The New Bible Cure for Depression & Anxiety (4 page)

Chapter 3: Joy-filled Living With New Thought Patterns

One day a minister went to preach at another pastor’s church and stayed in the pastor’s guest bedroom. When he arrived at the pastor’s home, he was very tired and simply ate dinner with the pastor and his wife and then promptly went to bed.

In the middle of the night he was suddenly awakened by a rustling noise coming from the corner of the bedroom. He quickly sat up in bed, but he was unable to see clearly since the room was very dark. But as his eyes adjusted to the light, he was able to see a large dark image in the corner of the room that appeared to be moving and making a strange rustling type of noise.

He was very afraid, thinking that a ghost, apparition, or dark ominous spiritual presence had entered the room. He immediately began to pray, and after a few minutes he was relieved to see that the apparition had stopped moving and the strange noise had ceased.

However, the strange apparition would begin to move again and make the strange noise every twenty minutes or so. This continued to occur throughout the entire night, and he remained staring at the corner of the room. He was very anxious, fearful, and trembling as he continued to watch and pray throughout the night.

Finally, in the morning when the first rays of dawn appeared, the minister was then able to see clearly. What he had been seeing was not an apparition at all. What he was seeing was actually an old dark raincoat hanging on a coat rack in the corner of the bedroom! It would rustle and move as the air conditioning vent blew on it.

The minister couldn’t believe he had wasted so much time and energy and lost a good night’s sleep worrying about something he had actually concocted in his mind. It wasn’t even real!

This is similar to the distortional thought patterns that we create in our minds. Most of these thought patterns are imaginary and not based on facts. This book will act as a light similar to the first rays of dawn, enabling to you to recognize these patterns and mind-sets. In this chapter I will teach you how to tear down strongholds and mind-sets and replace them with the Word of God. When these strongholds and mind-sets are torn down, you will learn how to practice gratitude and then enter into the peace of God.

It All Starts With Your Thoughts

Your interpretation of traumatic events and your mental programming form thoughts that become beliefs. Your beliefs then lead to feelings that lead to choices, words, actions or behaviors, and reactions. When you continue to repeat behaviors, words, choices, and reactions, these will eventually lead to habits. Habits then form your character. Your character then determines your destiny. I like the way Dr. David Yonggi Cho explains the effects of our thoughts on our actions in his book
Fourth Dimensional Living in a Three Dimensional World
:

To the extent that we mentally map out our plans for success and carry out those plans accordingly, our assurance of success increases. However, if a person is more focused on failure than on success, the likelihood of his or her failure will increase. When our minds dwell upon success, our thinking will yield positive outcomes, and the fulfillment of our dreams will be expedited.… Once you start believing that something is possible, the likelihood of your taking the action to achieve that goal will greatly increase.… Thinking influences your feelings and behaviors, as well as your physical body.… That is why we must begin thinking in God’s ways, not our own.
1

Your thoughts affect not only your physical life but your spiritual life as well. Dr. Cho says that your thinking is like “spiritual breathing.”
2
He means that your thinking is as vital to your spiritual life as breathing is to your physical life. Because it affects everything you do, your thinking is the way God carries out His plans in your life. I encourage you to read Dr. Cho’s book
Fourth Dimensional Living in a Three Dimensional World
for more information on the power our thoughts have in our lives.

Both depression and anxiety are thought disorders. When you learn to tune in to your feelings and begin to capture anxiety-provoking thoughts and beliefs, you can then replace these automatic thoughts and beliefs with God’s Word, which will resolve both depression and anxiety. You can literally change your thinking and change your life.

It is impossible to dissect every thought because you have literally tens of thousands of thoughts every day. However, you can tune in to your feelings. Feelings can then alert you to what you are thinking, which is usually at the root of your anxiety.

In 2 Corinthians 10:4–5, Paul states, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (KJV).

Realize that these two verses in 2 Corinthians talk about thoughts, imaginations, and strongholds. An anxious thought will become an anxious imagination or belief, which, if dwelt upon, over time will become a stronghold or a mind-set.

To help you understand this process, think of the preset radio stations on a radio dial. When you push one button, you’re listening to the talk radio station, and when you push another button, the Christian music station is tuned in.

Your preset belief system, usually formed in childhood, eventually becomes a mind-set or what is called a stronghold in the passage from 2 Corinthians. When you operate from preset beliefs, you feel anxious without even knowing why. You then act on these beliefs so much that you bypass even thinking about them and simply feel anxious. In other words, you react before you think.

You will learn, when anxious feelings occur, to track your anxiety triggers, thoughts, and beliefs. Then as you reprogram these thoughts and beliefs, anxiety will subside and eventually go.

Romans 8:5–6 says, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (NKJV).

This verse shows us the importance of dwelling on spiritual thinking rather than worldly (“of the flesh”) thinking. The things we dwell on create mind-sets. Worldly mind-sets lead to depression and anxiety, but spiritual mind-sets lead to life and peace. Peace is the opposite of anxiety, and we can develop peace by reprogramming and tearing down all mind-sets or strongholds contrary to God’s Word and replacing them with scriptures.

