Not a Freak-Out Woman

     Today I woke up and knew it was one of those days...of the month...that are NOT my favorite...if you know what I mean. Plus Jon was late for work so we were both in a slight mood. So, its on days like today that I have to check myself and remember the things that are most important to me. I'm working on building good, foundational habits that will hopefully come naturally later on down the road.
     As a single woman I never freaked out (ok well very rarely) but as a married woman I have gained quite a few more very big, redefining variables in my life. There's a loving husband, a shared bank account, bills, that type of thing. Anyway, when we first got married I freaked out A LOT because I wasn't the only one in charge of what went on in my life anymore. Ha, I remember the first few months of marriage when life was exciting because we got a pay check. It was money, glorious money!, and we would cash our checks and I would be so excited because we had money again! Then, bill day came faithfully every other week and WWHAAAWHHHAAAAwwaaAAAAAAAA! **sniff, sniff**  We ar-are bbroooooke! BwaaAHAAWAAAHHAA! Life-fe-fe-fe is h-hard-d-d! And I would cry my eyes out!
     Dear Jon always lovingly gave me 30 minutes to get it all out and I would get over it and be my normal happy self again (smiling, sweet, and unshakable) until pay day came around and then again, WWHAAAWHHHAAAAwwaaAAAAAAAA! **sniff, sniff**  We ar-are bbroooooke again! BwaaAHAAWAAAHHAA! **choke, cough cough**
     Lol I don't know what got into me because I'd be determined not to cry and freak out but as soon as I checked our account... Whew! Life was rough with only a little more than $500 of spending money every two weeks. ;) Anyway, I think I'm finally over that phase but really, for my emotional self, there's always something I could choose to freak out about. So I've been reading the book Unglued by Lysa Terkeurst and she has made quite a few good points.

"Brain research shows that every conscious thought we have is recorded on our internal hard drive known as the cerebral cortex. Each thought scratches the surface much like an Etch A Sketch. When we have the same thought again, the line of the original thought is deepened, causing what's called a memory trace. With each repetition the trace goes deeper and deeper, forming and embedding a pattern of thought. When an emotion is tied to this thought pattern, the memory trace grows exponentially stronger.

We forget most of our random thoughts that are not tied to an emotion. However, we retain the ones we think often that have an emotion tied to them. For example, if we've thought over and over that we are "unglued," and if that thought is tied to a strong emotion, we deepen the memory trace when we repeatedly access that thought [This also causes us to have the same reactions to the same type of situations]...We won't develop new responses until we develop new thoughts...The Bible encourages this process, which only makes sense because God created the human mind and understands better than anyone how it functions... 'Do not conform 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)

Scripture also teaches that we can accept or refuse thoughts. Instead of being held hostage by old thought patterns, we can actually capture our thoughts and allow the power of Christ's truth to change them: '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.' (2 Corinthians 10:5)

     I am not perfect , but I can make progress. What about you?