September 2016 — A Mood Therapy Handbook - "Come, follow me, Jesus said". Paul's words to the Ephesians in 4:22 . . .put off the old self to be made new in the attitude of your mind, and put on the new self.

10 Minute Read Bible Verses NIV

“All a man’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart.” – Proverbs 21:2

You may be telling yourself, “God understands me; He doesn’t expect me to be perfect; Oh, everybody thinks that, I'm not prejudice; People just need to accept me the way I am; Everybody does/says that.” God does know you – the negative event; the emotions in your heart; your thinking; the way you talk; your defense(s), and attitude(s). The apostle James addresses your comments: “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue deceives himself, and his religion is worthless” – James 1:26.

God loves you unconditionally means He will love you despite the negative. He also wants the best for you. The best is to become a better disciple of Christ, by transforming to your new self. God’s desire is that the new self be more like Jesus – to be made new by the attitude of your mind. Apostle Matthew (12:36-37) writes that Jesus tells the Pharisees, “But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” Is this enough spiritual knowledge to decide to work daily on changing your critical thoughts, and statements, by reprogramming your brain – by the renewing of your mind?

“What do you want me to do for you? Jesus asked him.” – Mark 10:51

When faced with difficult events/situations, most Christians have been known to say: “Lord help,” or “I need Jesus.” Even though the request has been made, the next step reveals your thoughts, language, defense, and attitude. Your responses are the battles of the mind. God already knows how you will respond, “O Lord, you have searched me and know me” – Psalms 139:1. If you think of God always knowing the negativity in your character, is this not a good reason to want to change to please Him. Acknowledging your negative response(s), is done with the help of the Holy Spirit; and the desire to change is prompted by the need to please God. It is your chosen will to try and listen to the directive of the Holy Spirit. I commend you for wanting to make changes that bring peace. God will also honor this step towards His plan for you life.

Your thought process, after a negative event/situation determines the development of negative language, an attitude, and defense. For example, after a negative event you decide your emotions are a sign of weakness, or too painful to feel. Now when you see objects, persons, places, etc., that are similar to the negative event/situation, you have a prejudicial anxious defense and attitude towards all of them. Some of you may think about a negative event/situation, as you are reading this article. This is a natural process for the mind. The example of how the negative event affects you is for your knowledge only. For you, CCBT is not a process of thinking about a past negative event/situation. If you become obsessed in thinking about the event/situation, or feel this is something you need to do, I highly recommend you seek assistance with a therapist.

“When Jesus saw her weeping. . ., he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” – John 11:33

The emotions of the heart are real and are to be accepted and not ignored. Acknowledging God given emotions is mentally healthy. Real men and women do have sorrow and they do cry. People have many reasons for crying, that may not match yours. Crying is not an automatic sign of weakness, or not trusting God; and really important for releasing emotions. When you try to push back, or ignore your emotions, you have to justify your feelings and that’s when you resort to the negative thought patterns. Jesus did not deny his emotions ("Jesus wept." - John 11:35), and you are trying to emulate him.

Distortions are false/ungodly dysfunctional universal thoughts and automatic. Dysfunctional universal means that they are used by individuals that have a negative way of thinking and speaking; and are not aware of these patterns. These negative patterns are noticed by positive people, and for the positive, the negativity is very draining emotionally and physically; they usually can’t be around negative individuals very long. (Research shows that distortions are universal for people that are depressed and anxious; and also patterns of those that use food to control their emotions).

There are 5 stages to developing negative responses; positive and negative examples are below:

An example of the positive: You and your friend work at a company and have the same job and pay. They get a promotion and a pay raise. You are very excited for them, because they completed their degree to get this promotion. The other emotion that you feel is sadness. You were taught to acknowledge your emotions and describe them. You decide the reason you feel sad is that you will not be able to work together side-by-side. But you think, your friendship is solid and you will continue to have lunch together and go out. They invite you to the celebration. You stop on the way and buy a gift, because you are so proud of your friend.