Detecting Viruses in Your Mental Computer

Most of the thought patterns you have today have been learned from your parents or other figures of authority. When you were born, your mind was like a brand-new computer with brand-new software. Your thinking “powers up” your computer and launches the “operating software” that runs your life. Your parents or the people who raised you were the primary programmers of that operating software. If your parents programmed it with praise, contentment, gratitude, love, and joy, you are likely to go through life with these types of attitudes and expectations.

Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.

—Ephesians 4:21–24

But if they programmed it with worry, you will be prone to worry; if they programmed it with fear, your automatic reaction is fear; if they programmed it with expecting the worst, you will expect the worst. Your parents may have programmed limitation into your thought patterns by telling you that you will never be smart enough, you will never make it, you will never be successful, or you are not talented enough.

My purpose is not to have you start blaming your parents—after all, their thought patterns were likely programmed by their parents, who were programmed by their parents, and so on. My goal is simply to help you understand where your thought patterns originated.

It actually all began when Adam and Even disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. They allowed the virus of sin to infect the hardware of humanity, and from that point on, every heart and mind has been infected. We have been programmed with depraved thinking, negativity, hopelessness, anger, and insecurity.

When Christians are born again, we receive Christ’s forgiveness for our sins and invite Him into our
hearts
, but many Christians never purge the bad software from their
minds
even though the virus of sin has been removed. We need to learn to identify the feelings, thoughts, and beliefs that are distortional and replace them with the Word of God until God’s thoughts and beliefs are automatic in our minds and in our hearts.

Think about our computer virus illustration for a moment. What happens when a virus gets into even the best computer and contaminates its software? At first, certain parts of the computer will not function properly, and it loses speed. Eventually the computer freezes and eventually may not run anymore.

So it is with your mind. Sinful viruses infect your life, contaminating your software with bitterness, unforgiveness, resentment, hatred, jealousy, anger, rage, and more. If allowed to spread throughout your system, they can affect your ability to function properly, just like a computer. Soon, not only are your mental health and emotional health affected, but your physical health suffers too, leading to depression, anxiety, and a host of physical diseases.

I wholeheartedly believe that these negative thought processes and toxic emotions are at the root of many diseases and health problems. In my practice, I lead many patients through something I call “forgiveness therapy” as an initial step in their treatment.

I then teach them how to recognize feelings, beliefs, and thoughts that trigger depression and anxiety. These patients learn to replace their distortional thought patterns and beliefs with God’s Word. I also emphasize the importance of practicing contentment, gratitude, and joy to literally insulate the heart and mind from anxiety and depression. (I will expand on this later in this book.)

However, too many doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists are treating depression and anxiety with medication or psychotherapy that simply treats the symptoms; they never get to the root cause.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

Dr. Aaron Beck was a psychiatrist trained in the standard psychiatry of his day. Decades ago, he used analysis of his patients’ dreams in order to find clues to their depression, anxiety, and anger. He also used free association, which was a standard Freudian tool to have a patient discuss their thoughts as they occur.

By the 1960s, Dr. Beck was dissatisfied with this approach. He found that when his patients let their thoughts run free, they typically left their sessions feeling worse instead of better, but when he helped patients develop a practical approach to problem solving, they tended to improve significantly faster.

Based on these findings, Dr. Beck began to work with his patients to help them recognize, dispute, and reprogram their automatic thought patterns. This later became known as cognitive therapy or cognitive-behavioral therapy.

In cognitive-behavioral therapy, a patient learns to examine his thinking and question any negative beliefs, assumptions, or feelings. When negative thought patterns—“If something bad is going to happen, it will happen to me”—are broken, the painful expectations that accompany them lose their self-fulfilling power, and most people experience a dramatic improvement.

What I have learned over the years in referring patients to a cognitive-behavioral therapist is that many improve, but most still need to be programmed with the Word of God (the Bible).

In Matthew 13, in the parable of the wheat and the tares, the parable states that the kingdom of heaven is like a farmer planting seeds in his field, but at night after the workers left, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat.

Distortional thoughts are like weeds planted in your mind and heart. They grow up to become huge strongholds that can have you literally imprisoned in depression and anxiety.

To defeat these strongholds, you have to learn to recognize and pull up these weeds and then plant the “incorruptible seed” of God’s Word, which prevents more weeds from growing. When this seed of the Word of God is planted in your mind and heart, it literally produces a harvest of peace, joy, gratitude, and all of the remaining fruit of the Spirit. (See Galatians 5:22–23.)

You should not be content to merely read God’s Word; you need to have it “planted” in your heart. This means you need to have certain Scripture verses committed to memory so you can recall them anytime you need to spiritually combat any negative, distortional thoughts.

The good news is that there are only ten major distortional beliefs that need to be reprogrammed. I’ve listed some of these in my books
Stress Less
and
Deadly Emotions.
The distortional thought patterns listed below are the ten most common patterns I encounter in my patients. They are similar to ten distortional thought processes identified by Dr. David Burns, a renowned psychiatrist and author of
Feeling Good
. Some of these distortional beliefs are associated with depression, some with anxiety, and some with both.