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As we discussed in two previous articles, there are four tools we should employ to harness our runaway emotions and gain high EQ.  Those tools, to reiterate, are breathing, applying your “brakes”, resisting negative thoughts, and long-term training of your mind.  And as we mentioned, the amygdala is not only the speedster in the brain, always grabbing the first response to any concern, but it is also the hot spot of emotional response.  How can we cool this warning device?  Two methods will help in the long term to train our minds and cool the amygdala.

First Method: Revisit and Rewrite

Our memories of past emotional responses can be revisited and rewritten. Anyone can do this. Simply recall the experience that caused you to be emotionally traumatized and then think through why you don’t need to react with such emotional heat. Cool your thoughts about the need to be so upset. In your mind, see yourself acting with emotional control. This is called “rewriting the memory.”

Build strong, helpful memories by rehearsing these new thoughts and preparing yourself for milder future replays when this memory is triggered again.

Method Two: Delayed Gratification

Learn to postpone gratification. The need for immediate satisfaction leads to poor emotional intelligence. When we were young, we felt we were in control of ourselves, but our decisions often told a different story. We wanted everything now, and our emotions flared in response to our wishes. Practicing postponing gratification is an excellent tool of intelligence that we all need. Not only does it remind us of the power of our emotions, but of the wisdom of a bit of self-denial.

As we age, we tend to relax our self-discipline because we feel we have earned a break from life’s pressures. Isn’t that what retirement is all about for most people? However, it’s a trap that sounds reasonable, but it is never wise. Vigilance over the ever-present power of negative emotions cannot be relaxed at any age.

Conclusion

With these intelligent responses, we will have a far greater chance of emotional control and wisdom.

EQ is more important to successful living than IQ. Use these tools and become a master of your emotions. Don’t give up if you don’t succeed quickly. You may have a big hole to dig yourself out of. You will grow and, in the process, recast the landscape of your mind.  Successful control and a higher EQ are just ahead.

Resources to Help You:

THE WONDERFUL TRUTH ABOUT EMOTION

Are there such things as intelligent emotions? Intelligently Emotional will argue that there are. And they are the ones we must focus on if we want to know success.

Ray W. Lincoln will demonstrate how understanding the patterns of emotion in our temperament enables us to manage our emotions effectively. If you long to know how to understand your emotions and the immense power of your feelings, Intelligently Emotional  will show you the way.  The path to real emotional intelligence requires learning to partner with intelligent emotions.

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!

Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Learn how to effectively engage your children in discovering the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence, will guide you in that

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you prefer to be more independent and want to cut to the chase, you don’t need to wait for a callback. You can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgency of crooked thinking in our culture and in the world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We achieve this by recognizing the source of our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

The post Long-Term Training of Your Mind appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

Achieving a high EQ (which requires controlling runaway emotions), as we have discussed, requires implementing some helpful tools.  Previously, we have discussed two of these tools:  breathing and applying your brakes.  Two additional ones are paramount to achieving our goal:  resisting negative thoughts and long-term training of your mind.  Both involve your mind.  Therefore, consider the importance of the health of your mind to your success.

Tool #3 for Controlling Runaway Emotion: Resist Negative Thoughts

Negative emotions live off negative thoughts.  When we fight our runaway emotions, negative thinking will keep returning to gain control of our mind even if we have successfully changed to a positive mental landscape.  Resisting repeatedly is not only possible and easier the more we resist, but it is the path to mental control — laborious at times, but effective.  

Long-term Training of Your Mind Is Tool #4

The amygdala is not only the speedster in the brain, always grabbing the first response to any concern, but it is also the hot spot of emotional response.  How can we cool this warning device?  Two methods will help in the long term.  We’ll discuss them in the next article.

Resources to Help You:

THE WONDERFUL TRUTH ABOUT EMOTION

Are there such things as intelligent emotions? Intelligently Emotional will argue that there are. And they are the ones we must focus on if we want to know success.

Ray W. Lincoln will demonstrate how understanding the patterns of emotion in our temperament enables us to manage our emotions effectively. If you long to know how to understand your emotions and the immense power of your feelings, Intelligently Emotional  will show you the way.  The path to real emotional intelligence requires learning to partner with intelligent emotions.

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!

Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Learn how to effectively engage your children in discovering the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence, will guide you in that

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you prefer to be more independent and want to cut to the chase, you don’t need to wait for a callback. You can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgency of crooked thinking in our culture and in the world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We achieve this by recognizing the source of our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

The post How Your Mind Tool Achieves EQ appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

Although the emotions are the powerhouse of the mind, one factor can cause the power center to shift.  Focus plays a very strategic role in harnessing the mind’s power.  If we focus on our feelings, we increase their power.  If we focus on our reason, we increase its power.  The mind is incredibly plastic in that it can switch the power center by choice in an instant.  Focus puts us in control of what masters our mind.  We must not ignore the role of focus.

Emotions Linger In Spite of the Role of Focus

However, although we can learn to instantly lessen the grip of emotion’s over us by focusing on what makes more sense, the emotions don’t instantly fade — especially for the NF.  The emotions linger, and we battle their power long after our submission to reason.  

Focus Does Not Replace Emotion’s Role

Emotions don’t want to give up their dominance.  They are there for a purpose, and that purpose is often to alert us to danger, external or internal.  They cry for attention and are silenced only when we persist on the path of reason or the path of another opposing emotion. 

Next, we’ll discuss the “hot” emotions and temperament

Resources to Help You:

THE WONDERFUL TRUTH ABOUT EMOTION

Are there such things as intelligent emotions? Intelligently Emotional will argue that there are. And they are the ones we must focus on if we want to know success.

Ray W. Lincoln will show us how understanding the patterns of emotion in our temperament will enable us to manage our emotions effectively. If you long to know how to understand your emotions and the immense power of your feelings, Intelligently Emotional  will show you the way.  The path to real emotional intelligence requires learning to partner with intelligent emotions.

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!

Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence will guide you in that

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back. You can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

The post The Role of Focus appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

We have addressed the importance of our mind’s health and best functioning.  Additionally, let’s now direct our thoughts to an area that both affects the mind and is affected by our minds: emotion.  Actually, thinking and feeling are often posed as opposites, as contras, as counter influences.  How accurate is that assessment?  When we use the term “emotional intelligence,” notice the root words involved — emotion and intelligence (implying use of the mind, thinking or thought).  Why do we so often express them as in conflict? Can we have emotional intelligence without intelligent emotions?  Can we successfully separate the mind and emotion?  Consider the following quotes as we begin this new study.

A Kaleidoscope of Quotations About Emotion

“It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” 

Antoine De Saint-Exupery in “The Little Prince.”

“Ahab never thinks, he just feels, feels, feels.”

Herman Melville, “Moby-Dick”

“Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.”

Horace Walpole

“My love was so hot as mighty nigh to burst my boilers.”

Davy Crockett

“Children are given to us to discourage our better emotions.”

Saki (Hector Hugh Munro)

“When we direct our thoughts properly we can control our emotions.”

W. Clement Stone

“I don’t believe people die from hard work; they die from stress and worry and fear — the negative emotions.”

A. L. Williams

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength…and your neighbor as yourself.”  

Jesus  

Everyone Has Emotion — EVERYONE

Yes, everyone, without exception, has emotion.  Therefore, let’s begin a practical study of how all the temperaments struggle with emotion. More importantly, let’s study how to win the struggles and become emotionally intelligent.

Temperament and Emotion

All of history has witnessed the connection between the temperaments and emotions.  In fact, whatever is your temperament, emotions are an issue in your life.  So it follows that an understanding of them will enrich your thinking and your living.  

Youth Needs Guidance in Emotion

As a matter of fact, we all know adults who struggle with emotion.  Even more, our teenagers are the very embodiment of emotion.  The teen years are an emotional training ground where emotional control is either won or it is  postponed to be learned later in adulthood — to the person’s detriment.  Helping children gain emotional intelligence by teaching them early the tools of intelligent emotions will give them a great advantage in life. Consequently, it is imperative that we possess the knowledge and understanding  ourselves so we can properly convey it to them.

Resources to Help You:

Are there such things as intelligent emotions? This book will argue that there are and they are the ones we must focus on if we want to know success.

Drawing from the critical literature on temperament psychology, Ray W. Lincoln will show us how understanding the patterns of emotion in our temperament will enable us to manage our emotions effectively. Frustration, hurt, anger, loneliness, and jealousy are just some of the emotions we need to have in our control — not “off the leash” and attacking us.  If you long to know how to understand your emotions and the immense power of your feelings, Intelligently Emotional  will show you the way.  The path to real emotional intelligence requires learning to partner with intelligent emotions.  Understand why you (or your child) act the way you do, and learn how to manage and maximize the power of your emotions in your life.

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back. You can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

The post Our Mind and Our Emotion appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

We have arrived at our final principle.  Lastly, but most importantly, we address the role of faith here. In fact, it is so important that I addressed it in a single seminar, dealing with faith exclusively, in a series on the mind.  Let’s recap briefly.  Thus far, we have learned that God gave us minds . . .

1. To be used;
2. That need to be renewed and transformed by changing our minds to the extent that we change our lives;  
3. To be built strong and courageous;
4. To glorify him in all things;
5. Together with God’s Spirit, to be the best that we can be.

The Role of Faith In Optimizing the Mind

Does our mind have a role in practicing our faith? Indeed, in a discussion on the spiritual gift of tongues, Paul reminds us just how important is the use of our minds.  The mind is not an anti-spiritual tool that we must shelve when we become followers of Jesus.  Quite the contrary.  It is a natural gift from God to be used for our spiritual development and alongside of all spiritual gifts.

In short, to be the best that we can be, those who have turned to Christ for his salvation must also set as their goal the attainment of the mind of Christ.

Some Bible (Faith) Passages About the Mind

• Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart (mind); test me and know my anxious thoughts.
• Isaiah 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is determined to trust in you.”
• Matthew 2:37 Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
• Mark 7:21 For from within, out of men’s hearts (minds), come evil thoughts.
• Luke 12:29-31 And do not set your heart (mind) on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it.  For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your father knows that you need them.  But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.”
• Romans 8:6-7   The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace, because the sinful mind is hostile to God.  It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.
• Romans 8:27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
• Romans 12:12 Do not conform any longer 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.
• 1 Corinthians 2:16 For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?  But we have the mind of Christ.
• Ephesians 4:17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their mind.
• Philippians 2:5 Your attitude (mind) should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.
• 2 Timothy 1:7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of a disciplined mind.
• Hebrews 8:10 This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord.  I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people.
• 1 Peter 1:13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.
• 1 Peter 4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm your selves also with the same attitude (mind), because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.

Some Bible (Faith) Passages About Thought

• Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
• Psalm 10:4 In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
• Psalm 94:11 The Lord knows the thoughts of man; he knows that they are futile (ineffective).
• Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart (mind); test me and know my anxious thoughts.
• Isaiah 55:7-8 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts.  Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him and to our God, for he will freely pardon.  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
• Mark 7:21 For from within, out of men’s hearts (minds), come evil thoughts.
• 1 Corinthians 3:20 The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile. (Quotation of Psalm 94:11)
• 2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
• Hebrews 4:12 The word of God is living and active.  Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (mind).
• 1 John 5:20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding (thoughts), so that we may know him who is true.  And we are in him who is true – even in his Son, Jesus Christ.  He is the true God and eternal life.

Resources to Help You:

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back. You can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

The post Principle Nine: Faith appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

This brings us to the principle of long-term focus.  We have already learned that the mind controls all that we do.  It follows quite logically that what we think about most of the time will show up as dominant in our lives – not just in our thinking.  Let’s visit “Principle Seven:  You Become What You Think About Most of the Time.”

The Results of Dominant Negative Thoughts

Would it surprise you to learn that a dominant negative thought pattern will show up in our lives with all the symptoms of carnal negativism?  Those symptoms are seen in bodily deterioration, such as higher blood pressure, increased chance of heart attack, aches and pains, depressed immune system, and a multiple of other maladies.  Spiritual symptoms of the same malady are strife, jealousy, and a long list of the works of the flesh.  However, a positive thought pattern (read “spiritual mind”) produces the opposite and is, perhaps, your greatest asset.

