Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

Introducing Josh Butler

When I was a teacher, I always enjoyed going to the annual teachers’ conference held every fall.  I loved going to workshops and being on the other side of the desk, being the student rather than the teacher.  Learning has always been exciting to me.

Now that I’m retired after 44 years in the classroom, I still enjoy learning.  I have the time now to take advantage of the many free trainings and courses available online.  Some of the best workshops I’ve been in have been presented by Josh Butler.

If you’ve never heard of Josh, let me introduce you.  Josh Butler is a pastor and life coach who specializes in helping Christian men who struggle with overwhelm, anxiety, depression and other issues (his wife Kiley has a similar ministry to women.  You can find more information about these programs at the end of this article).  

Recently Josh had an outstanding free workshop called “Breaking Free.”  He runs these workshops several times a year.  Josh teaches that change comes when you stop believing the lies your brain has been trained to accept, and start renewing your mind to what God says is true.

What you think about matters.  Your thoughts drive everything.  Thoughts create feelings.  We take action on how we feel and get outcomes in our life.  If we want different outcomes, we have to start with our thoughts.

The main purpose of your brain is to keep you safe and regulated.  Your brain takes all the thoughts you’ve been taught directly and through experiences and reviews them over and over.  Whatever you’ve absorbed becomes your belief system and shapes the thought patterns looping through your brain.  This in turn affects your feelings, decisions and choices.

The problem is, not everything your mind has absorbed is accurate.  Your brain has belief systems about you that are not true.  They do not align with God’s truth, and they will not change without intentional action.  Those false thoughts need to be reconditioned with the truth of God’s Word. 

The Patterns Of This World

This is what the Bible is referring to when it says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is– his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).

Let’s break that verse down.  The “pattern of this world” is the conditioning of the culture we live in.  It’s everything that has been said, taught, and done to us by others.  This creates thought patterns that are frequently based in lies and myths. 

The American Psychological Association defines thoughts as “mental cognitive processes that are formed by experience to create beliefs, perspectives, opinions, judgments and ideas.”  The average person has 60,000 thoughts per day.  Studies have shown that up to 80% of those thoughts are either negative or not true.  However, we’re only consciously aware of 5% of those thoughts.  This means that 95% of these thoughts are running in our subconscious mind, so most of our feelings and actions are coming from thoughts that we’re not even aware of!

We often get focused on our feelings– “I feel anxious, I feel depressed, I feel overwhelmed” and so on.  But our problem isn’t these feelings– it’s the thoughts that are generating the feelings.  Our society teaches men to distance themselves from their feelings, and many men have never learned how to deal with their mental and emotional health.  So they fall into the trap of suppressing or numbing those feelings, but that is not the solution.  It’s the thoughts behind the feelings that need to be changed.

This is why Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 not to be conformed to these patterns.  But God in His goodness doesn’t just tell us to stop;  He also tells us how:  “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  We renew our mind by identifying the false thoughts, lies, and misbeliefs, and replacing them with the truth of God’s Word. 

Science  backs up what Paul said 2,000 years ago.  Previously the general consensus was that our minds were fixed and unchanging.  But we now know that’s not true.  Research has proven that the brain is incredibly adaptable, and we can actually choose whether to have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset, one that encourages change and growth.

Unblocking your brain unlocks the path to change.  Changing our thoughts is how we change our feelings, and our actions.  We need to teach our brain what is true.

What About Medicine And Therapy?

There is a place for medication and counseling, but those aren’t complete solutions.  It is wise to seek medical help for some conditions.  For example, I have battled depression all my life.  I received great relief from the symptoms when my doctor prescribed an antidepressant that works exceptionally well for me.  But while it helped me deal with the depression, it did not alleviate my self esteem and self image problems.  Modern medicine commonly pushes pills to treat symptoms, and sometimes (as in my case) that’s needed.  But that won’t bring the change you need, because it doesn’t deal with the root of the problem, your thoughts.

What about counseling, then?  There are two sides to that coin.  Counseling can be beneficial in helping you to identify the roots of your thought patterns.  But many people get frustrated by counseling because of the tendency to address the same topics over and over without seeing any results.  I know I benefitted from the years of counseling I received, but I still felt stuck and confused because there was no action plan.

This is further complicated by the fact that our culture has trained us to expect a quick fix.  We’ve been programmed to have a microwave mindset, and we get frustrated when we don’t get immediate results (if you don’t believe me, just watch your reaction the next time you have to wait more than 60 seconds in the drive-through).

The point is, you can’t fix how you feel and act on the outside until you change the destructive thought patterns on the inside.  It’s not your wife or your life that you need to change, it’s your thoughts!  If you don’t change the thoughts, you’ll stay stuck and won’t be able to experience God’s best for your life.  When you try medication and/or counseling and they don’t work, your brain tells you that you can’t change and you’ll always be like this.  That’s just another lie you have to deal with!

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

I hope you can see now that when you change your thoughts, you can change your life.  But be forewarned:  change takes time.  

It will take time to identify the lies that your brain has accepted as truth.  Your brain thinks that’s who you are, and it will take time to change those beliefs.

It will take time to discover what God says about you in His Word.  (I found the “Who I Am In Christ” list developed by Dr. Neil Anderson to be extremely helpful; you can find it here.)

It will take time to train your brain to believe the truths in God’s Word.  I recited the “Who I Am In Christ” list daily for several years as part of my quiet time, but it took awhile for my mind to believe and accept those statements as true for me.  You do have an enemy, Satan, who will seek to stop you because he wants to keep you in bondage, so expect some spiritual opposition.

Yes, transformation takes time.  But as you gain understanding on the thoughts that are creating the challenges in your life, you will move forward.  You have a loving Father who declares in His Word, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

Isn’t it time you moved into those plans?  Blessings, breakthroughs, a new beginning are waiting for you.  Change is possible!

P.S.

I am indebted to Josh Butler for the wonderful trainings he has provided.  Josh has a free Facebook group called “Renew Your Mind,” and he sends out weekly emails which are always very encouraging.  If you feel a structured program would be beneficial for you, Josh offers a 12-week paid program called “Be Transformed” for men (his wife Kiley has a similar “Anxiety Unashamed” program for women).  You can contact them at www.renew-lifecoach.com.

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