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I came across these videos on YouTube that have been a blessing and a help for me recently. The channel is called, “Therapy In A Nutshell” and the host is a licensed marriage and family therapist and her name is Emma. She has a beautiful gift of teaching and is able to share in comprehensive ways very helpful tools that can help improve our mental health.

I would not be sharing this new tool I found if I did not find it valuable and helpful for my own mental health.

I want to share with you just one nugget that has been significant for me.

Let us begin with defining cognitive distortion first.

A quick look on the internet and we discover Wikipedia providing the definition of cognitive distortion as “an exaggerated or irrational thought pattern involved in the onset or perpetuation of psychopathological states, such as depression and anxiety. Cognitive distortions are thoughts that cause individuals to perceive reality inaccurately.”

The Lord dropped in my spirit the phrase, “change the way you think and it will change the way you feel.”

And so I asked Him to show me what thought patterns I had, whether consciously or subconsciously, that are not healthy for me. And He answered this prayer through the discovery of these videos that share on the patterns of thinking we can fall into without meaning to that are harmful for us.

Some of these I had already been made aware of, but there were a few more that I was falling into habit of doing that I was not aware of.

Here is a list of the patterns of thinking Emma shares about that can lead to or keep you struggling with depression and anxiety:

1. All or Nothing Thinking

2. Overgeneralization (always or never statements)

3. Black and White Thinking

4. Mind Reading (assuming how others think about us)

5. Catastrophizing (what if…)

6. Emotional Reasoning (when your feelings do not accurately reflect your reality)

7. Labeling (labeling self or others based on behavior)

8. Mental Filtering (dwelling only on the negative/criticism)

9. Personalization (everything is about you, taking things personally)

10. Unreal – Ideal (comparison with others)

As I find more healing with my mental health and past trauma, I still find myself struggling with bad habitual ways of thinking that reinforce depression and anxiety.

I strongly believe in the importance of healing wounds in our souls and hearts in order for us to find more peace and freedom, as well as, being delivered from mindsets that contain lies from the enemy.

However, in order to move forward we also have to learn how to think with a new and healthy mindset, replacing the old habitual thinking patterns and the deception.

If I can pinpoint something I am doing and label it, along with identifying it as an unhealthy way to think, then I can be better at taking that thought pattern captive. We cannot change what we do not know is causing us mental damage.

I will admit that I tend towards number six on the above list where my emotions and feelings dictate a reality that is not true. When I heard about this cognitive distortion in particular, I realized that I often fall victim to this.

Being able to label what thinking pattern I am falling under in a given moment has been super helpful for me to cease thinking in that way. And the truth of how our emotions indeed follow our thought processes, leaves me understanding of why I am actually feeling a lot more joy even within stressful situations.

I also tend to dwell on the negative that has happened in my past and I realize that this pattern of “mental filtering” is not productive for me at all. There are times we need to process our past and pain in order to move forward in healing, but to continue to allow those thoughts to roll around in our minds way too often will affect our moods.

Keeping those times of processing within set times is helpful for me. Times when I journal and need to process or times when I talk with my counselor. And in order for me not to allow those memories to impact the rest of my day, I do a mental activity taught to me by my counselor of bottling it up and putting it away until our next meeting time.

Another freedom I found in the simplicity of practical tools found from this channel is learning how to reframe my perspective of a situation in order to not feel stuck or trapped. If we truly cannot change a challenging situation or a job we are in, we can still change our way of thinking about those situations that can free us from unhealthy mindsets.

That’s another nugget for another time. But me choosing to be vulnerable with sharing this is to encourage you to learn how to develop healthy thinking patterns that will bring your mood up. And to check out this amazing resource that has been a blessing to me!

Go check out the channel, “Therapy In A Nutshell” on YouTube if you want more tools like this!

When the Lord is about to do something great in our lives, and mostly when He is about to free us from a stronghold and deception, the enemy begins to fight harder. 