Realizing this principle, the psalmist tells us “those who meditate on the law of God will prosper in all they do.”  A healthy thought pattern shows up in everything in our lives.

What You Think About Most Matters

This principle has been called the principle of the dominant thought, or the principle of focus.  I cannot stress too much how important it is.  Your dream demands your full focus in order to bring it about.  A half-hearted effort will not work.  Once again we are introduced to the high-octane fuel of passion.

Dominant Thought + Passion = High Octane Fuel

Our dominant thought must have the following characteristics to rank as an effective and successful pattern of thought:

1. Positive, not negative. 
2. Faith, not fear. 
3. Passion, not mediocrity. 
4. Happy, not sad. 
5. Solution-oriented, not problem-oriented. 
6. Perseverance, not a quitter. 

Now we can see and appreciate the emphasis the Bible places on these characteristics.  We cannot utilize the gift of God (our brain) effectively without them.

What You Think About Determines You

Perhaps it puzzles you why people become so negative and seem to transfer their cynicism to everything and everyone.  It puzzles the person full of faith. But people are prone to fear, even the fear that others will do or be better than they.  Fear is the fuel of doubt and negative thinking.  In the climb to be all that we can be, we must face and fight the fears of our disoriented mind.

Suggested Readings:

Psalms 1:2-3

Matthew 21:21

Philippians 4:4, 13

Colossians 3:17, 23

Resources to Help You:

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back. You can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

The post You Become What You Think About appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

Do you know any negative thinkers?  Are you one?  Can such a person change to become a positive, more healthy thinker?  The answer is yes! We can accomplish this by training our mind filter, the RAS, which brings us to Principle Five.  The reticular activating system (RAS), located at the back of the head, comprises 10 centimeters of cells radiating from the brain stem.  It filters all incoming messages to the brain, letting through only those which it has been conditioned to recognize as being of greatest importance.  For this reason, some things sail right by us, and we each may hear different things from the same speaker.

Principle Five:  Through the Reticular Activating System, the Mind Filters Out All Except the Item of Highest Value to Us.

We have told our RAS to do what it does because of the choices we have already made.  Furthermore, we continuously condition the RAS with our subsequent choices.  Consequently, by choosing negative responses to positive incoming messages, we make it “normal” for us to sift the positive out of the mix of facts we seriously consider.  As a result, we become more negative with each choice.

Develop a Healthy Mind Filter

To become a solution-oriented person, we must work hard at re-evaluating each of our negative choices and turn them into positive possibilities.  This is how repentance really works.  It makes a big decision that commits, decision-by-decision, to the goal we want to  achieve: that we will choose God’s way over ours, good over evil, positive over negative.

Reconstruct Values and Goals

Personal values and goals must be reconstructed.  Additionally, when we have done this, we must then be careful to reinforce them each and every day.  We are always working to maintain a positive, healthy, profile (set of choices) in our mind filter (RAS).

Don’t let your RAS discard the messages you most urgently need.  Your attempt at living a successful and effective life can be sabotaged by an ill-trained mechanism in the back of your head (your mind filter)!

Retrain Your Reticular Activating System Daily!

Resources to Help You:

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back. You can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

The post Train Your “Mind Filter” appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

Just as we are physically what we eat, we are what we feed our minds.  We have already dealt with this principle in a previous article.  However, here we will take a practical look at it as a principle for life.  We become what we think.  “Whatever a man thinks, so is he.”  

Principle Three:  We Are What We Feed Our Minds

Let’s recap. The first two principles were:

• One: The Mind Is Key to Performance
• Two: We Need a Renewed Mind

This brings us to the third principle: We are what we feed our minds.  When we think goodness, we become good.  And when we think failure, we become failures. Likewise, when we think success, we become successful.  When we think in the power of God’s Spirit, we become conquerors.

Can you imagine Jesus thinking failure?

So, what are the thought patterns we ingest?  What is our mental diet?  What do you read?  Do you read?  How often do you feed your mind a healthy meal of positive uplifting food?

What Do We Feed Our Minds Most of the Time?

It bodes badly for our children these days.  A recent study at Harvard showed that many children couldn’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy on TV.  Children said that what happened on TV was true because, in their words, “You can see them actually happening.”  Virtual reality and reality look the same.  By the time they graduate from high school, most have spent 50% more time in front of a TV than in the classroom.  By sheer weight of hours, which influences most?  The advertising agencies and film producers have also done their homework.  Repeated 15-second spots can sell us a product; and, unwittingly, soap operas sell us a lifestyle.

Plant acorns and you get more acorns.  Plant trash and bad values and you encourage trash and bad values.

GIGO – Garbage In; Garbage Out.

To turn your mental nourishment around, plan what you will not input into your mind this week and plan what you will input.  There is enough over which you have control to bring about a change in your thinking patterns!

Resources to Help You:

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back because you can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

The post We Are What We Feed Our Minds appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

The renewal of our minds is not God’s task; it is ours — in partnership with him, of course.  Read Romans 12:2 again, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  We, not God, are being addressed.  And our minds are to be the implement we use in the process of transformation.  We must renew our minds and it will transform us.

Examples of People Whose Minds Were Oriented Differently

• Abraham went out not knowing where he was going.  (Not generally advised unless God has told you to do it.) [Hebrews 11:8]
• Noah built a boat miles away from any lake or sea, and so big that he couldn’t move it — because God told him to.  It turned out he was right.  [Genesis 6-8]
• Moses led a whole nation of unarmed, enslaved people out into the desert where there was little food or water and succeeded in an escape from Egypt.
• Abraham Lincoln failed in business and in politics some fifteen times and then thought he could run for president!  

Renewal of Our Minds Creates New Thoughts With Possibilities

These people had courage; listened to new outrageous ideas; welcomed problems and challenges, and turned them into possibilities; faced disappointment and tragedy with confidence and peace; overcame inferiority complexes; built successful relationships; turned dreams into achievements; generated enthusiasm, hope, confidence, faith, and love; and trusted God.  They had renewed minds.  You will need new thoughts, too, for a renewed mind.  

