All About Adding

If you’ve ever battled with mental illness, whether that be OCD, depression, anxiety, eating disorders or a combination of any of these, I’ve bet you’ve spent some time researching how to overcome them. I, too, have done the same thing. In battling OCD, I have spent time looking up how to combat it. And I was surprised by the answer I received. The best anticode to the doubting disease is nothing.

Replacing bad thoughts with good ones, performing compulsions, avoiding situations, or any other method that people use to cope with OCD is not recommended. The best treatment is moving forward- carrying on as usual without the involvement of mental gymnastics.

How can this possibly be accomplished for an overthinker like myself? Well, the Lord has been showing me the answer.

came across this in my Bible this week!

When I came across the excerpt in my Bible, I knew it was a God-wink moment. It's so cool how God how solidifies and expands on what He wants us to learn.

There was a time this summer and fall when I stopped writing, reading, podcasting, posting, etc. I stopped doing all the things that brought me life. No wonder I was struggling so hard. With the subtraction of joy came the addition of fear and anxiety.

Lately, God has been telling me to do the reverse. If darkness came from the subtraction of so many things, perhaps the antidote is addition of the good things.

I was also coming to realize this a couple weeks ago, as indicated by this statement in a past blog post.

"Because Christ is back on the throne of my life, taking care of my mental health via positive activities is not a distraction but a form of spiritual defense."

from Fixing Your Focus blog post from Feb. 5

So I want to encourage you to continue to do the things that bring you joy and are God-honoring. If a habit makes involvement in the things that make you happy near impossible, it may be time to reassess your priorities. Idols in your life are real and can open up a host of dreadful doors that you’d rather have stay shut- trust me.

Video from Mom

My mom also sent me a video this week that also supported this idea.

In the video was a cup full of water. Black liquid representative of bad thoughts, toxic patterns of thinking, anger, resentment, & essentially all the the bad things in life were being shoveled into cup of clear water.

The dark liquid quickly infiltrated the clear liquid and made the entire contents of the cup black.

The woman in the video said that you can sit there and try to meticulously remove all of the dark water, but this is near impossible. And you'd more than likely just end up with an empty cup.

But pouring more clear water into the cup eventually filtered out the dark water and made it clean again.

She said that the same is true with life. If we focus on trying to take out all the negativity, we probably won't succeed and will be left empty. Instead, we can focus on adding good things to our life- like creating connection, having real engagement with my family, listening to uplifting music, dancing and singing, etc. This isn't pretending that the bad stuff in life doesnt happen. It's just choosing to focus on the positive.

The point of the message was that what we choose to focus on expands, so we must make sure we are choosing to focus on something that fills our cup.

Here's the link to the full video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpXs5-8uIxp/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

This week don’t feel about doing the things that bring you joy. The Bible tells us to cling to what is good!

Tik Tok Message

I saw a video on TikTok this week that had a good message that I thought I'd share! And before you bash social media, it's important to point out that it can be a good source of laughter, connection, and creativity when used correctly ;) The TikTok said:

"Do not spend too much time in your head. Not every thought is your own. Jesus gave us a mystery. He said a house divided against itself cannot stand. But in that statement is the mystery that we were not created to be divided against ourselves. We are created in the image of God, and God is one. The spirit of God is a spirit of unity. So to be created in His image is to be created in oneness with yourself. So when you have thoughts of doubt, fear, failure, anxiety, depression, and all these things, they are not yours. The biggest tactic of the enemy is to hide his own thoughts as your own."

Jennie Allen Podcast

I was listening to a podcast this week by Jennie Allen that was SO good. Here are a few highlights & here is the link to the full podcast!

Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2S1BtMIZvV084b7lu6XOPn?si=_JrBmOduSxeP3v51ORhvaw

"Why You Have to Know Your Own Story" Notes

• What if the darkest moment of your life God intended for good?

• Joseph's story

  • There were a lot of times in his life where he knew exactly what God had for him.

  • He was encouraged, and he had favor. And then there were moments that were unthinkably terrible. Yet, together these moments led to a time in his life that God would use in a remarkable way to rescue nations and rescue his family.

  • You could look at Joseph’s story and think that your story isn't like that. But it is.

  • You have low points and high points in your life that have made you into the person you are today.

  • Don't be afraid that the low points don't mean anything.

  • Scripture has promised that He has redeemed the darkest moments of your life to mean something.

  • We look back at the Garden and how the world was before the fall. We think that's the ideal time. We all wish we could go back to the Garden, but the reality is that what we are headed toward is more beautiful and more amazing than before we fell.

  • A redeemed story is actually more beautiful and more compelling than a perfect one.

  • We are not drawn to what is perfect. We are drawn to what we can relate to, what is real, and what shows us we are not alone in this world.

  • We are people that wait for the next story. We wait for them in our feed, on a show, or in a book.

  • We love stories, but we rarely love our own. Rarely do we feel proud of our own story. We often feel anxious to share.

  • Baked into the darkest moments of your life could be your calling and life assignment.

  • God works all things together for the good of those who love Him. What does this mean? Maybe the good works you’ll do is what you do for other people.

  • Maybe your story is not just for your own personal redemption. It's highly likely that your story is also for the good of others- for the good of what He is doing on this planet. It’s so much more than just you.

  • In our weakness, God looks really good.

  • Someone is waiting for you to share your story.

Other quotes I came across this week that I loved:

You may be going through things that other people don't have to go through because He's using you in ways He's not using other people.

Mental health is the commitment to reality at all costs.

One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through, and it will be someone else's survival guide.

have a great week!

~ Bailee Chavez