Are you a negative person? Do you tend to overthink? Does overthinking tend to lead you headfirst into a downward spiral that ends with you being miserable and in a mental fog? Start Renewing Your Mind Now!
I used to fall into this horrible spiral myself. I was able to get out of the cycle only recently in fact. So believe me when I say I know it never seems easy.
In today’s society, you find 2 polar opposite groups. One group seems to almost obsess about mental health, putting everything you do say, think and feel under the microscope. While the other may as well tell you to ignore what you’re feeling, shove it down, and pretend it doesn’t exist. I believe we find the answer somewhere in the middle.
Obsessing over everything you say, feel, and think is not healthy. You will more than likely quickly find yourself stressed out, full of anxiety, angry, and/or depressed. Staying in your own head when all that is in it is negativity will obviously only bring you down.
While we should be mindful of what we say, think, and even feel, that does not mean we should obsess over it. At the end of each day or maybe even at the end of the week whenever you can find the time. Stop and take some time to introspect. Were you angry a lot or sad? If so, why? How did you handle it? Were you able to move past it or maybe resolve a problem you had with somebody?
Once this introspection is done, take from it what you need and strive to do better. Getting out of your own head and looking at things from an outside perspective and introspection is very important.
Yet shutting down and ignoring your emotions would be like turning the stovetop on high with a pot of water on it and walking away. What tends to happen when you do that?? It boils over and sometimes it can even burn you.
As human beings, we each have a multitude of emotions we experience every day. Sometimes those emotions can last for hours while others may only last for a second. A flash of anger or depression, if correctly combated, can and should only last for a brief moment.
How can I possibly say that you may wonder? Well, anger and depression both tend to come from a place that uses little to no reasoning. So most of the time all that is needed is a little bit more thought toward the matter.
For example, if you get a flash of depression over feeling like you’re not a good mom, you worry whether or not your kids feel loved. Once you get out of your own head and think back on the day, how many times did you see your child smile, laugh, come to hug you, spend time with you, or maybe even straight outside that they love you? If any of these happened even once chances are they do feel loved.
As for anger, sometimes you only need to ask yourself who being angry is serving. Who was benefiting from you being angry? Does the person you’re angry with care or do they even know? If they do know, do they care to resolve the problem you may have with them?
Whether or not the person you have a problem with or are mad at is aware of it being angry only hinders the situation. It will either leave you simmering in your own anger, likely to lash out at someone completely innocent which will then hurt your relationships with others and then in turn hurt you. Or if that person is willing to talk to you to try to solve the problem, being angry is going to make communicating with them that much harder, so much harder than it needs to be. Therefore being angry isn’t going to help anybody so why hang on to it?
When negative emotions pop up, take a second to stop and analyze them. Where are they coming from? What can be done to resolve them? Sometimes you may find that there is no reason for them, at least none that is apparent at this point. I would point you to 2 Timothy 1:7.
There is a reason why The Bible says that the heart is deceitful. If we are not mindful and aware of ourselves it can easily lead us into that downward spiral. The heart is a very unreliable source especially when you take into account that mental attitude has a large part to do with your emotional state. That is part of the reason why the Bible says we are supposed to renew our minds each day.
Jeremiah 17: 9 – The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Romans 12: 2 – And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
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