Meet today’s EJC Writing Contributor, Kaitlyn Cole!
Kaitlyn was a guest speaker at a previous Echo Gathering, and we are thrilled to share her voice again. She is a pastor’s wife, a mom of two littles, and a horse trainer. Her life has been a wild ride filled with unexpected twists and turns that have ultimately led her to fall more and more madly in love with Jesus.
(Part 1 of 2)
We’ve all been there at some point, and many of us never really leave there. The place where our minds get caught in the never-ending hamster wheel of repetitive thoughts. We try to think of something else, refocus, listen to music, perhaps pray. Can anything break the cycle and give sweet relief from what my therapist calls “ruminating thought patterns”?
For brief moments something can shift our attention and our brains are temporarily able to let go of the loop. Stillness. Quiet. Alas, seconds later the peace is snatched away and we are tripped back onto the hamster wheel, over and over and over and over…..
What is a woman to do?
I suggest we start by getting curious about the origin of the particular thought pattern we are caught in.
We can begin with self-reflection: What are the roots of this thought? Our action steps towards healing may look slightly different depending on what we unearth here.
I’ve found that negative thought patterns are often rooted in:
Worry
Anxiety
Unresolved trauma
Expectations (from others or self)
Self-talk based on insecurities
satan
Striving and perfectionism
This is not an exhaustive list, but an offering for a place to start. It is also important to note that no one is expected to read this list, pinpoint their major struggles, pray, and move on healed as if no struggle ever occurred. This is just information. Facts without the Holy Spirit can become even more hurtful, sending us into deeper striving, having us look at even higher unmet expectations, thus increasing the speed of our hamster wheel.
When we seek the Holy Spirit’s direction through prayer, we find the healing that Jesus offers in our minds. So may we read this together with a heart posture of surrender to the Father:
Papa, Your love for us is unmatched. You fashioned within our beings a unique and mysterious mixture of body, spirit, and mind that sets us apart from the rest of your creation. Our minds were meant to be a blessing, a way of creativity and inspiration, a way of serving and growing in community, a way of worshipping and encountering your presence, a way of experiencing love in its truest form. Beautiful things are sought after by our enemy to be destroyed and weaponized against us. You gave us a mind in order to give us freedom and yet satan uses it to make us captives. And so we give everything to you Lord. Our lives, our roots to our thought patterns, our past experiences, and our future anxieties. The essence of our being we give back to you. Transform us by the renewal of our minds (Romans 12:2) (Ephesians 4:23). Amen
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