The Lord wants us free, but the enemy does not.

And if we had eyes for the spiritual realm and witnessed the battles going on, we would have a clear understanding of what was actually taking place behind the scenes so to speak.

I am reminded of when Daniel sought the Lord for understanding in the Old Testament and a heavenly messenger, sent to answer him, was held up by a real spiritual enemy.

“Then he continued, ‘Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.”

Daniel 10:12

When I think back over the significant moments in my life where God was acting on my behalf and moving in a mighty way, I certainly can recall the waging spiritual battles that always took place right before what God had planned manifested in the natural. 

I am very sensitive to the spiritual atmosphere and I would always feel the back and forth of these battles.

And I admit that I struggled believing what the Lord promised me would take place in the heat of these battles. It is not easy to hold onto what He already said when the fruit has yet to be revealed of His arm at work.

There is a lot of waiting after the Lord speaks to us what He will do for us. And what I find the most difficult is what to do in that waiting season.

We are tempted to not trust the Lord at that time as the enemy is literally trying all he can to pull us from our seats of confidence and assurance in the Lord. 

And the fight to keep faith and belief in the goodness of God is very real. 

I share this with you because I am currently waiting on the Lord in this season for things He promised me. And the wait can be sweet and troubling all at the same time.

How I personally cope with these real mental battles of my faith is raw. I will journal, I will go on a walk, I will ask the Lord repeatedly to confirm what He told me (and this I do a million times!). 

I will cry out to Him when the waiting is too hard and overwhelming, and lament of my suffering and pain till He moves on my behalf as He promised me.

I will declare out loud my trust in Him and how I believe with all my heart that He will come through for me. I will remind myself often of what He spoke to me and of His faithfulness. 

I will thank Him for answering my cry and telling me again what He’s already told me dozens of times.

And then a new day comes along and I do this all over again. 😉

This waiting sounds awful, but the Lord somehow understands what we are going through and He helps us in it and strengthens us when we ask Him to.

What would be to our advantage is to use our waiting seasons to deepen our relationship with God. To be willing to converse with Him more and be more dependent on Him. 

Today, as I was talking with the Lord on a walk, He reminded me that the battles always grow more tense right before He steps in and His will takes place. And that brought me much comfort because for me personally, the last few months have not been so easy.

If your situation is growing more tense and you feel the spiritual battle strong, then know that it is simply a fearful reaction of the enemy that God is about to move big! Do not give up and keep waiting on Him.

In this eighth vlog on my mental health journey, I will go deeper into the storm I experienced within my heart and soul. I will also be sharing how feeling boxed in within my ministry contributed to my burnout and mental health not doing well. Not living out my true beliefs and ignoring things I valued on a deep level impacted me more than I realized!

It has been brought to my attention by a dear sweet friend that the idea of self care has been moved into a category of simply doing whatever you feel is right for you and that feels good for you.

All over social media there are voices that encourage self care, and there is nothing wrong with the idea of taking time to care for yourself. We need to step back and care for ourselves, this is healthy and right. 

However, the suggestions and hints of self care also involving choices made in the name of “self care” that actually produce more harm to us rather than good is what we need to be careful of.

What do I mean by this? 

When you make a choice to allow yourself indulgence of a habit that is not good for you as a whole, then labeling this “self care” contradicts the idea of what self care is about. 

Saying to yourself, ‘I deserve this’, ‘I need to care for myself in this way’, but deep down inside you know that you should not be participating in whatever it is that you feel is right for you, is not a healthy way of caring for yourself.

In fact, the opposite is taking place. What some deem as “self care” is in fact “self harm”.

Why as believers have we come to a place where we think it is okay to follow our culture’s rhythm by agreeing that a certain activity or choice is right for us?

Who are we fooling? God? Ourselves? Others?

We are fooling no one, but ourselves. 

Self care is choosing to believe you have great worth and value. It’s believing that you are loved unconditionally by your Father in Heaven and it’s making choices that reflect these beliefs in your heart.