An example of negative 5 stages: Same scenario as above; except you are not happy for them. You are sad, but are uncomfortable with this feeling. The discomfort causes you to push it away, as you have always done. Like the toddler, your hurt becomes anger (McKay and Rogers, 2000). To justify your anger, you think they believe they are now better than you, and too good to hangout (distortion). They ask you to go with them to celebrate their promotion. You tell them you’re too busy and need to work late. From then on, every invitation to lunch, or to hang out is declined with an excuse (lying). They call you out on your excuses and ask if there is anything wrong. You reply, “Since your promotion, you're different, and see me as someone with no ambition” (distortion with critical tongue). You need to deny/not process the true feeling of sadness/hurt; and claim you are not angry, which lead to the ungodly attitudes of jealousy and envy. The relationship ends and you blame your friend, which is another distortion. They are confused and hurt and wondering how you can come up with such negative thoughts about them.

The next section provides you with 5 stages of developing negative responses. The list in each stage is not finite, but an attempt to get you to think about what relates to you. Each stage is a process of how the heart and mind work together to produce the ungodly thoughts, tongue, defense and attitude:

1st STAGE

Emotions/Feelings in the Heart - Not Processed/Ignored:

despair trapped abandoned melancholy (depressed)

anxious fearful different angry

inadequate helpless guilty obsessed

intimidated nervous left out distress

rejected powerless stupid lonely

worried messed up vulnerable other ________

2nd STAGE

Critical Thoughts - Cognitive Distortions (Burns, 1999): As you read the list of distortions with examples, please identify those that affect you. Write down your negative thoughts so you can see which of the distortions you’re involved in. This will make it easier to think about the problem in a more positive and realistic way. The ones you identify are the ones you will work on changing to the truth. When the distortions are learned and practiced changing to the positive, then you are on the way to the 2nd step of CCBT and your transformation. (The 3rd step is discussed in October). Being a positive person, you can assist by also learning the distortions and correcting a family member, or friend.

Jumping to Conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. “I’m not going to a party, because I won’t have fun.” “If I go on vacation like everyone else, I will lose my job.” You make negative assumptions about what people are thinking; what they will say; and how they will act/behave, or anything about their past, present, and future. Remember only God has these attributes.

Mind Reading: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out. “This person is trying to do something to me.” “I know what they are thinking.” “I know they are talking about me, when they are whispering.”

Fortune-telling: You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established fact. “I know I’m going to get the run around.” “I’m a loser that’s why I will never get married, no one wants me.”

Mental Filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that overall reality becomes darkened, like the glass that is discolored by a single drop of ink. “I failed this morning so the rest of my day is ruined.” “I really messed up that presentation, there was too much sun on the screen and it was hard to see, I'll never get it right.” “I woke up late; it’s going to be a bad day.”

Labeling and Mislabeling: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing an error, you attach a negative label to yourself. “I’m a failure,” or to someone else, “he/she’s a jerk.” Mislabeling involves describing an event, or person with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. “That was a really stupid graduation.”

All or Nothing Thinking (no shades of gray): You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. “I really messed up this time that makes me a total failure.”

Overgeneralization: You see a single negative event as a never ending pattern. You don’t get the job you were applying for, “I’m never going to get a job.” “A person like that was rude to me, all those kind of people are rude.”

Catastrophizing/Magnification/Minimization: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up, or someone else’s achievement). Or, you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities and the other’s imperfections). “I made a mistake, I’m ruined” (catastrophizing). You get an important award but tell yourself, “That still doesn’t really mean I’m accomplished in my field” (minimizing). “I didn’t get an ‘A’, I’m a failure” (magnification).

Personalization: You feel that someone is directing their actions, or words at you. “He/she did that to irritate me.” Or, you feel you are responsible for something bad happening. A colleague gets fired and you determine that, “It must be my fault because I didn’t show them the ropes.”

Blaming Others: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or for every problem. “Stop making me feel bad about myself!” “You made me hit you.” “Look what you made me do.” “Because of you, I didn’t get the promotion.” Only you have control over your own emotions and emotional reactions.