New Thoughts Can Make It Work

Who was the first to say, “Stop thinking of why it won’t work and start thinking of ways to make it work?”  Don’t be a negative appraiser.  Be a positive inventor.

Renewed minds think differently.  They think like God thinks.  God is in them.

“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind.” [Ephesians 4:17]

Accept the task and the partner.  Renew your mind.

Resources to Help You:

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back because you can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

The post Renewal of Our Minds Is Whose Task? appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

We’ve discovered that we develop mind power with the development of mental muscle.  The mental muscle we want to develop must, however, be in a healthful mind.  So, the next principle we must understand is that we need a renewed mind.  We need a renewed mind  because it has been negatively influenced.  It was programmed positively when God created us.  The story of Adam and Eve begins with positive minds at work.  They walked with God as though it were natural, and lived without negative influences damaging them.  But as the story proceeds we read how they opened their minds to negative thoughts of doubt. 

Why Must We Have a Renewed Mind?

Opening their minds to negative thoughts led to their downfall.  They lied, attempted to deceive, and blamed each other.  Their minds changed orientation from positive to negative, from faith to doubt, from good to evil. And our ancestors have passed this way of thinking down to us — a virus that attacks us all.

It takes a renewed mind to reverse this pattern and think like God again.

“Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit in me.” [Psalm 51:10]

How Do We Renew Our Mind?

If the mind is to wield a positive power over us we need to be mentally de-programmed (repentance) and then re-programmed (transformation) – our minds cleansed and filled with God’s thoughts again.  The Bible is full of this teaching.  

Here’s a Big Bible Mind-Word

The Bible tells us to “repent.”  It is a mind word!  Repent means to change your mind because it is the only way we can change our lives.  Changing our mind means (if we truly change our minds) that our actions will change as well.  We become changed people.  

To repent is to leave behind a mind filled with the thoughts of this world (thinking without God’s wisdom) and fill our minds with God’s thoughts.  So, to repent is not all that bad after all, is it?  Repentance is a concept for changing your life for the better.  It is very up-to-date as seen by the recent scientific discoveries about the mind.

A Strong Mind Is a Renewed Mind with Mental Muscle

We Build Mental Muscle when we…

1. Fill our minds with positive thoughts — God’s thoughts.  God’s thoughts encourage faith and confidence.  
2. Absorb the nutrition that his way of thinking produces.  Positive thoughts are a nutritional boost to our spirits.  
3. Use our minds as God intended us to use them.  Negative thoughts damage our minds and our lives.  They are not of faith; and they eat away at our mental potential.  

Resources to Help You:

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back because you can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

The post Principe Two: A Renewed Mind appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

We have learned that our minds shape our lives.  Now, we learn how we shape our minds with the power of nine principles. These principles carry in their words nine secrets God planted in his creation in order for us to operate with confidence and experience successful results.  So, let’s focus on building strong minds with these principles.  Let’s develop mental muscle.

God created my brain.  It’s his gift to me.

I create my mind.  It’s my gift to myself.

First, we’ll take a trip to the gym.  Ready?

Mental Muscle Is Not “Flabby”

Flabby muscles aren’t attractive. Nor are they much use.  Let’s build strong mental muscles with nine powerful principles, beginning today with Principle One.   

Principle One:

The mind is the key to performance in all areas of life — physical and spiritual.

Let Olympic Athletes Educate Us About Mental Muscle

In Olympic competition 95% of the medals are taken by 5 % of the athletes.  These athletes say that the key is not physical, but mental.  This mental edge is not genetic (given), but developed.

Likewise, a long distance runner will tell you that 80-90% of success is mental, not physical.  The mind is the power that drives the body.  Our bodies are powerful. But our minds are more powerful.

Mental Muscle Energizes Physical Muscle

If you lift weights, you know that when your body feels exhausted your mind will tell you that you can’t do one more repetition. And if you let your mind rule, you certainly can’t.  But even so, if your coach yells in your ear, “Come on!  Three more, three more!”  somehow your mind can empower your body to find the energy to do three more.  In other words, mental muscle energizes physical muscle!

The Mind Rules the World

What’s more, philosophies, not armies, have ruled the world.  It’s mind over physical forces.  Think of Hitler’s “Mien Kampf”, Marx’s “Das Kapital”, and Chairman Mao’s Thoughts of Chairman Mao”.  Better still, think of how the thoughts recorded in the Bible have changed the face of our entire world.  Mind rules!

Three centuries ago the Psalmist exhorted us to “Be not like the horse or mule without understanding.”  Likewise, the insult card jokes, “Use your head; it’s the little things that count.”  But little or not, it’s the head that counts.

Proof that the Mind Is the Key to Performance

Step 1:

Don’t do this (for obvious reasons); just imagine it.  Place a plank, 4in. x 12in. x 10ft., on the floor and carefully walk along the plank to the end.  Turn around and walk back without falling off.  Think you could do that?  I think most of us would have no problem.  We could all summon the physical skill to do it.  

Step 2:

Now then, since you know you have the physical skill to do it with ease, secure the plank to the roof of a building 60 stories high. Now, make sure it juts out ten feet over the street 60 stories below.  Is your mind telling your imagination anything yet?  Is it saying something like, “You’re out of your mind if you think you can walk along that plank and turn around and walk back again.  Don’t you know that you’ll fall?”  The mind is the key to performance!  Physically you can do it, but not if your mind says, “No.”

Mind Over Suffering Is Not a Myth

“To be spiritually minded is  . . . peace,” says Paul, that great biblical philosopher of two millenniums ago. And no greater example of this is found than the mind of Christ overcoming the pain and agony of the cross while displaying such majestic calm.  His body was the scene of unbearable torment; his mind and spirit, a pose in peace and calm.  “Truly this was the Son of God,” displaying the abilities of the spiritual mind.

