Obsessive and demanding thoughts…

     Our brain is like a computer storing information and memory. It collects storage through our five senses:  sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Collecting and storing begins at around ten weeks in the womb. Some information is good:  a mother’s nurturing voice, soothing music, seeing laughter spread across a face, a warm hug, the smell of baking bread, the taste of chocolate cake. Some information is necessary:  learning to crawl, climb, walk, dress, wash, brush hair and teeth, talk, read, and so on. Other information is skill:  math, science, geography, drawing a picture, playing a musical instrument, practicing athletics, driving a car, running a machine, building a building, etc. Memory is absorbed through experience. Some experiences are decent and enjoyable, some are adverse, regretful, and injurious, even damaging.

     Obsessive thoughts can be a direct result of adverse or damaging memory. The brain compares a current experience with a stored memory. If the current circumstance triggers injurious or damaged memory, thoughts wrestle for a solution. But, thoughts cannot resolve the past, thus they become obsessive, reviewing and rewriting circumstances over, and over, and over again. Obsessive thoughts also develop when one has little to no control in life. The brain endeavors to organize, and gain rightful jurisdiction. It attempts to empower a person with internal questioning and obsession, like a committee meeting in one’s head. Attempts to solve damaged memory, or gain control through internal recycling, can result in neurosis [hang-ups, fixations, kleptomania (impulse stealing), phobias, hysteria, psychosis, and mental illness].

     Demanding thoughts place pressure and condemnation upon us. They usually result from improper nurturing, and/or lack of guidance [discipline meaning to teach and train] in childhood. As a result, the child begins to question their God given instincts, censuring reality, becoming uncertain about truth, what they literally see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. And, this is true of domestic violence [verbal, mental/emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual abuse; a hostage/bondage relationship]. When reality is censured, and/or disapproved of by someone in authority [a look, a tone, a gesture], natural instincts repress [stifle and smoother inside], and thinking begins to warp [distort, and pervert]. The outcome is mental self-questioning, discounting instincts, self-blame, self deprivation [deficiencies, denial, eventually deception]. To compensate demanding thoughts rehearse and re-rehearse every word spoken, examine and re-examine each detail of behavior. The effect self-judgment and self-criticism, though negative, a form of worshipping self.

       Obsessive and Demanding thoughts attempt to numb inner insecurities, inadequacies, shame, fears, hurts and the like with intellectualizing, analyzing, rationalizing, justifying, defending, excusing, blaming and more. Consequently, we expend and exhaust ourselves in assumptions and judgment.

       Obsessive and Demanding thoughts busy themselves formulating answers rather than listening to a speaker. Consequently, our listening skills fall into deficit.

       Obsessive and Demanding thoughts flood the mind, like waters rising above flood stage overflowing onto the banks of sanity and sensibility. The flood seems to intensify in quiet and solitude, i.e., at bed time. Consequently, our mental and physical well-being deteriorate.

       Obsessive and Demanding thoughts turn, twist, and distort reality by filtering actualities [sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, current in-the-now facts] through misshapen and contorted perceptions formed from our past. Thus, we respond in the now as if reacting to the past.

       Obsessive and Demanding thoughts attempt to resolve situations by pulling up the past and projecting the future. Consequently, we live half in yesterday and half in tomorrow, missing the moments of life today.

       Obsessive and Demanding thoughts hone in on the one negative event of the day, ignoring the positives. The mind replays the one negative over and over, rebuilding it, permeating it with fantasies of winning or losing (false importance by being the victim), controlling or being controlled (seeking to be carried), dominating or being dominated (wanting to be influenced), rescuing or being rescued (from being the victim). Consequently, we wake the next morning with an emotional hangover (drained, lethargic, aches, pains, even flu-like symptoms, depressed), and look for something or someone to numb the hangover.

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Some Solutions:

1.  capture every thought 1 Corinthians 10.5

     Take control of your thinking by focusing on the now:  speak out loud to yourself

     what you see, quote out loud the sounds you hear, smell and verbalize the perfume

     you wear, touch and describe the cloth you wear. Note, by using your five senses,

     speaking out loud the in-the-now experience, brings your mind and emotions into the

     moment.

2.  continuously renew your mind Romans 12.2; Ephesians 4.23

     Begin to believe what God says about you and HIS Promises 1.Peter 1.3-4. If you

     Have received Jesus Christ as your Savior you are not a sinner separated from God,

     but a son or daughter of The King. Renovate and restore your thinking to what God

     says from Acts 2 to Revelation 5. Find your inheritance. This on-going exercise will

     reveal old ways of thinking to be discarded, while regaining God given instincts. You

     will recover the ability to evaluate each moment from God’s perspective without old 

     mental influences. Philippians 4.8

3.  have a willing mind, which means an acceptance according to the facts at hand, not

     according to a predisposed [influenced, prejudice, and bias] mind Romans 1.2.

     Like an impartial detective begin to make a list of your thoughts. Compare them one

     by one with the Word of God. Discover how your mind has been warped with  

     opinions, bias, prejudices, judgments and the like. Then speak the Words of God out

     loud to your ears, cleansing out obsessive and demanding thought virus’s and

     reprogramming your computer mind with…

     “Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ--that’s where the action is. See things from HIS Perspective.” Colossians 3.2 The Message

                                                                                    God’s Blessings to You, Gayle