What's On Your Mind? Our attitudes are important to health and success in life.

Our lives affect those we have contact with, either positively or negatively. Because emotions and behaviors involve a complex interplay between the heart, the mind, and the body, it benefits us to know how our mind is influenced and how our brain works.

Your body believes every word you say! We do not merely experience anger in our minds, we feel it biologically in our body-our muscles tense and stomachs ache. Understanding ourselves, and other people, is critical to mind change and our overall growth.

If we were to look at our brain, we may see a dark abscess caused by the stronghold of anger. The same is true for envy, anxiety, lust, fear, depression, and other emotions. The Bible says, "A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones" (Prov. 14:30). There is a direct correlation between pessimistic, toxic thinking and illness. If we do not have a change of mind, we can actually make ourselves sick!

Our body truly speaks our mind. Even as a Christian, my mind continued to create negative thoughts, which translated into bad feelings and behaviors. Not only was my mind and heart tormented, but so was my physical body. I was diagnosed with lupus, gastritis, and shingles. No question, what you think influences your biological body.

Toxic and negative thinking can manifest itself in bodily symptoms such as cancer, diabetes, allergies, to name a few. Research confirms some of our behaviors actually prevent us from being our best selves. The reasons may be varied, from psychological or biological causes to spiritual warfare, or a combination. We know our brain speaks to our body and vice versa. There is an ongoing symphony of chemicals playing through your body twenty-four hours a day.

Our way of thinking affects the functioning of that whole electrical-chemical cycle. When the cycle is upset, all sorts of illnesses and injuries can result, impairing our ability to decipher truth and live a fulfilling life. Finding the root cause does not excuse bad behavior or lessen the need to seek spiritual or therapeutic help. Rather, it allows us to better understand why we do what we do so we might choose better alternatives.

[Resource: Daniel G. Amen, M.D., Change Your Brain, Change Your Life & Making A Good Brain Great]

Many toxic and negative thoughts or unnatural behaviors may be related to functional problems in the brain. If you understand better how your brain works, that knowledge can actually give you hope. If a person is unresponsive to psychological or pastoral intervention, or conventional medical science, the next step would be to consider physically evaluating the brain itself through the clinical use of brain imaging (PET, fMRI, SPECT scanning).

Today, with the advent of brain scanning, scientists no longer have to speculate about the brain's role in our personality and decision-making skills. Brain technology has helped many people understand themselves. They learn to forgive themselves for behaviors they really did not want to do. Mom and Dad no longer condemn themselves as "bad parents" when their child is diagnosed with a mood disorder. Understanding their brain also helps people move beyond the past and into the future God has planned for them, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jer. 29:11). A scan may show overactive brain activity, which has been associated with OCD, which might explain my behavior. I was trying to settle down the pattern of over activity in my brain.

Have you ever taken the time to muse over the magnificent complexity of your brain?

Most of us don't really do anything to care for it, yet it manages our entire body-every organ and system. It gives us the capacity for art, language, moral judgments, and rational thought. The brain can store more information than all the libraries in the world, which explains why it takes us "mature" folks longer to retrieve data! The brain responds to our thoughts and behaviors, which determines who we are, our personality. It is responsible for our memories, movements, and how we sense the world. Our moods and feelings originate in our brain, which affects our will to do right or wrong.

The female brain responds more intensely to emotion. Feelings, especially sadness, trigger neurons in an area eight times larger in the female brain than in the male brain. That explains a lot, doesn't it? The mind is what the brain does. It's the software running on the hardware of the brain. Right now, it is feeding your understanding with knowledge by translating ink shapes on these pages, speaking them into your mind, and automatically filling them into your memory bank. Our minds can reach into the past through memory or reach into the future through imagination.

Our brain is amazing and reflective of God's greatness. How our brains function likely determines how well we connect with others and how close or how distant we feel from God. Throughout our lives, many of us have received ongoing toxic messages that we're defective in some way. Research suggests abuse in early childhood alters how the brain reacts to stress. Because it is normal for our thoughts to run on automatic, we often end up in repetitive pain-generating cycles of which we are not even aware. If there is a physiological reason, being able to view your own brain scan may be a step in the healing process. I have a medical problem! I'm not so stupid after all.