Resources to Help You:

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back because you can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

The post Mind Power: Developing Mental Muscle appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

The implications of what we have just learned in the previous articles are colossal! If we are to become our very best or what God wants us to be, we must have the mind of Christ — the ultimate mind. And because we are created in his image, the power of the mind of Christ is potentially available to us.  Awesome power resides in a mind like his, as history has demonstrated.

What Can Be Achieved Through the Power of the Mind?

Through the power of his mind, Christ made all things.  All things were created by a word.  Therefore, Christ’s mind contains a mighty creative power!  His mind enabled him to heal, to walk on water, to appear and disappear, to withstand temptation, and to suffer for our sakes.  Without his mind, none of this would have been possible 

All this points to what a crucial part the mind plays in our lives, our enjoyment, our success, and our relationship with God.  

Think Like God – Habitually

If we think like Jesus and keep thinking his way, it will become a habit. As a result, we will become what we think — powerful like he was powerful and filled with his goodness.  Goodness is God’s way – the way he created us to function.

How Powerful Can a Thought Be?

Anxious thoughts can cripple us and adversely affect our entire bodies, plunging us into despair and despondency – maybe even depression.  Fear can literally immobilize us.  

Joy, on the other hand, produces healthy, uplifting endorphins that positively affect our whole bodies and spirits.  J upward surge can overcome any negative thought whose gravitational forces struggle to keep us grounded.  This is the way we are made!

A Basic Exercise for the Depressed

Mental health is, first and foremost, thinking healthy, uplifting, positive thoughts.  Try it the next time you are depressed.  It will be hard when you feel depressed, so pray and try.  Just because depressed people find it hard to change their mental landscape, it is no reason they should not try.  Rather, it is the very reason they should address the thing that needs changing: their thoughts.  

Try. But do so with a strong belief that you can succeed!  We still do not know the extent of the power of belief in a human mind.  

 The Power of a Leader’s Mind

The power of healthy positive thoughts is one reason why they required leaders of the early church to be full of faith — mentally healthy, therefore spiritually healthy.  You simply can’t be spiritually healthy if you are mentally unhealthy.  

How powerful can we become?  Well, if God’s mind shows itself through our mind in the form of a solid belief, guess how powerful we can be!

References you may wish to consult:  John 1:3; Genesis 1: 3, 6, 9, 14, 20,24,26; Isaiah 55:8-9

RESOURCES TO HELP YOU

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back because you can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

The post The Power of the Mind appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

Ever wondered why books are so ubiquitous?  

1. Because words are symbols that represent thoughts.
2. And thoughts can change our world.  
3. All we need is God’s thoughts (words) and our lives can be transformed.  
4. But it is necessary for words to find their way into our minds and take our minds captive for a true transformation to take place.    

Yes, Words Are Thoughts

As we pass words through our minds, we “digest” them and extract the “nutrients” from them.  As we digest them fully, if only for a moment, they leave behind their energizing, transforming  power.  All words do this.  That’s why God used words — the same words that others might use and that we use, too.  But he used the right words and he lends his power/life to those words when we digest and believe them.  

Powerful Words Create Powerful Events

The path to excellence begins with words — words God says to us; words we say to God; words we say to ourselves; words we say to others; words that others say to us.  Powerful words make for powerful, explosive events in our minds.  

Therefore, think the words you know will transform your life and hide them in your heart.  

Words Are Thoughts to “Exercise”

Here’s an exercise used by successful people to achieve such a transformation.  Write the words that will create the world you want to live in on a card and read them many times a day for 40 days, believing them and feeling their power as you read them.  Your life will be changed!  I promise you it will.  When you do this you are giving God’s Spirit the maximum opportunity to work his life-changing miracles in your mind and, after germination and growth, they will become  your day-to-day life.

It is not without significance that Paul instructs us:

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” [Philippians 4;8]

Sounds like positive thinking to me!  In fact positive thinking is God’s chosen way of thinking.  

Are Your Thoughts “Weeds” or “Flowers”?

Think of your mind as a garden.  Weeds are the negative, bad thoughts; and flowers are the positive, good thoughts.  Would your mind win “Garden of the Month?”

RESOURCES TO HELP YOU

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back because you can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

The post Thoughts Are Structured With Words appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

Our mind’s memory banks store all our reactions and the values we place on them.  Everything is recorded in our “subconscious” minds.  Nothing is lost.  Welcome and unwelcome thoughts are all stored there, where they test us and win us over or they defeat us, as the case may be.  This may seem unfair, as though we are constantly being set up.  However, memories require the necessary exercising of the human mind, too.  Without exercising our minds, we become weak and subject to any destructive thought. 

The Storage Process

So here is the process…

1. If we reject a thought, it is not forgotten.  Instead, it goes down into our subconscious mind where it is labeled “not welcome.”  

When it forces its way back up into our conscious mind, it appears with its label and is recognized as previously not welcomed.  We can then dismiss it more easily this second time when it appears.  It gets easier each time we reject a thought and reject it again.  Its reappearance will also become less and less frequent.  

2. If we welcome it, it is labeled as “welcome”.  Since it is “welcome,”  it germinates and tries to grow and become part of our actions.  

If we encourage its re-germination and growth all the way into an act, it shapes us.  We become the thought we have welcomed.  Then it returns.  Therefore, if we repeat the process of welcome and encouragement, it soon becomes a habit, making us successful or unsuccessful, good or bad, depending on how we react to it.  

3. To build a strong fort against enemy thoughts, we should fill our minds with positive, faith-filled thoughts just like the mind of Christ.  

Jesus battled his destructive thoughts in the desert. You will remember, this was the first event of his ministry.  He must win here and load his mind with trust in the way his father thinks before he ever encounters the evil one in his ministry.  Giving in to temptation results in taking futile shortcuts to success.   

Use Your Mind’s Memory Banks to Win in Advance

Build up a memory bank of positive reactions to negative situations.  It will become a force for your success.

Fight temptations this way and win in advance.  Positive affirmations help, filling your mind with the promises of God and the positive principles of how God has made us to function (which is essential to anyone’s success in life).  

