You Are NOT the Thoughts that Show Up in Your Mind

Today I want to bring home an important message for your mental health journey. And it has to do with how you relate to your thoughts, especially those intrusive, disturbing ones. And that's this. You are not the thoughts that show up in your mind. And we're going to get more into this in just a moment.

So, welcome to the healing and freedom journey. Mark the de Jesus here. I am your brother from another mother bringing you insights along the way. I am all about mental, emotional, and relationship health. And if you are too, you've arrived at a great place. What I'm going to share here is going to first help you to have greater insight in how you relate to intrusive thoughts. Two, it's going to help you in understanding the cultivation and strengthening of your identity of who you really are. And three, I believe what I'm sharing here can help you in relationship to all your thoughts, not just the troubling ones.

So, let's do this. Let's talk about your thoughts. Specifically, the ones that show up that are disturbing, right? The ones that knock on your door and your mind and you're like, "Wait, what's going on here? Where'd that come from?" Many of them can be deeply troubling. Disturbing. You feel like they're strange. They're weird. They're conflicting. They're dark. They're disturbing. They feel crazy. Am I crazy?

Many of the thoughts that I struggle with because I'll raise my hand first and say, "Yeah, I've had all the above. The fear-based, the anxiety-ridden, disturbing, conflicting, contrarian, existential, the spin spin spin cycle over and over again. The dark thoughts, the heavy thoughts, the crazy thoughts. And then I would feel like, am I crazy?" And for a long time, my response to those thoughts was, "I wonder if this means something about me. I need to investigate this, interrogate it, excavate this, ask people questions, get as much feedback as I can because something bad is happening within this thought and I got to figure out where it came from, what it's doing so I can eradicate it." And it led me to a lot of unhealthy compulsive behaviors that made those thoughts actually just grow and get worse. I just got trapped in something must be really wrong with me. I didn't know how to relate to my thoughts in a healthy way. And so I realized I needed a whole new way. I needed a renovation and how I related to my thoughts.

And one of them is this important message which is just because a thought arrives in your thinking does not mean it is who you are. But we feel it. We feel the emotions of it. We catastrophize it. We feel responsible for it. We have so much pressure going on inside of us. I got to do something about this. And so we can easily attach it and bring a connection. This must mean something about our identity. No. Just because a thought shows up does not mean it's tied to your identity. No, it doesn't. You don't have to merge those in together. That just because this disturbing thing is there that now it means something about you. You may have been tempted, and many of you have been, to get pulled into that. And I want to help you to recognize no, it doesn't have to mean anything.

Furthermore, even Paul the apostle himself when he was talking about the world of sin and sin working through his members and when he would act on something that sin working through him, it wasn't him either. He said that that I when I sin, it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. He got clarity on his identity in Christ that those struggles and those battles were not who he was, nor is it who you are. Now, I talk about that sin and understanding that in my condemnation teachings and and and all that. What I'm getting to here is the thoughts that show up every day that you end up clinging on to and you think this means something about you. No, that thought showing up is not a confession of your character. It's not a window to your soul. It's not this bright spotlight shining on your heart going, "See, this is who you are." And you're going to have to understand that throughout your lifetime, you're going to have all kinds of thoughts that will come and go. You're going to have all kinds of thoughts that will show up at times, and you're going to wonder about, "Oh, is this me? Is this what's happening?" Ah, and you're going to need to learn along your journey how to relate to your thoughts differently.

