Junk Proof your Mind: Stragegies for a Healthy Mind

Every experience in life, everything with which we have come in contact in life, is a chisel which has been cutting away at our life statue, molding, modifying, and shaping it. We are part of all we have met. Everything we have seen, heard, felt, or thought has had its hand in molding and shaping us.

Orison Swett Marden

The focus of this blog is on creating a healthy mind, a mind that works for you instead of against you. It focuses on principles that serve up thoughts that release your full potential. It keeps your attention on your intention. A healthy mind produces joy.

So how do you get a healthy mind? By changing your mental diet and exercising your mental muscle. As detailed in the previous blog, what you feed your mind is what you become, which is why it is important to monitor what you let into your mind, and exercising the mind helps it grow as it does muscles. The following are 7 strategies for protecting your mind.

Strategy #1: Focus on the Right Relationships

In life, it is easier to be pulled down that it is to be lifted up. The same is true in our relationships. Every relationship either lifts you up or pulls you down.

Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character." (1 Cor 15:33).

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. (Prov 27:17)

The individuals you habitually choose to associate with will influence who you become as a person more than any other single factor. You become like those you associate with. You thus want to choose with whom you invest your time very carefully. Choose those who challenge you to raise your standards, to grow, and to pursue your bigggest dreams.

The following are a list of characteristics to look for in people with whom you want to establish close relationships and invest time in.

1. They have character and integrity that are equal to or greater than yours.
   
2. They share your faith and are in the same place or farther along in their walk with God.


3. Their life demonstrates the joy-filled fruit of their faith.


4. You would like your kids to grow up to be like them.


5. They hold you accountable and ask the tough questions avoided by the majority.


6. They draw the best out of you and remind you that God is doing exciting things through you.


7. They are committed to being positively sharpened by their exposure to you.

Be constantly aware of your relationships and who is lifting you up and who is pulling you down. Invest your time with the former and limit your time with the latter. When it is necessary to be around those who pull you down, innoculate yourself before and after the exposure with ultra-positive exposures that you may be full of joy upon contact and ready to replenish after contact.

Strategy #2: Memorize Scripture

Memorizing scripture is a great way for cleansing, renewing, strengthening, and guarding your mind. You can easily displace a negative thought with scripture, and all scripture is useful for building you up.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. (2 Tim 3:16)

Memorizing the Word of God will also help shape your desires and goals to that of God.

Strategy #3: Affirm God's Goodness

Affirmation, which means to build up or reinforce that which you want in your life, is a joy tool that helps you build your character, personality, and attitude. You are always affirming something, either positive or negative, because you are always thinking. Thus you are constantly either building or destroying. What are you affirming about your self with the inner dialogue that reaches through to your secret place?

There are three keys to verbalizing God's promises.

Pay attention

Pay attention to what you say to yourself and others. It provides your biggest clue as to the quality of your thought life.

You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt 12:34).

But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man "unclean" (Matt 15:18).

Reinforce

Remind yourself that nothing is too good to be true for a child of God. Don't block God's generosity with unprofitable talk.

Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete (John 16:24).

Filter and Replace

Swap out all self-defeating words, phrases, and expressions with their positive opposite. Talk only about that which is "good, pure, lovely, and worthy of praise." (Philippians 4:8).

Strategy #5: Visualize God's Blessings

This is talked about in another blog, but is essentially visualizing your self-ideal. We have been given the power to have what we visualize, but we tend to visualize only that which we already have. You must have a clear vision for the future to reach your full potential here on earth. Many spend their time visualizing what they don't want, and they end up making decisions based of the fear and worry those mental images generate. Instead, we are to visualize that which God has in store for us, our full potential.

Visualization works because it relies on our brain's tendency to fulfill its most dominant thought. The subconscious cannot distinguish between reality and a vividly imagined event, so when it receives a picture of a goal as if it were already achieved, it interprets it as a fact, responds accordingly, and removes mental roadblocks toward reaching that goal. Thus, the most effective way to expand your potential is to constantly expose your mind to a multisensory image of the end result you are striving for.

We should thus practice visualization every day, and set aside time every day to visualize yourself living a joy-filled life. The best times to do this is just before going to sleep and just after awakening.

Strategy #6: Quarantine Negativity

Negativity spreads from one area of life to another. Thus, when experienced, it is best to quarantine it. A great way to quarantine negativity is to schedule it. For example, you could set aside 5 minutes a day to express your negativity, and that is the only time you allow negativity to be consciously addressed. This results in taking the emotional power out of the negativity. It limits your time and exposure to negativity. Problems usually shrink in size by the time its time to deal with the negativity. Thus, scheduling time for negativity minimizes its influence in your life.

Strategy #7: Establish Ground Rules

Have ground rules for what you allow to influence you. There are 5 principles to adhere to, otherwise known as the Laws of Input.

1. Environment. Monitor your environment, as you are heavily influenced by it. Where you are influences and reinforces who you are.
2. Association. Watch with whom you associate. See previous blogs on this subject.
3. Excluded Alternative. When you say yes to the wrong inputs, you are by default saying no to the right inputs. Invest your time with the right people to be protected from spending time with the wrong people.
4. Non-neutrality. Nothing is neutral. Remember that all inputs affect you.
5. Attraction. Over time, you will draw into your life the conditions, events, people, and possibilities that correspond with your thinking.

Establish 5 ground rules for what you will allow into your heart based on the Laws of Input above. Write them down, post them in common places, read them daily, and confront every circumstance with the rules to see if they fit or not. Use the following questions to guide your first draft.

1. Who do I want to become as a person?
2. What are my most important lifetime goals?
3. Do I desire my current exposures for my kids? If not, what should I change?
4. Which people in my life challenge me to high standards?
5. How much positive mental nutrition do I want to consume each day or week?
6. What do I listen to in the car most of the time? Is it positive or negative input?
7. What do I watch on TV? Is it positive or negative input?
8. How much TV is right for me, given my other goals?
9. What kind of programs should I increase, decrease, or eliminate?
10. How would I like to change because of what I read?
11. If I don't make any changes in what I allow into my heart and mind, what kind of person will I be in 10 years?

Answering these questions and controlling your inputs helps you fulfill and find God's will and joy for you.

Do not conform any linger 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