Take Control of Your Thoughts!
It can often feel like we do not have control over our feelings, behaviors and thoughts. When we become emotionally heightened we may feel, do, or say things that shock us and leave us asking ourselves where did that come from? This is where it becomes important to take our thoughts captive which means taking back control over them. In regards to our thoughts and behaviors we do actually have control over them! Our feelings are the only aspect that we do not have control over. This is because our feelings are trying to tell us what is going on inside of us. They are a byproduct of our parasympathetic nervous system which is trying to make meaning out of our current situation through the lens of previous experiences. This is why our feelings can sometimes feel as if they came out of nowhere.
Our thoughts and behaviors are another story. These are both actions; thoughts are internal actions while behaviors are external actions. Actions, we can control. You may be saying, wait I have a lot of thoughts that seem to come out of nowhere. That is because our thoughts are initially automatic because they are beliefs we have about ourselves that have been reinforced throughout our lives. Our thoughts, feelings and behaviors are a triangle. Each affects the other two which is why it is important to take our thoughts captive. But how can we do that, it seems really hard? Yes, at times it will be hard, but here are four steps to help you get started!
Notice you are having an emotional response: Sometimes we experience emotional responses in ways that we do not even realize we are having one. This may be because we are holding those emotions in our bodies. In Western society we are not generally very connected to our physical reactions which can look like stomach aches, tense muscles, headaches, etc. We may notice those symptoms, but may not understand why they are happening and need to label it.
Sit with it and accept it: Now that you have noticed your emotional response, we have to sit with it as well as accept what we are feeling. We often try to reject our feelings saying things like “Oh man, I shouldn’t be feeling like this.” When we do this we are fighting with ourselves over something we can not control. Remember, our feelings/emotions are our bodies' way of trying to make meaning out of our current experience so no emotion is wrong. As mentioned earlier, our thoughts can initially be automatic too, which means we are making assumptions about a situation. While our initial thoughts may not be our “choice,” once we acknowledge that we had them, we can make an active decision to change them and reframe our thoughts.
Slow down and take a deep breath, be present in your body: So far we have noticed our emotional and automatic thought responses and have sat with them and acknowledged their presence. We may still be feeling emotionally heightened though, so this is the step where we take a minute to recenter our bodies. In step one, we noticed our physical response to an emotion, in this step we ask ourselves what is going on in our bodies. What emotion is causing this response? It is important to slow down and take several deep breaths. Research has shown that by taking deep breaths we literally slow our bodies down and give control back to our prefrontal cortex, also known as our logical brain.
Think about your desired outcome: This is the last step to taking your thoughts captive. During this step we have to gain an understanding of what we are hoping will happen. When we are in the midst of an emotional response, or knee jerk reactions, we are generally not thinking about what we wanted to achieve by our reaction. Maybe our desired outcome was connection or to have our partner understand our expectations. The key to every conversation is clarity and connection which is hard to achieve in the middle of a reaction.
Here is an example of a situation where you may need to take your thoughts captive. A wife sees that her husband appears to be irritated. Her instant reaction is that she has done something wrong and is scared he is irritated with her. Now this is an assumption that comes from an internal message she has told herself over and over again which has reinforced it. These messages or beliefs are often taught to us in our childhood or other personal relationships. One question to ask ourselves when this happens is who’s voice do you hear telling you that message? Maybe it was a parent, coach or a teacher. By identifying where you first heard this message you are not blaming that individual, you are just trying to gain an understanding of why you are having the reaction and can then reframe that belief. One way to do this is to acknowledge that she made an assumption, give her husband the benefit of the doubt (maybe he had a really hard day at work) and come back to the conversation with compassion to try to understand what is really going on.
As mentioned above, these steps can be really hard and they must be practiced! Just like athletes and musicians, they must be practiced over and over again. Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, that it takes 10,000 hours of active practice to become an expert at something. The skill of taking our thoughts captive is one that we have the opportunity to practice thousands of times a day on our own. We have emotional responses to everything that happens to us!
This may still feel like an impossible task, but Matthew 19:26 Jesus said “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Relationships are hard, two individuals are coming together with different life experiences and are trying to understand each other. God will help us and give us the strength to do this, but we have to still have to show up and try. With that trust in faith we can take an active role in taking our thoughts captive, thus changing our behaviors.
