Four Mental Hygiene Tips Podcast Episode

But I’m really encouraging listeners to think about transformed thinking. What does it mean to have Jesus with us and the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word with us? And what that does is it brings a renewed mind, okay, that doesn’t think what like our natural human being thinks. Mental hygiene in an emotional sense is really supercharged by being in the Word. 

Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services, the very last of 2019. And I’ve got Ted Witzig, Jr. with me. Ted. Hello, Matt. Glad to be here. Great to have you here. You know, it’s pretty common that we have resolutions during this time. 

And often those resolutions are about our bodies. Yeah. Right. Many are about weight loss or exercising. Eating better. We’re going to turn that leaf, right? This one takes that to another level. We’re going to go to the cognitive space. Yes, to our thinking. So, I have brought Ted in here to give us four mental cognitive hygiene tips for 2020. 

Does that make sense? So yes, what do you think about when I say hygiene? So yeah, when most people think of hygiene one of the things they think about is getting your teeth cleaned. You can you brush your teeth, and you keep them clean. Why do you do that? Well, you try to prevent cavities. You try to keep things going. 

Well, in the counseling world, we talk about mental hygiene and that is trying to keep our minds and emotions in a healthy place, trying to prevent other things like depression or anxiety. If somebody has depression or anxiety, using tools like this can help them to come out of that. 

Nice, so it does work both ways. It does preventative in the sense that this is a way to stay healthy. That’s right. But if you’re not in a healthy place, this might be a way out. That’s correct. It works both ways. The Bible talks a lot about our thinking and our mind and about how the renewing of that mind, how important that is to our spiritual walk. 

It’s also very important to our emotional health. And so, the Bible actually in Proverbs 23:7 says, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Can I put my finger on something? I think that’s important here. And that is the ramifications for thoughts. Yes. Thoughts have effects. That’s correct. What you’re saying is we respond emotionally or behaviorally based on our thoughts. And the fascinating thing is it doesn’t have to be true.  

Let’s talk about something called cognitive distortions. Cognitive means thinking and distortion is a skewing of things. So, I want you to think about the glass’s lens. You and I both wear glasses but imagine that your lenses were green. 

I would see green. You would see green. When you looked at me, you’d see green. When you look at you, you’d see green. Cognitive distortions are like colored lenses. And what they do is they filter the way that you think. Right. We can’t escape viewing the world through our lenses. That’s right. So, when we talk about thought hygiene or mental cognitive hygiene here, we’re talking about something that’s impacting us 24/7. That’s right. Because we don’t process the interaction with our neighbor without those lenses. Yeah. We don’t process what just happened at work without those lenses. Right. And the state of the family without those lenses on. 

That’s right. And so, one of the things that we’re wanting to do is we’re wanting to help clear those lenses. It is important to remember that in this process of spiritual growth, one of the things we’re doing is we’re trying to by the Holy Spirit, by the Word, by solid biblical teaching, hymns, those things for our minds to be cleaned, purified, and for our thinking to be healthy and in tune.  

Okay. I love the vision that you just cast with that. All right. I mean, if we just all imagine for a moment, suppose I thought like Christ did. Okay. That’s my lens now, right? Now let’s think about that neighbor interaction, that workplace interaction, the home place interaction. That’s right. This is really big. It is.  

So now we’re going to look at four different cognitive distortions. So, you are going to highlight some distortions that can change the way we think about things. So, number one is called all or nothing thinking. Okay? All or nothing thinking. It’s when we have that lens on, we’re seeing things in absolute black and white categories. Now, one of the things I want to say is, I’m not talking about moral issues, like, should you steal or not steal? There is such a thing as a right or wrong. Yes. But what all or nothing thinking does is it makes something that isn’t an all or nothing into an all or nothing. 

We’re not trying to say that either has to be perfect or a failure. It’s kind of like everything is either 100 percent or 99 and below is failure. Yeah. So, what happens is when we do that, we accidentally expand the definition of failure to encompass all of life. You have a bad day or a good day. 

