Taking Every Thought Captive
I don’t know about you, but I’ve reached the point in my life where I am tired of negativity regularly showing up in my life. I don’t mean that I’ve been negative lately and its wearing me out, rather, I mean that I have come to realize that when things don’t go my way, I default to responding negatively and I’m tired of that being my default response. I am realizing now that I have been looking at the world through “life lenses” rather than “love lenses” and, as such I am easily triggered. When I get triggered, I tend to respond from below the line with emotions such as anger, frustration, guilt, and desire (yes, even desire is below the line). Thankfully, I’m allowing myself to see that I am not required to live life that way. Let me explain.
As an example, let me use something that has regularly triggered me – the government. I see a politician pushing an agenda that I perceive as bad for me or the country and it triggers me. Once triggered, I react from judgment. That reaction can look like calling the politician a name, speaking poorly about them to others, and potentially framing the person as “evil” based on their words/actions. The activity of “seeing” is actually me “perceiving” that person from a place of ego and judgment. I perceive good in the world a certain way, the politician is saying or doing something in contradiction to that “good”, so I judge them accordingly. That perception comes from my mind as a thought. It might be a thought that I had that day, or one that has been engrained in me for years. So, the process looks something like this:
Thought -> Perception -> Judgment -> Trigger -> Action
When the action I take is from a below-the-line emotion, I must realize that it is coming from a thought that I have about the situation/person/etc. To change the reaction, I must first see the situation/person/etc. from a place of love, not judgment. This requires me to grab each negative thought as it comes up, accept that thought as coming from the ego and not my true self, then release that thought to God rather than hold onto it. By taking every thought captive, I am choosing to be in control of my thoughts from a place of love and light, rather than letting my thoughts be in control of me.