Resources to Help You

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back because you can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

The post Use the Mind’s Memory Banks to Succeed appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

A thought can come into our mind uninvited and we can’t seem to stop it!  (A bit of bad news that isn’t all that bad.) For example: As I walk past the doughnut shop I think, “I’d love a doughnut!”  Without this thought being able to enter my mind from outside stimulation it could not tempt me.  This is how outside sources tempt us.  Thoughts come into our minds uninvited so fast that we can’t do anything about it.  We simply find ourselves with a tempting thought.  Strecher and Appel pointed this out in 1958.  We are made so that thoughts can enter our minds without our approval.  These are thoughts we can’t control.  We are open to all influences.

To Be Tempted Is Not Sin

It’s not a sin to be tempted to do wrong.  But it is a personal failure to give in to that temptation.  Let’s illustrate what we mean with what happened to Jesus.

When we remember that Jesus was tempted with enticing thoughts while fasting in the desert, we can see how important it is to realize that having bad thoughts is not where we go wrong.  It’s what we do about the unwanted thought that either starts it on the way to becoming an action or stops it in its tracks and makes the mental event a good or bad experience.  Jesus responded, “Away with you, Satan!”  So, we too must dismiss, banish, the unwanted thought!  

We Have Three Options When Tempted

Our options are something like this…  

Option Number One: Welcome the Thought.

We can welcome a thought and think about it some more.  This has the same effect as accepting a guest into our home.  They settle down and make themselves at home.  It’s harder to eject them than it was to open the door and let them in.  

If we welcome the thought, it is already on its way to becoming something we will act on one day.  Whatever our mind welcomes is an agent for changing us.  Thoughts are seeds that start germinating the moment we begin appreciating them.  Jesus did not use this option when bad thoughts came into his mind.  To have the mind of Christ we should not use this option when the thought is a bad thought.  

Option Number Two: Reject the Thought.

We can reject the thought and start thinking about something else.  This is the opposite of welcoming it.  The thought we reject may not leave immediately.  However, it feels it is not welcome and will eventually leave if we persist.  It will lessen its attempts to get our attention and it will leave.  

In this option, the thought has entered our minds (something we can’t stop), but we have not  welcomed it into the comfort of our personal home.  It is standing in the waiting room and has little influence over us while we refuse to entertain it.  Jesus used this option in verse 7 of Matthew 4:1-10, which records the story we are following.  

Option Number Three: Transform the Thought.

We can turn it into its opposite.  We do this by turning a negative thought into a positive thought.  That’s called transformation!  For example: I am tempted with the thought to get even with someone who has hurt me.  Instead, I change the thought into its opposite.  Instead of getting even, I settle for helping them.  Then, I win.  And they are confused!  Jesus used this option in verses 4 and 10.

Two BEST Ways to Deal with Unwanted Thoughts We Can’t Control

1. Distraction and disinterest.  Start thinking of something else.  Show no appreciation for an unwanted thought.  
2. Transformation.  Turn a negative or damaging thought into a positive and healthy one that may or may not include positive actions to reinforce our self-management of our thought life.

We have God’s help, if we trust him.

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. If we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind (which is enslaving us) to become instruments of change for a better world by recognizing from where our value as humans is derived. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellenc

The post What Do We Do About Thoughts We Can’t Control? appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

Repentance is a mind word because repentance is also a mental choice.  So what is the definition of repentance?  Repentance is changing your mind to the extent that you change your life.  To achieve real happiness in our lives, the Bible tells us to repent.

The Mind Word “Repentance” Is Scientifically Up-to-Date

Changing our mind (if we truly change our minds) means that our actions will change as well.  Happiness is only lastingly achieved with a life that has changed to the extent that it supports a feeling of happiness.  So, to repent is not all that bad after all, is it?  Repentance is a concept for changing your life that is very up-to-date as far as our recent neuro-scientific discoveries go.  (We will return to this teaching as a principle for developing mental muscle in a subsequent article.)  

Repent = change your mind = change your life

Our Minds Need a Complete Renovation

When we come to Christ, we are to be renewed in our minds.  A complete new mind-style is needed for a new lifestyle. 

Do not conform any longer 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]

In simple terms it means we are to start thinking like God thinks; and then we will be happy and loving and kind and super-effective — like He is.  We may not be able to complete the renovation in our lifetime. But think of what we can do if we start today.  

It’s a Mind Word Because It’s a Choice

Look again at Romans 12:2 and you will see that it has a negative command, “Don’t be squeezed into the mold of this world…” and then a positive one, “…be transformed…”  Two very different ways of thinking are contrasted for us.  Choose to think like the world and be squeezed into its mold or choose to be transformed!  Thinking “like the world” is thinking without God in your equation.  The transformation of our minds is the only way to a transformed life.  

Here’s Where to Start

Perhaps you could start your transformation this way.  Choose one of the words in Paul’s description of God’s life, which he called the fruit of his Spirit.  

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law. [Galatians 5:22-23]

Saturate your mind with it; meditate on it; repeat it over and over during the day and practice it.  Start deliberately making it the way you think about yourself and others.  Act it out in your daily contacts; dream about becoming a living example of it.  Pray for God’s help.  And in 40 days look back and see how much has changed in you!

Try naming some choices that create our world’s mind-style by comparison.  

So far we have been thinking only of changing our thoughts.

Next, we’ll look at our attitudes.  That’s another mind word.

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. If we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind (which is enslaving us) to become instruments of change for a better world by recognizing from where our value as humans is derived. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence and Happiness, is a great resource.

The post Repentance Is a Mind Word appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

What kind of lifestyle do you want?  We can use our minds to develop a mind-style for a new lifestyle.  Here’s what I mean.  There is a chain of reactions to all we do.  If we are going to have a new lifestyle (in Christ) we need His mind-style to make it happen.  What goes on in our minds ends up in our real lives.  Our lifestyle and our character are formed in our mind.  So it’s always mind-style before lifestyle.

The Completed Chain of Reactions of Lifestyle

Mind –> Brain –> Body –> Actions

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. [Proverbs 23: 7 KJV]

We literally become what we think (believe).  Pause and absorb this pivotal fact of life.  Having the mind of Christ means we will live like him.  We will have his effectiveness and his attractiveness if we have his mind.   

