Now, I am learning that sometimes I have to say no. In the past, I served past the point of being healthy. I have been taught that my lesson is not necessarily always providing service, I have to be careful and wise with the commitments I take on. For example, as a person that had co-dependent tendencies, serving others is a very natural response. I know what lessons are meant for me and I know which lessons are not for me personally. There were a few areas that I don’t completely agree with, but that is the beauty of having a personal spiritual practice. This was not new information to me, but I really enjoyed the way it was pulled together. I, too, have done a lot of research, counseling, and praying to combat my toxic thoughts. We can either continue thoughts that continue down that negative spiral, or we can choose better thoughts.Īs I mentioned before, this has been an area of struggle for me for several years. Jennie Allen lets us know repeatedly that we have the choice to decide what we think. The main portion of the book shows us principal toxic thought patterns as well as the better thought we can think in order to interrupt the cycle.

“Our emotions were leading us to thoughts, and those thoughts were dictating our decisions, and our decisions were determining behaviors, and then the behaviors were shaping our relationships, all of which would take us back to either healthy or unhealthy thoughts”. One of the main ideas is the following pattern:

This book explores scientific brain research and compares it to what the Bible instructs. This book helps us understand what the Apostle Paul mean when he told us to, “take every thought captive” (2 Corinthians 10:5). “We have bought the lie that we are victims of our thoughts rather than warriors equipped to fight on the front lines of the greatest battle of our generation: the battle for our minds.” This book delves deep into stopping the negative thought spiral. “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2) In fact, I read this book one chapter at a time to really digest what the author was telling me (and maybe on a deeper note, what God was teaching me). This is not a book that I could read without some breaks. The endorsement from one of my favorite Christian authors, Lysa Terkeurst, sealed the deal. This is one of those cases where just the title (and the subtitle) convinced me to read this book. That’s not an issue for me, but there wasn’t anything in the title that hinted at spirituality. I picked up this book at Target not realizing that it was a “Christian” book.

Jennie allen get out of my head