When I got wind of some believers feeling justified in their decision to stay away from church as a point of self care, I felt grieved. They made this decision because they were hurt by some in the church or they experienced real spiritual abuse in the church. 

That pain and grief is not being dismissed when I share this. Church has now become a trigger to that pain and stepping back for a season from attending services is not altogether wrong and bad. 

And seeking help for those wounds is important.

However, allowing those wounds to be the drive behind making a decision in the name of “self care” to never attend church again is not healthy.

I have stepped away from attending church at different seasons in my life because I was working through such wounds, but the church is not the problem. 

Christ desires us to come together and be His body. There is actually healing that can take place when you attend a healthy church and surround yourself with mature believers. 

And do understand that being a part of a body of believers does not bring you closer to salvation or in good ranking with the Lord. It is a choice made as a result of understanding salvation comes by faith alone and understanding who you are in Christ.  And recognizing the Lord has plans for you to be a vital part of His body in service to Him.

“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” 

1 Corinthians 12:27

When we talk about self care, I think it is important to place that even on the altar. 

We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit with how to truly care for ourselves. We need His correction when we are just being immature or selfish in our pursuit of self care, and we need to always seek to honor the Lord in these decisions.

If you need to step away from commitments or just the busyness of life because you are exhausted and feel burnout, then take time to rest and heal and recalibrate the pace of your life. And ask the Lord to help you live a more balanced life where you are not always drawn to making extreme decisions in the name of self care.

There is a need for godly wisdom as we navigate what’s broadcasted before us on any type of media. Any trend that leads you to make choices that contradict what is taught us in the Word of God, is not a trend that you should be a part of. 

We are to pursue righteousness and holiness in Him, and as my friend shared with me, not a life that only makes us happy and comfortable. We should strive to put the interests of others above ourselves.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.”

Philippians 2:3-4

The life that seeks to please the Lord will not be easy and comfortable at times, but it is a life that brings us joy and freedom and true peace. 

God knows what is best for us more than we know ourselves. He wants us to care for ourselves, but not at the cost of hurting our relationship with Him, others and ourselves. 

In this seventh vlog on my mental health journey, I will continue to share God rebuilding my foundation in Him and how that reflects His loving nature for us. God might allow storms to enter our lives, but He never abandons us within those storms!

There are things in our lives that the Lord wants us to be forever free from.

We are sometimes aware of these things and sometimes blind to them, whether they be specific unhealthy relationships, old mindsets, or old behaviors and vices.

God’s heart for you to be set free is so intense and there is good reason why.

Because finding true freedom from these chains brings life back into us, real life.

His desire for you to live free from the things that seek to entangle and choke you will, not surprisingly, allow you to enter into situations meant to bring to the surface such strongholds making you aware of what needs to be removed and dealt with.

We want to be delivered out of tough situations and God wants that for us as well. He desires to set us free and for us to learn how not to walk back into those entanglements again.

If we believe we are in a tough situation, treated badly by others, or are tied to certain wrong behaviors and beliefs because we think we deserve them and that is who we are, then our freedom is lost in that faulty mindset. 

Our freedom has been won and fought hard for by the Lord, so why do we not live out that freedom in our daily lives?

Walking in the freedom that He has given us is a process of growth on our part. As we latch onto the truth that we have the mind of Christ and we allow our minds to be continually renewed by His Word, then our freedom is manifested more and more.

A lot of us have given up on this freedom we have in Christ because the journey towards manifesting it in our lives is longer than we expected, and because we sadly do not believe that the Lord wants us free.

But He does. 

He wants your freedom to become a real part of your life more than you realize. 

When we begin to believe that God wants us free, and I mean truly free, then we discover so much about His heart and love for us. 

We have been made free in Jesus. He bought our freedom and freely gave it to us. We do not have to work for it, but simply walk in it and believe Him and what He did for us.