That’s exactly right. And often, if you have any problems in the day, which might only comprise an hour and a half of the day, but it colors the day bad. That’s exactly right. And so, what we want to do is we want to actually be able to see that saying, is it perfect, or is it all or nothing is actually the wrong question. A lot of the time, because most of the time things are mixtures. Oh, you had some parts of your day that were rough. Okay. But you had some other parts that went fine. People do this for lots of different things. They can do it about their weight. They can do it about if they’ve gotten things done. 

Another one like that, the list of things that they want to accomplish in a day. They got 10 things done, but they didn’t get X, Y, and Z done. And so, what? It was a lost day. Okay. So, what we want to do is actually take an example, like Bible reading. People are like, okay, I’m going to start this new year and I’m really going to get into the Word. And what they do is set goals. Like I’m going to have this devotion, and they map out the perfect devotion. Okay, devotional time, we’re going to read and they’re going to pray and they’re going to journal and they’re going to do all kinds of things. And resolutions end in February because of all or nothing thinking. 

Absolutely. And that’s the key here, because we set a really high goal that sounds ideal, then what happens when you can’t keep it? It goes to nothing. Okay. And so, it’s either perfect or a failure. And you know what? We need to get ourselves out of that box. I would encourage it. People to think about what we’re actually after is something that’s meaningful and manageable. 

While the answer does include maybe not having such a high standard, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t have a high standard. All right. It just means how you evaluate meeting the standard or being progressive and directional and making progress, right? That’s correct. It’s one thing to pursue what we call pursuing excellence. 

Okay, we want to pursue. That’s like pursuing just doing your best. One of the phrases my daughters have grown up with me saying to them is, do your best and leave the rest. You are measuring the right measure. That’s correct. Okay. So, you can have a goal. Oh, yes. Which is totally fine to get a certain grade or whatnot. But you don’t measure your wellbeing based on that goal. You measure it on effort. Yeah. Right. I think there’s some really insightful thoughts there that we reflect and measure the right things. It’s very important because if we get off of that, what we do is we start to give this all or nothing quality to something that God didn’t give an all or nothing quality to. And goals are fine, but we do need to know how to have, for a lot of things, a good enough.  

The next one is called mind reading. And this one is when we assume that we know what other people are thinking and that they’re judging us negatively. Okay. So, if I walk into a room and two people are talking and then they stop talking. It about me and it was negative. 

That’s right. Now, it’s good to try to anticipate other people’s needs. Like, for example, we’ve all been at a restaurant, and you have a really good waiter, they’re watching what you’re doing. And you know what? They’re interpreting those cues. They know when you need water, when you need another napkin to check in with you. It’s anticipating the need.  

But mind reading says, they’re thinking or what if they’re thinking and that creates a ton of internal tension. Yeah, because we’re trying to live up to somebody’s unspoken standard. And we do this a lot. It can be, oh man, you know, they probably wish I wasn’t here, they think I sound annoying. They think I look too whatever. He thinks I sound dumb. You know, I think there’s an element here too, Ted, that lies within us. So, for me to project that mind reading exercise on somebody is really for me to project ill in that person. Oh, that person’s not being gracious. Yeah. And there’s something unfair there. 

And I think, let me chase down my point. Do we assume good in others, I think goes a long way, right? Yep. We should be operating out of the yay, nay principle here. That’s let your yes be yes and your no be no. And don’t question motive. Oh, did they really mean this, but said that? 

Yeah. In fact, I think we should do that maritally. I think we should do that with our coworkers, people at church, with our children. So, for example, if I say, hey, Matt, is it okay if I do this? And you say, Sure, Ted. Okay. Then it means sure. That’s it. Okay. That’s what it means. And I’m not playing this game with you that he said sure, but he didn’t mean sure. 