We are what we eat.  Oops!

We are what we think (believe)!  

Mentally masticate on that one!

A Guide to a New Lifestyle

The New Testament validates this principle in the letters of Paul where we find a pattern.  First, he seeks to influence our beliefs in his letters; and then, he draws conclusions for our behavior.  Mind came before actions in Paul’s philosophy of life.  

Change Your Mind; Change Your Life

Here is an example of how the mind changes the life.

 2 Corinthians 5:17, the new lifestyle: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

Philippians 2:5, the new mind-style: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:…”

Happiness First in the Mind

Happiness and unhappiness can impact our lives dramatically.  They are both produced in the mind and their effects are registered in the chemistry of the brain.  When we say they are produced in the mind, it is the same as saying they represent a mental choice we can make. 

I have learned how to get out of bed and choose to be happy. Have you?  It’s a great way to start the day!  In fact I am responsible for my own happiness because I can make the choice to be happily related to my circumstances or unhappily related to them.  Which would you choose when in your right mind?

Next up:  How to Change Your Life

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. If we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind (which is enslaving us) to become instruments of change for a better world by recognizing from where our value as humans is derived. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence and Happiness, is a great resource.

The post Developing A Mind-Style For A New Lifestyle appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

The HUMAN mind influences and changes the human brain, literally!  Scientific studies have finally debunked the old theory that the adult brain does not change.  In 1913 Santiago Ramon y Cajal (famous for winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine) declared in his treatise on the nervous system, “In the adult centers, the nerve paths are something fixed, ended, and immutable.”  It took a long time — even after evidence for the plasticity of the brain had been verifiably produced — for some in the scientific world to come around to admitting the fact of the changeableness of the adult brain. 

New Facts About the Brain

Here are some of the facts from our new understanding of the brain.

1. Our brain continues to change all the way into old age.
2. It grows new cells (neurogenesis) from day one to the last day of our lives, giving us the ability to change our brains in a significant way.  You can “teach an old dog new tricks”!  We can grow new cells and forge new connections between the cells.  It’s as simple and astounding as that.  
3. The old map of the brain that locates motor functions here, sight functions there, etc, is now no longer sacred.  The brain can co-opt adjacent areas for emergency use, shrink some, and develop others as it wishes.  The brain can change to meet the demands we place on it.  Its plasticity is astonishing.  
4. Outside influences from our experiences in our world can change the physical functions of the brain as needed to adapt to new environments.  
5. The mind (thoughts) can change the brain and its functions.  This is a revolution in brain research.  The Bible’s demand that we repent (change your mind to the extent that it changes your life) makes no sense if this is not true.  One of the objections to believing in the Bible’s repeated demands to change our minds (and, as a result, our behavior) was the objection that the brain does not change in any significant way. That has now fallen to the advance of knowledge.

What All This Means

Because of the ability to think abstractly, I can plan my life in a virtual world (my mind).  I can even take my plan for a test run.

Just like we can create a page on our computer screen and play with it before we print it, so we can create our lives on the screen of our minds before we live them.  We can think, reason, feel, dream, and plan in our abstract (virtual) world of our mind.  And we can change our plans as often as we like.  We can see mistakes in advance and even fail in advance.  We can also feel the emotions that accompany our decisions, thus flagging us of what is about to happen to our feelings if we live out our thoughts in real life.  What a fantastic gift God has given us to aid our ability to choose freely with a forecast of what our choice may involve.  

The mind is filled with a “product” called thought.  It is immaterial, yet potent in its power.  As we change our thoughts, we change factors and operational chemicals in the brain.  We are, of course, using non-scientific words to simply paint a picture that all of us can quickly grasp.

We change our virtual world and, as a result, we change our physical brains when we change our minds. 

The changes in our brains make appropriate changes in our bodies.

The Chain Reaction Discussed So Far

Mind – Brain

Simply stated, we create both our inner world in our mind and the physical conditions in our brain by the mental choices we make in our minds.    Applying this knowledge will propel us on the path to be the best we can be.  It will return us to the importance of mental renewal that the Bible insists upon.  

A Scientific Mystery

In an unknown way, our mind (which is immaterial) is linked to the functions of our physical brain.  This connection cannot be traced by observations in the physical world because only one end of the connection is physical.  We can see the results of the mind on the physical brain, however.  All kinds of theories are being proposed as to how the mind and the brain interact, but without any hard data.  

Our physical and spiritual worlds meet, interact, and influence each other in the virtual world of the mind.  The result is an awareness of ourselves that we call consciousness and possibilities for partnership with our Creator, as well as a place where we can choose to influence our brains.  

The Interaction of the Body, Human Spirit, and God’s Spirit

This interface between the physical and the spiritual parts of us is unknown to science. But it is no mystery to faith.

The methods of communication between the two are also largely unknown since science can study the physical part of the equation but not the world of the spirit.  Only God our Creator knows how the two worlds, physical and spiritual, really interface.  

Don’t worry.  Our lack of knowledge doesn’t hamper our ability to be the best that we can be.  Just follow the Creator’s instructions.  

We must think about the meaning of Romans 12:2 in the light of these scientific insights.  

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence and Happiness, is a great resource.

YOUR CHILD IS ALSO UNIQUE
It may surprise you, but your child is most probably a different temperament.  They are unique individuals too.  So even if they are the same temperament (two letters), they may be a different type (four letters).  And the strength of their drives will different from yours as well.  Your InnerKinetics (temperament) is not genetically passed on.  Therefore, it is exceedingly important to understand your child.  I’m a Keeper! is the resource you need to make that journey.

The post This HUMAN mind appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

I have something better than my brain!  It’s an inner world that I live with all day long, called my “mind”!  The mind is even more puzzling and amazing than the human brain. The mind cannot be located in the human body.  No surgeon can find it. Yet it can direct the brain and, through the brain, direct the body. We can think of it as a link in our connection with the “spirit world” and with God who creates all things.  Let’s jump in.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  [John 1:3-4]

…yet for us there is but one God, the Father from whom all things came and for whom we live;  and there is but one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. [1Corinthians 8:6]

Advanced Mind – Advanced Brain

Its incredibly advanced ability to think in abstract terms distances us from animals. Compare the most advanced tool usage among animals with the human development of a 747 aircraft and all of its intricate systems to understand that we stand apart from and above all other animals in the extent of our mental functioning. But it is the mind, not the brain, that is the most astounding contributor.