Now, some of you say, "But Mark, what about the heart? What if this means something about my heart? The Bible talks so much about the heart and what's going on in the heart." I'll get to that in a minute. But first, what I want you to understand is that everyone has unhealthy thoughts that show up. You may think you're the only one. It's a common thing I get. And to this day, every week, I get emails and questions of people who feel that their thought battle is exclusive to them. Now, you may have been convinced otherwise, but it's not true. In 30 years of experience, I can say this isn't true. But even study after study has shown that the overwhelming majority of people have intrusive unwanted thoughts. The difference is how they respond to it. What happens next? And there are a group of people who get lost in them, get entangled in them, and don't allow them to work their way through. These people often get diagnosed as OCD or have scrupulosity. Uh, a lot of perfectionism kind of battles and things like that. It's not the thought showing up. It's your response that makes the difference. And that's actually what we need to learn. And many of us get lost in the topic of it. Right? That's it's so disturbing. It becomes very easy for you to then attach it to your identity as though this is something in your heart that you really want. And maybe this is revealing something very dark about my heart. A very common passage of scripture that's brought up. Some would say, well, what about Proverbs 23:7? "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he." So, Mark, is this meaning something about my heart?

Now what I first want to do is I actually want to give context to this passage because this passage of scripture is actually talking about fellowshipping and breaking bread with an evil person which the King James actually calls a miser. I'm going to read it to you to get a little context. We're going to back it up a verse and we're going to go forward a verse. Proverbs 23:6-8. "Do not eat the bread of a miser, nor drink his delicacies. For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. Eat and drink, he says to you, but his heart is not with you. The morsel you have eaten, you will vomit up and waste your pleasant words." So many of you can pause right now and go, "Wow, Mark, this phrase tucked in within this passage gets kind of used outside of context a lot." Yes, I've done it. Everyone has has done it. We need to first get the context of what it was really saying. This scripture, the subject of verse is, um, is an evil man. He's called the miser. He invites you to the table, but he secretly is against you. He's resentful towards you, but on the outside, he's playing a part as though he's with you, but inwardly he's against you. So this passage like I said is tucked here within the wisdom that is needed in context. What the writer is talking about if you look at earlier verses is when you meet with a ruler, someone who is an elite high-level influential person in this world, someone who's rich but really deep down they are a fool and they resist the ways of God's ways and they actually have a lot of evil in their life and they're hiding it from you. And this proverb is helping you have discernment to someone who's acting super friendly to you, but actually they're working against you. The proverb here is bringing out what is on the outside is not matching what's on the inside. It's showing how people hide their motives of their heart to manipulate you. What the evil man thinks about you in his heart is really who he is.

Now, does this dismiss the importance of the heart and what you ponder on? Of course not. There's other passages of scripture that that get into this, but let me give you a few things to help with perspective. A, thinking in your heart is what you meditate on and what you live by, not disturbing thoughts that you wrestle with. There's even a passage of scripture where where Jesus talked about a man when you, uh, look at a woman with lust and committing adultery in your heart. I talked about that process and that whole chain of events that's going on and I contrast that to thoughts you struggle with or thoughts that are that are coming at you and help differentiate that. I actually have that in another video you can check out. He's also bringing out when when the Bible talks about the heart, these are deep-seated values that reside within your heart. And the Bible warns us that people will try to hide their evil motives towards others and just being discerning. There's another aspect too where in other passages where by observing the patterns of people's words over and over again where out of the mouth you know the heart speaks, right? Of that connection there that over and over and over again as you see their pattern of their words you can gain more insight into their heart.

Now the thing is is with the OCDer they say, "Well, Mark, what's in my heart and all these battles of thoughts that are going on?" I'm actually going to show you what's in your heart. Are you ready for this? Are you ready? I'm going to show you what's really in your heart when you're battling in intrusive thoughts. Whatever subject they are, you committed the unpardonable sin. You lost your salvation. You never had your salvation. You're not saved enough. Your sexual deviant thoughts. Your, uh, unclean thoughts. Your, uh, dirty thoughts. Your, uh, or unorganized thoughts, your chaotic thoughts, your murderous thoughts, your, uh, any kind of disturbing thought. Whatever the topic is, I'm going to tell you what's going on in your heart. It's a web of distortions coming against you. Now, you'll be tempted to focus in on the intrusive thought, and you think that's in your heart. Ladies and gentlemen, let me say this as clearly as I can. Your intrusive thought topic is not what's in your heart. Your intrusive thought topic is not what's in your heart. In fact, what's in your heart is the opposite. Intrusive thoughts bring out what you value in your heart and turn it on its head.