And you said, yes. And I’m assuming friendship and goodwill here. That’s right. And one of the best things we can do is if you wonder, Matt, what I’m thinking, just ask me. And I’m not trying to say that every person is always thinking positive thoughts. If I’m in line at the grocery store and the guy four carts back looks like he’s impatient and mad. He might be impatient and mad, but I think one of the things about this is that we oftentimes are then filling in the gaps in our own mind and instead of saying, yeah, this is frustrating. We all have had to wait in a line, and we all have said, oh no, he’s mad at me. He’s probably cussing at me in his head and all these things. And then we’re responding to that. We’re going into our own fight and flight response. 

Play Mad Libs. Right. You know, you fill in the blanks. You got a partial story with blanks. You got a word list, and you just put them in there. All the funny things that come out of that story, right? And really, we do that all the time. That is the game we play in mind reading. Yes. Okay. So, let’s see now what should this blank be? I think it’s that. Yeah. And it changes the reality drastically. It changes it a lot. And so, with the yay, nay principle, my encouragement for the New Year is get out of other people’s heads.  

How about number three? Number three is called emotional reasoning, and it’s essentially reasoning from how you feel. So, you take the emotion and reason backwards. So, if somebody is in a social setting and they go, oh man, I’m kind of feeling awkward, I don’t know who to talk to next. Therefore, I am awkward, and everybody knows I’m awkward. Okay. And so, it’s like the presence of the emotion proves the fact of something. Lots of us do this and it’s very problematic because we start treating our emotions like truth. So, it’s a little bit like this, I feel anxiety, so people must not want me here. Or I feel guilty therefore I must have done something wrong.  

Okay. So let me say this. It’s a little bit like a train. The caboose follows the engine. Yes. And you want that engine to be good at cognitive thinking. That’s correct. And that emotional caboose will come by and compliment that reality. Is that true? That is true, but we’re switching it. The caboose is out front of the train. Okay. Here’s another one. Sometimes people will say, well, you know, Ted, I know that God loves me, but I don’t feel it. So, what their emotional reasoning will say is, it feels like my prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. Therefore, God doesn’t love me or therefore God isn’t interested in me.  

Another one. This happens with folks who have eating disorders a lot and it will be like; I feel fat when my doctor says that I’m not. So, the point here is that it’s putting the emotion in the wrong place. Emotions are good. I’m not trying to put emotions down or say get rid of them but what I’m saying is emotions are not the source of truth. Okay, the way I like to think about it is you want emotions to be a passenger in the car. You don’t want them to be driving the car, okay? And it’s great for them to be a passenger in the car.  

So, for example oftentimes with emotional reasoning, people will reject compliments. So, it’s kind of like this, so let’s say you felt a little bit insecure. You’re having people over for supper and you’re grilling something that you’ve never done before. And you’re feeling a little bit insecure about that. You’re not sure how it turned out. But your guests say, hey, Matt, this was really good. Okay. Emotional reasoning goes, yeah, but I’m not that good, you know? Yeah. But I’m insecure. I feel insecure. So, you know what? I push it away. And unfortunately, that pushes away blessing, and it pushes away opportunity.  

So, for example, if somebody goes to a social thing and they’re feeling, you know, I’m not sure who I’m going to sit with or talk with or whatever, then what happens is their social anxiety about that says, you know what? I just don’t feel like I’m a part of this. Okay. Well, guess what? Satan loves that because we can be in a crowd and feel alone, right? Right. Nobody here is interested. Nobody would be interested, you know, and so because the feeling is there and feelings come for a hundred different reasons and feelings come and feelings go and they tell you, just that what I’m feeling right now. So, my thought for the new year is to remember that feelings are not facts.  

Okay. And when your feelings and the truth are in conflict, always go with the truth. So, for example, take that one of somebody says, I’m just not feeling like God could love me. Well, actually, you can tell that’s a statement about how that person feels. It’s not a statement about God’s capacity to love. Sure. God is love. Yes. But when that person says, I don’t feel lovable. Okay. But the Scripture says that God loves me. Okay. I need to live like that truth is true and then let my feelings catch up. So, I need to live like the engine is truth and let the caboose of my emotions trail. Yeah, that’s good. Okay, great.  