Implied Should Statements: You ask someone for a behavior change, or action without actually saying so. You imply that they should be doing something else. “Don’t you have something better to do?” (“You should leave me alone”).

Should Statements: You motivate yourself with should(s) and should not(s), as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. The emotional consequence is guilt. “I really shouldn’t have done that.” Must(s) and ought(s) are also offenders. When directed toward others, it’s done out of anger, frustration and resentment. “He/she should help me.”

Emotional Reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions reflect the way things really are — “I feel it, therefore it must be true.”

Please continue to pray and begin memorizing the distortions so you can recognize when you and others use them.

3rd STAGE 4th STAGE Critical Thoughts of the Mind Producing the Critical Tongue

nobody here likes me God can’t love me they will sabotage me I’m stupid

he/she won’t go out with me I will never be happy

those people can’t be trusted they think I’m worthless

all church people are hypocrites they’re judging me

he/she thinks he’s/she’s so smart you don’t know how to do that (negative tone)?

you don't value me what about me?

5th STAGE

Ungodly Defense (d) and Attitude of:

passive aggressive (d) control of others envious cynical

bitterness manipulative condescending arrogant

road rage holding a grudge regression (d) spiteful

no self confidence prejudice noncommittal no grace for others

avoidance/shy lack of empathy blaming others (d) denial (d)

no determination gossiper grouchy acting out (d)

fantasy (d) projection (d) withdrawal (d) negative assumptions (d)

complainer liar jealousy self destructive habits

An example of a positive 5 stage: You and your friend work at a company and have the same job and pay. They get a promotion and a raise in pay. You are very excited for them, because they completed their degree to get this promotion. The other emotion that you feel is sadness that you will not be able to work together side-by-side. But, your friendship is solid and you still have lunch together and go out.

An example of a negative 5 stage: Same scenario as above; except you are not happy for them. You are sad, because you think they believe they are now better than you, and to good hangout. They ask you to go with them to celebrate their promotion. You tell them you’re too busy and need to work late. From then on, every invitation to lunch, or to hang out is declined with an excuse. They call you out on your excuses and ask if there is anything wrong. You reply, “Since your promotion, you are different, and see me as someone with no ambitions.” You need to deny/not process the true feeling of sadness/hurt; and claim that you do not have the ungodly attitudes of jealousy and envy. The relationship ends and you blame your friend, which is a distortion. They are confused and hurt.

" . . . The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him he will be found by you, . . .” - 2Chornicles 15:2

Being committed to the work of Christian CBT, to change the mind, the heart, the defense and attitude is not an easy process, nor is the journey with God. To work on changing yourself into a new creation of Christ likeness is a daily battle of exercising the mind (Romans 7:15 – . . . “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”). Teaching you Christian CBT is simple, but learning to change your negative responses takes hard work. The hard work is exercising the mind by doing homework on a daily basis along with prayer. With God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, you will be successful in being made new, as you work having the hope of change in the forefront of your mind. “ . . . For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him” – 2Chornicles 16:9. Using Christian CBT, to make changes is a daily process of:

1st P - prayer: integrating prayer consistently and meditating on God’s word
2nd P - process: recognizing your negative thoughts, language, and ungodly defenses and attitudes
2nd P - process: changing each negative thought and statement to positive (think about what is the opposite of the negative)

The key to stopping the negative that is false is to be determined to believe the reverse –positive, which is the truth. You will be successful, because you have the Trinity to encourage and strengthen you daily. God really wants you to be the person He planned for you to be – God don’t make no junk! "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; . . ." Jeremiah 1:5. “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” – Jeremiah 29:11.

Please continue the CCBT process by meditating daily on God’s word, with continual prayer; and daily practice of turning the negative into positive. Renewing the “Attitude of Your Mind” is an attempt to assist you:

as you climb the mountains of life’s journey
to get back on the road God planned for you
to be your best disciple of Christ

When you reach this mountain top, you will look out at a beautiful colorful life trusting in the Trinity.

Until next month – Give God the Glory,

Dr. Terri L. Thompson