the face of those challenges! 

Scripture:

We used the Bible and our faith practices to learn how to lean on God as our source of all peace, goodness, and righteousness.

We discussed dozens of verses, in order to make our mindfulness practices about connecting with peace in Him, through prayer, gratitude, and appreciation for His provision.

A few concepts we studied along the way

Strongholds and cognitive fusion

We discussed how strongholds are lies that we believe, that keep us stuck. Strongholds are often rooted in a hurt we have experienced, but the hurt isn’t the stronghold- the lie we tell ourselves is the stronghold. An example may be that if you were told you weren’t smart, you struggle with feeling insecure about your intelligence. You’ve bought the lie that you aren’t smart.

Cognitive fusion is similar, but different. Cognitive fusion is an ACT concept that refers to when you get stuck in a mental loop. You can fuse with a stronghold, but you can also fuse with anxious or sad thoughts, or even your to-do list!

Cognitive fusion is the process of getting so entangled with thoughts that you see them as literal truths rather than just mental events.

So, instead of recognizing that your thoughts are just thoughts- the stories we tell ourselves- we are fused when we can’t disentangle from them because we are allowing ourselves to believe them to be facts!

Defusing from thoughts is the goal, and we can achieve that through acceptance and mindfulness practices, as well as prayer and turning to God as the source of peace. 

Our input matters

What we take in through our eyes and our ears will influence our mental and emotional and spiritual health. 

We live in a broken world. There is ugliness on social media, on the radio, on the news. It’s everywhere. That is the truth as long as you live in the world.

We discussed tools to manage our input and that you have the ability to filter and focus your energy. You can choose to turn off your phone. Or you can use your phone to listen to worship music or connect with a loved one. You can choose to spend time with the people that help you stay in the mental and spiritual space you desire. 

We used Philippians 4:8 as a practice of focusing on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. 

And the remaining part of our time together addressed specific challenges like insecurity and negative self talk, depression and despair, and defining what true happiness looks like. Check out previous posts in this study!

And then we spent our final weeks working on practices to create those new neural pathways and make them stick!

So what are your next steps?

Hopefully if you’ve been here the whole time you have grasped the idea that Renewing Your Mind will be a lifelong practice.

So your next steps are pretty simple: keep practicing!

You have all these posts with all this information, and if you are a part of our Ready to Hope community, you have a number of people with the same shared language. They understand what you’ve learned and that means that you can support them and they can support you!

And if you aren’t a part of our Ready to Hope community yet and would like to be, please email us here! We want to connect with you and support you!

Renewing Your Mind won’t be easy, but you know it’s possible, and worth it.

Our ultimate goal as Christ followers is that we live our lives with the end in mind. 

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

2 Timothy 4:6-8

This life isn’t easy, and no one knew that better than Paul.

Most of us will never sacrifice for our faith at anywhere near the degree to which Paul did, but we can look to his example for a way to approach our lives.

If you want to truly fight the good fight, continually renewing your mind in Christ will be a valuable practice.

Through the many lessons we learned here together, we know that it’s okay that this life isn’t easy, because it’s not about an easy life, but one lived in such a way that, at the end, we can say that we fought the good fight.

So, we face challenges, big and small. Some are little blips in our day. Some take us to our knees for weeks or months or years.

But the tools remain the same.

Renew your mind. 

Accept the challenges, even welcome them as tools to help you grow.

Continually and repeatedly turn to your source. Fight the good fight. 

And never forget how loved you are.

If you’re interested in joining our outpost that discusses topics like this, and also offers a place to join a community of young adults, email us here!