All right, let’s go to number four. This one’s called catastrophic thinking. Sometimes it’s called magnification, and this is kind of worst-case scenario thinking. Now it’s important to know, you can get catastrophic feelings because oftentimes what ifs are involved. Oh, no, what if this happens? Yes, and it feels like that would be intolerable, like we couldn’t handle it. So, here’s some of the things where this happens. You’re trying something new and saying what if I fail? Say you’re hosting something. What if nobody shows up? What if somebody doesn’t like me?  

And you know what happens with catastrophic thinking? It never accounts for God’s grace. It just doesn’t. It accounts for our anxiety on steroids. Yeah. Well, I just want to pause. That statement is actually very profound. It never accounts for God’s grace. It never does. No. So let’s just run this out. Yeah. As a parent, you might catastrophize about an illness with your child. Absolutely. Right? Sure. And then really work yourself up into a frenzy should that happen. But always void in that imagination is God’s presence in that moment should it actually occur. 

That’s correct. Does that make sense? That’s what you just spoke there. Yeah. Which I think is incredibly insightful. Well, you know why it’s so insightful. It didn’t come from me. Okay. When you’re catastrophizing about the future, you’re not at the future, and therefore God hasn’t given you the grace for that thing yet. 

So, could an antidote to this type of thinking be just that? Okay. And God will be there. And I think that’s part of how we deal with catastrophic thinking, is we realize, wait a minute, God will provide for us. His faithfulness is sure. Yeah. So many of the times we look at things like making mistakes or somebody not liking us or whatever. 

We look at those as catastrophic. The reality is, Matt, that I like to sentence them. I sometimes have clients write it down. The reality is you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to burn something one of those times when you’re having company over. Somebody somewhere isn’t going to like you, and you will still live. And we need to have this reality check on our thinking because sometimes it feels like, oh, no, this is the worst, and I couldn’t deal with it. You know what makes me wonder, and we just read Job in church on Sunday, so this is in my head, but I wonder if the example of Job in that account is given to us to say that God puts a cap on bad circumstances. 

All right, let’s paint the worst possible outcome. Okay. And what do we learn? God was there. Yeah, he was still there. Anyway, it just made me think of that as we think of the worst-case scenarios that we come up with. Yeah. And the thing is it robs our emotion. It robs our sense of calmness. And that’s why we want to just come back to the present moment. And so, my encouragement with catastrophic thinking is twofold. One is, to remember to bring God’s grace into this moment. The next thing is, when you’re very anxious about something, sometimes the best thing to do is step back. 

That’s step number one. Calm down, get some perspective, then re-engage. And it’s important because you know what? Sometimes when our thinking is the cloudiest, when our lenses are the cloudiest, that’s when we’re trying to figure everything out. Okay. And we just have to be careful because our thinking is best when we have some calmness, and we can have perspective. 

I want to just leave you with Romans 12:2. It’s right at the beginning of Romans 12. There are just beautiful verses, actually the whole chapter. But I want you to think about this for a second, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 

The thing I wanted to highlight here is just that this transformation he’s reminding us of here is a word that comes from the word metamorphosis. I mean, it’s like going from a caterpillar to a butterfly. And you know what, I’m not just trying to encourage everybody here to disuse the power of positive thinking. I want you to use positive thinking, don’t get me wrong, but I’m really encouraging listeners to think about transformed thinking. What does it mean to have Jesus with us and the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word with us. That’s what helps us with these things. I don’t have to catastrophize. Why? Because the Lord is with me. 

I don’t have to mind read because I can use the yay, nay principle and I’m just going to be straight up with people and I’m going to expect them to be straight up with me. And what that does is it brings a renewed mind that doesn’t think like our natural human being thinks. And so, that’s why ultimately mental hygiene in an emotional sense is really supercharged by being in the Word and thinking how does Jesus think about this? 

And what a difference that’s going to make. Yes. Thanks, Ted. Thank you, Matt. And thank you all for being with us. We trust that the content here today is helpful as you gather your thoughts about the new year upcoming. Thanks for being with us.