Paul talks a lot about the freedom we have in Christ in the New Testament. And he also warns us to not make ourselves slaves again to anyone, to any false mindset, and to any sin.

You are free. Nothing holds you down. And if you feel enslaved by anything, any situation, anyone, or any mindset then know that is a lie coming from the enemy. 

God wants you to be forever free in Him. Free from sin, free from beliefs that are not of Him, and free from those that harm you. Believe this truth that He wants your freedom even more than you do.

In this sixth vlog on my mental health journey, I will be continuing to touch on the Lord breaking up my foundation, and how He revealed to me through several dreams what He was about to do and allow to happen in my life for that process to take place. God breaks up our foundation in order to rebuild it up again in Him! Let this encourage you if you are walking through your own storm in life and know that there is purpose in it.

Here is part 2 of my recent “uncut” video! This video and blog post below all came out of a dream I had, shared in part 1, where the Lord showed me how our worship and praise of Him is literally a weapon against the enemy. I continue to share more on our spiritual armor and how to keep it on us through our individual spiritual practices and pursuit of the Lord. Be blessed Friends!

Blog Article Here:

“Our Weapons”  https://thebarbes.com/our-weapons/

 

The Lord is wanting us to make more room for Him in our lives and in our hearts.

He is moving us towards being prepared for more souls being saved, more lives being changed, and more hearts receiving healing.

However, in order for us to be a part of what He is doing and is about to do, we need to be ready ourselves for such a move of Him.

Making more room for God in our lives translates to putting aside our selfish desires, our idols we have upheld instead of Him, and becoming a child of God that pursues Him wholeheartedly.

This is the activity He is calling us to while we wait on Him to move in a mighty and holy way.

Keeping our hearts free from this world is a work that must be intentional.

If we took time to think about what hinders our closeness with the Lord, whether they be bad habits or even good things, and we put them aside while at the same time putting our energy into seeking Him, we will find that we have begun the process of making more room for Him.

An idol in this context simply means putting anything, anyone or any activity above the Lord within your heart.

When we struggle and we seek comfort in anything else besides going to Him, this can be telling of our hearts and of our lack of love for Him.

This pursuit of Him and holiness also walks a fine line with becoming self righteous and living out a works based salvation. So in order to be free from those strongholds, continue to ask the Lord to check the motives of your heart while you pursue after Him.

There are countless believers that “appear to pursue” Him, but only for a show before others, or for what they can gain from God. Some, in their pursuit of righteousness, begin to have thoughts that they are better than those that are not pursuing God as hard. Still others are trapped in a works based salvation because they cannot freely receive what the Lord has given them and they feel a need to work for it through doing good. Yet, God sees right through these wrong motives and knows the pursuit of Him is not pure in heart.

Making room for the Lord within us requires an abandoning of anything that holds us back from knowing Him, from fully obeying Him, and from allowing our love for Him to deepen.

This is the sanctification process, the process of being made holy and set apart for God. If you have salvation in Christ, you have been justified. But allowing the Lord to uproot out of you those fleshly parts of you and those worldly mindsets is allowing Him to bring you more to maturity. This is sanctification.

A lot of believers walk around content with being made justified alone, being made righteous in the sight of God through Jesus, yet they refuse to allow God to work on their hearts and minds and remain just as they were when they first believed.

But there is so much more to our Christian life than just that first step of receiving salvation. There is a relationship the Lord wants us to have with Him that is real and deep and that brings us the heart and life change He promises in His Word.

Let me challenge you today friend, to make more room for the Lord in your life.

In this fifth vlog on my mental health journey, I will be sharing with you how as a result of witnessing the Lord heal a young woman in a nearby hospital from a blood disease, I gave God full permission to break up my faulty foundation of beliefs. Having a heart that is purely bent on knowing Christ more will ultimately lead us to yielding to how the Lord wants to work in our hearts and lives.. and all for His glory!