Now, what's going on in your heart is these things. These are called seven distortions. I split it up into eight for the sake of space here. It starts at the top with just right, but never enough pressure. The perfectionistic pressure that's inside of you. I got to have a good thought life. I got to make sure all my thoughts are okay. A heightened sense of doubt and uncertainty. "What if this thought means something about me? What if what if what if this means something about me being a deviant? What if it means something about how evil I am?" Now fear explodes. And now you're afraid of the thought. That fuels it, which fuels catastrophizing. Now this explodes. I got to do something about this now. Creates emotional confusion and turmoil. You don't know what thought means what. What emotion means what. Then you have major control issues and a false responsibility. I got to fix these thoughts. I got to do these things. Meanwhile, it's all fed by distorted interpretation. The meaning you give to the thoughts now. And a big meaning that OCD or struggle with is this thought means something about me. I need to do something about it because of the meaning you've attached to it. So ladies and gentlemen, when the Bible says about the heart for OCDers, this is what's going on. This is why you live in what's called spinning a spin cycle because all these things are going on at the same time. That's why you feel so exhausted and in so much turmoil because you were not meant to live under these things. And these areas layer after layer can be healed and can be renewed. But when we're chasing the topic of the thought and then telling ourselves, "Oh no, this might be who I am," we're just going to keep the spin cycle going. That's why it's so important to understand the problem is not the problem. The problem is not the content of the thought. It's your response to it and the distortions that come into play.

Otherwise, we're going to fall into things that going to make things worse. You're going to start excavating the thought. "Where did this come from? Did God send this to me? Am I capable of this?" You're going to practice something called thought action fusion. And what that means, you can look it up for yourself. It basically means having a thought showing up is the same thing as doing it or it means you are so capable of doing it. In fact, that last phrase I just said is one that gets people tripped up a lot. They feel very capable of doing it. So that inflames their fear. What it's really about is your feelings got hijacked. And just because a thought creates an emotional reaction, because that's really what we're talking about here. Your emotions are being held captive. Just because you had that emotional response does not mean anything about its validity, does not mean anything about its importance. Nor does it mean anything about God or about you.

Otherwise, you're going to merge the thought with who you are. And something I'm going to bring closure to this talk is that you are not what your feelings and emotions and thoughts say about you. You are who God says about you, not what your intrusive thoughts try to say about you. But in time, what's going to happen is you're going to increase the fear over your thoughts. Because then you're like, "Oh, I'm capable of this. This makes me a dangerous person." You become afraid of yourself. You become afraid of your own inner world. You may not even be able to be by yourself because you're so afraid of these thoughts showing up. But fear feeds the power of the thoughts. You've practiced freedom not by feeding the fear, but by walking through the fear and not feeding anything it's trying to say or any message it's trying to bring.

So, there's a few approaches I talk about in a lot of my teachings I think could be helpful for you. You can pick one that, uh, can kind of help you along the way. Number one is to see your thoughts as waves of the sea. All thoughts and emotions are meant to work through you. The seas come and go. The waves come and go and sometimes the storm rises up and you learn to let it wash through. Let the wave wash through to the shore versus trying to fight stop the wave from happening cuz that makes things even more exhausting and I talk about that more in in my other materials. You can see intrusive thoughts as a roller coaster ride and this is helpful for me because I don't like them. I'm not afraid of them. I just don't like the way that they make me feel. I get dizzy fairly easy. I get my stomach gets turned upside down and I go on a roller coaster and I just don't feel that great for a while. But here's what I know because my kids like going on rides and we go on a certain ride. I know this. I'll know the ride's going to end very soon. So just hold on and hang on. And many of us need reminders of that. Thoughts do not need to last forever. Even though they think this will never leave, this will never die out. It's just not true. They can and will die out as long as we learn new responses.