Recent research indicates we can train our minds, thus change our brains. In most cases, you can change the physiology of your brain, which means you can fix the way you think. However, there are certain people who are resistant to change due to a deep-rooted psychological or biological reason or spiritual reason which might require professional intervention.

Life coaching can help you in this process.

[For more on brain health I recommend Dr. Daniel Amen's website: www.amenclinics.com]

A stronghold is something that has a strong hold or powerful influence on a person. It is a mindset that is resistant to change. Synonyms are stranglehold, vice-like iron grip, cancer, and infection. It is a deeply entrenched pattern of thought, ideology, value, or behavior burnt into our minds through negative repetition. I call these mental strongholds or habits, mindholds-harmful thoughts and emotions literally embedded in our minds.

Mindholds temporarily make us feel good by filling that hole in our hearts. But, they can also be God's way of telling us we have some serious things to deal with. The most common strongholds are fear, people-pleasing, low self-esteem, anger and unforgiveness, doubt, unbelief in God's character, perfectionism and bad habits. Over time, our habits and thoughts shape who we are. As we nurture them, we choose to bend our will until we no longer choose a different route, becoming a slave to that toxic thought or habit. "My mom is addicted to chocolate, and so I am. I can't change. It's in my genes! I'll always be a chocoholic!" is a stronghold (sorry, ladies!). Like a slave, we submit ourselves to its wicked demands. It may even end up destroying us. Mindholds (or strongholds) are also visible to the eye in a brain scan.

Learning specialist, Dr. Caroline Leaf, author of Who Switched Off My Brain? states a stronghold literally looks like a cancer or abscess. For example, unforgiveness locks toxins in the body, which results in a heavy, dark memory. On the other hand, research shows an enriched environment of thinking positive, healthy thoughts can lead to significant structural changes in the brain's cortex. Brain imaging illustrates that positive thoughts look like beautiful, lush, and healthy green trees. Whereas negative thoughts look like ugly, mangled, snarling thorn bushes.

Dr. Leaf asserts toxic thoughts build toxic memories. They upset the chemical feedback loops in your brain by putting your body in a harmful state. Your brain grows heavy with thick memories that release a toxic load, interfering with function. She asserts that if you have been repeatedly verbally or sexually abused as a child, all the thoughts associated with those experiences will release negative chemicals that travel through your body and can change the shape of the receptors on cells lining your heart, thereby increasing susceptibility to cardiovascular illness. Simply put, positive experiences induce brain cells to expand; negative experiences cause brain cells to shrivel and die. This is intelligent design!

[Ref: Caroline Leaf, Who Switched Off My Brain, Backmatter, Switch On Your Brain Organisation Pty (Ltd.), 2007]

As we grow and change, old, rigid thoughts and beliefs-mindholds, break down and cease to work for us, just as an old wineskin breaks if its filled with new wine. Jesus said, "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved" (Matt. 9:16-17).

One of the miracles of the mind is once we learn something it becomes automatic and unconscious called automatization. For example, when you first learn to drive a car, you learn to steer, brake, and judge distance, which requires all your attention. In time, it becomes automatic. You pay little attention because it becomes an unconscious action. Our thinking processes are automatic and unconscious. We develop automatic thinking patterns in childhood. Some of those patterns are distorted and faulty-automatic toxic thinking (ATT), which we bring into adulthood. Many of us put up defense mechanisms if we have been hurt in some way, thereby experiencing dysfunctional relationship after dysfunctional relationship.

Jesus Christ, in the flesh, was the mirror image of the invisible Father (see Hebrews 13). He is the healer who will transform you into the person you were created to be. He is the friend who longs to be in a loving, intimate relationship with you. Everything you need can be found in him. He taught that people who are growing are motivated to change their thinking.

Only by becoming consciously aware of your personal ATTs can you make room for new thoughts and beliefs. This awareness precedes growth, just as a new wineskin flexes with the new wine. Life coaching can help you in this process.

God enables us to work to change our mind, our brain, and our heart, but he doesn't do the work for us. Our part requires continually exposing our minds to the Word of God and persistent prayer that the Holy Spirit will give us the desire and power to exercise discipline in all areas of our lives.