The human brain has a neo cortex significantly larger than the neo cortex in the brains of other animals. Our mind demands this larger more complex brain to process its abstract thoughts and its imaginative powers (to name only some of the mind’s demands).

Being Non-Physical, It Challenges Explanation

Being immaterial, we can’t discuss the mind’s structure or functioning in spatial terms like we can that of the brain. We are left to resort to analogy, symbolism, and a smattering of terms descriptive of the non-physical world.  We’ll examine this more in depth as we proceed.

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence and Happiness, is a great resource.

YOUR CHILD IS ALSO UNIQUE
It may surprise you, but your child is most probably a different temperament.  They are unique individuals too.  So even if they are the same temperament (two letters), they may be a different type (four letters).  And the strength of their drives will different from yours as well.  Your InnerKinetics (temperament) is not genetically passed on.  Therefore, it is exceedingly important to understand your child.  I’m a Keeper! is the resource you need to make that journey.

The post Something Better than My Brain appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.

How can you actually be the best you can be?  The next few articles will answer that question by continuing to consider the part the mind plays in achieving that goal.  We’ll focus on key points in the path to human excellence, points that far too many people overlook or take for granted.  Some people even reject them and pay the price.

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) is one of my favorite sculptors and “The Thinker” (Le Penseur), sculpted in 1904, that stands in front of the Pantheon in Paris is my best loved Rodin piece.

The Path to Human Excellence Is Really All About the Mind

Humans only rise to be their best when they skillfully use the power of the mind.  The greatest of all minds, judged by the life it produced, is the mind of Christ.  To be a disciple of Jesus is to learn to think like him so that we can live like him.

The “Thinker” is hard at work. Mental power shapes our lives and our world.

All Opportunities Come with a Price

Becoming God’s Diamond

Diamonds are the hardest and most precious of stones. They are formed by atoms and ions fusing themselves together under great pressure and heat.  God forms his human diamonds the same way: under the pressure and heat of life’s experiences.

Graphite, on the other hand, which is an early stage in the formation of a diamond, is formed under low pressure and comparatively cool temperatures.

Don’t Settle for Being “Graphite”

Strange isn’t it that many of us prefer to avoid the great stress and challenge it takes to form ourselves into diamonds. We settle for being graphite. We seem to forget what we were created to be.

So, let us remind ourselves at the beginning of this study that there is a cost to being all that we can be. Pay the price, endure the pressure, and you too can become all God created you to be.  You will sparkle like one of God’s precious diamonds.

Become a “new creation” in Christ Jesus. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Think like God in whose image you are made.

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 2:5 NKJV

Our goal moving forward will be to:

• Build a solid spiritual and mental foundation.
• Master your mind and release its God-designed powers.
• Turn your stresses into fertile opportunities.
• Discover HOW you can renew your mind
• Change your brain by changing your mind

“For God did not give us the spirit of fear… but of power…of love and a sound mind.”
2 Timothy 1: 7

“Be transformed by the renewal of your mind…”
Romans 12: 2

“A wise person is master of his/her mind; a fool becomes its slave.”
Unknown

Human Excellence Requires a Specific Psychology

“I used to think my brain was my most important organ. But then I thought: Wait a minute. Who’s telling me that.” – Emo Phillips

To maximize our potential we are given two books from God. One is the Bible and the other is the Book of Creation.

In the Bible we read how God wants us to live. This is called Biblical Psychology. Biblical means you will find it in the Bible, and Psychology means the study of human behavior. Biblical Psychology is, therefore, studying how humans can be the best they can be from the teachings of the Bible.

The Bible

That the Bible should have a psychology makes sense because if God created us He knows best how we should live and behave to maximize our potential.  And he would be likely to give us instructions – the best of instructions!

People often say they wish humans came with an instruction manual. They do.  It’s the Bible!  Surprised?  Avoid malfunctions!  Follow your “Instruction Manual”!

God’s Other Book

The other “book” (creation) tells us what God did, not what he said. We can find out more about the purposes of God as we study our world and ourselves. Studying creation will give us help in how to follow God’s guidelines.

Science Should Be Welcomed

Science is the study of ourselves and our world.  Neuroscience (the study of the brain), for example, is beginning to tell us how our brains are made and how we can operate to maximize the use of our brains. We will take you there and even further. Our study will take you to your mind, that mysterious entity that Jeffrey M. Schwartz calls the “parent of the brain”. He also declares that the mind is the power that shapes the brain.

Science Is Incomplete

While the Bible is a completed revelation (a book that starts with Genesis and ends with Revelation), the study of God’s creation by scientists has only just begun. Therefore, we can expect a progressive understanding from science — not a final, unalterable one. Science has not said its final word on anything yet. So, logically, there is no absolute certainty in a still expanding field of knowledge.

Scientific Discoveries Substantiate and Are Welcomed Here

The history of science gives evidence of this. Science, as it discovers more about our world and us, has had to change its mind often. This is the nature of a progressive discovery and should not be seen as a criticism of science. As science continues to confirm the Bible’s reliability, our faith is confirmed more and more. Faith needs no such confirmation.  But it welcomes the support of these discoveries.

So, without apology, we will search our Instruction Manual’ for guidance and study neuroscience for its illuminating findings.

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!
Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence and Happiness, is a great resource.

YOUR CHILD IS ALSO UNIQUE
It may surprise you, but your child is most probably a different temperament.  They are unique individuals too.  So even if they are the same temperament (two letters), they may be a different type (four letters).  And the strength of their drives will different from yours as well.  Your InnerKinetics (temperament) is not genetically passed on.  Therefore, it is exceedingly important to understand your child.  I’m a Keeper! is the resource you need to make that journey.

The post The Path to Human Excellence appeared first on RayWLincoln.com.