We can also see it as storms that show up. And whenever I think of this, I think of the old movie, uh, it's getting old now, the '90s movie Twister, not the newer one, the older one. And there's a scene where the tornado comes in and boy, you feel it. You feel it as you're watching this movie and the two characters that are trying to escape. The only thing they can find is this metal pipe that is trenched deep into the ground. They find like a leather belt. They strap it on. You see the two of them? They're just hanging on for dear life, right? And when you starve your compulsive behavior and you don't engage the thought, you may be filled with anxiousness. You may be filled with fear, but you're not feeding what the thought is saying. You may be hanging, you're you're hanging on just like they are, but you're actually practicing what Ephesians says when you've done all the stand. Just stand. Just stand. Cuz we need to know there's a massive difference between going through something and being that something. You may be going through a thought that's hitting at you. That doesn't mean that's who you are. What we're really needing to learn is to face the fear without reaction. I talk about that in this one thing that will help you in dealing with these thoughts and a bunch of other videos. I have a video on the gentle redirect. The gentle redirect is in compassion and love redirecting your thoughts to what's in front of you, to what's important, the relationships around you, the task at hand, being present in the moment, even while the thought is trying to scream its way into your thinking. But that gentle redirect and that compassionate posture reminds us, you know, sometimes we need to remember thoughts are just thoughts. We get afraid of them because we we treat them as though they're just going to do something or take us by storm or take control of us. Now, you can just notice it. You can let it pass through. But in all things, let everything be done with compassion. Be compassionate towards yourself. This is a journey that you're on is learning to see yourself through a lens of love, through a lens of grace.

Because at the end of the day, God our father says who you are. And this has been a great journey of me learning who am I really and what does God's word say about it. Now, it's not something that I try to shout out to those intrusive thoughts. Oh no, that's not my identity. My identity is this. That can get into compulsive behavior. But no, on just a regular basis, I'm learning who does God say that I really am. And you know what I've learned? As I get to know who God is as a father, the more that I learn about his love for me, it helps me to tune in to my identity. Because it's the same in an earthly relationship. Your earthly father was meant to love you. And in that love, he helps to remind you of who you are. And it's the same thing with our father in heaven.

Now, that disturbing thought that keeps showing up, that's not you. That's not who you are. It's not God trying to get your attention. That anxious spiral you've been in, the dark, heavy thoughts that that keeps showing up within it all, you are loved by your father in heaven. And all that noise that's going on, it's just noise trying to interfere, trying to bring resistance. And so, I invite you to join in the journey. Buckle up and get into a journey of healing, a journey of freedom. And it is a journey. I encourage you to get a copy of my book, the the OCD healing journey. This will help lay out a template that will help you to relate to your thoughts in a new way and have more meaningful work on your heart versus chasing all these thoughts and chasing all these disturbances. Some of you may want to take a deeper dive because I in the healing and freedom community taught on the OCD healing journey in large format. You can take a journey step by step, video by video with other people that are doing the same to help you relate to your intrusive thoughts, these troubling thoughts in a whole renewed way.

So, take a deep breath, buckle in. You don't have to get this all figured out and break through in one day. You're on a journey. And the good news is you have a father who loves you and is loving you all the way through it. It's in his love that we're going to see step by step a renewed relationship with who we are because we see him for who he is. That love that's going to cast out fear. That love that's going to redirect your attention. That love that's going to anchor you in the storm. I pray that this is a blessing to your life and your journey. And if it is, share this with a friend of yours. Say, "This helped me with some of these squirrely thoughts that I'm dealing with, the spin cycles." And I think it would help you as well, too. You can also go to markdasus.com and click on the donate button to support these videos and it's a blessing. Thank you for those that are doing that. Lord willing, the creek don't rise. This is your brother from another mother saying I'll be back with more insights for your healing freedom journey. But in the meantime, I'm out.