Breaking Free from Anxious Intrusive Thoughts in Motherhood

The Bible provides the steps we need to break free from anxious intrusive thoughts in motherhood. We can learn to overcome anxious thoughts as moms by following God’s word. 

Learn the ABCD journaling method and how you can use it to uproot anxious or intrusive thinking patterns.

Join Selah Support for personalized help overcoming your mental battles in motherhood! 

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Mom Sailor Podcast. I am your host, Ches, wife, homeschooling mother of two, and certified CBT coach, teaching moms like you to overcome toxic thinking patterns. Let's begin with today's Bible verses, Philippians 4, 6 and 7 in the NLT. Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. These verses are certainly on my favorites list because it speaks to our anxieties. Right? Some versions say, don't be anxious. And I love right here in this verse that we have two great steps that we can take to break free from intrusive thoughts in motherhood. So today I'll break this verse down so we can say la, pause and reflect on these two ways that we can overcome anxious thoughts as moms. So right away in this verse, it tells you to pray about everything. Prayer is the most powerful thing that you can do given any anxious moment. Whenever you are worried about your child, when you drop them off at daycare and they were fussy this morning, or you're nervous about how they're going to turn out in the future, we can and should take these things to the Lord. We need to be specific and honest with God in our prayers about how we're feeling and whatever those concerns are. Doing that is an act of faith. We are leaving our children in the hands of the Almighty, the all-powerful, all-knowing God, and we can trust our children to his care better than we can trust ourselves alone. Lift those concerns up to God, Mom. The next step is gratitude. Psychological studies have proven what the Bible has been telling us for 2,000 years. Research has actually proven that gratitude, just being thankful to God, has notably reduced anxiety symptoms in observed patients. The frontal lobe, the hippocampus, and amygdala, that is the part of the brain that controls our emotional regulation, is activated when we practice gratitude. Spiritually and physically, you are activating your faith by remembering and reciting the things that God has done for you already. That does something to your spirit, your mood, your energy levels. It's going to give you peace. Your mind cannot be anxious and grateful at the same time. You can't worship God and focus on your anxieties in the same moment. The promise that we find in God's word today is that if we trust him enough to talk about all of our concerns with him and the big things and the little things that make us uneasy as mothers, he will give us peace. If you take some time today to say la reflect on how good the Lord has been to you, it will be easier to break free from those intrusive thoughts and those anxious thoughts. Practice gratitude every day, and his peace will come over you so much that it won't even make sense. Chaos can break loose around you, but you can keep your cool because you trust the God you serve. Amen. Next, I'm going to dive into a journaling technique that you can use to uproot thinking like this, and we'll get into the actionable mindset shifting practices step by step. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I pray that your blood would wash over the minds of this mother listening today, that my sister would find peace as she prays about each and every concern she has. Lord, I pray that she would not be anxious about anything, but that she would begin to cast all of her cares upon you. Let every thought that isn't from you be uprooted, Lord. Remind her of your goodness and your faithfulness, God. We thank you so much, Lord, for all that you have done, what you are doing now, and what you will do in the future. We ask these things in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.

mindset tools

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So let's get into that journaling technique I mentioned. So thought journaling is a CBT method and a powerful psychological tool. In fact, clinical research has shown that people who regularly journal reduce their anxiety and depression symptoms by up to 45%. When it comes to stopping intrusive thoughts in motherhood, we can take advantage of this awesome tool. Maybe it will become a regular habit for you. Today I am going to break down a specific journaling method that will help you process your thoughts and help you stop intrusive thinking habits so you can overcome this type of mental battle in your motherhood. So let's dive in. This is called ABCD journaling. So I'm going to break down each letter. It's an acronym, it stands for activation, beliefs, consequence, and dispute. So I'll break those down and then I'll show you how to practically try those. Alright, so let's start with A. The A stands for activation. This is all about identifying your triggers. Ask yourself what is happening. What is triggering this thought? Is there a certain situation, a certain person, or something that irks you or sets you off or gets you into this negative mental spiral? The A activation, you are looking for a trigger, an initial thought or an initial event that sets you on this thought path that leads you to a bad place. So you're gonna figure what that is, you're gonna write that down, or if you feel like something is not right with your thoughts, you're gonna write down what you feel like is triggering that. Okay, that's A activation. What's activating it? Okay, well, let's go to B. B stands for beliefs. What is it that you believe about this activating event or thought or trigger? Are you responding that way with anger, anxiety, whatever it is? Why are you responding that way? What do you believe deep down? Often this belief is going to be something that you are over-generalizing, jumping to conclusions, you're exaggerating things, or there's some kind of flaw in that negative thought based on a faulty belief that you have accepted as true. What is that belief? C stands for consequence. What is happening as a result of that spiral of negative thinking? What kind of consequences are you having to deal with as a result of your anxiety, for example, or your outbursts of anger? You have to realize the impact of what the negative thinking pattern and these intrusive thoughts are having on your motherhood experience. What will happen if you continue down this thought path? What kind of impact will it have on you, the people around you, your children? Thinking leads to emotions, emotions lead to actions, and actions lead to consequences, good or bad. What can happen if you don't deal with this right now? And finally, D. Just a quick review before we get into our dispute section. A is for activation. Remember, what is that trigger? B is a belief. What is the faulty belief that I'm holding on to? C is that consequence. What's going to happen if I don't stop this? D is disputing. Challenge your thinking. What do you know that is actually true related to this? Where did that belief come from? Was it something that your mother believed? What evidence do you have that might help you realize that this thought or belief is not even valid? And the most important question you can ask yourself here is does it align with God's word? If you're in this negative cycle, chances are it's not in line with God's word. And it's most likely contrary to what God's word says about you, about your children, or about the situation. Search God's Word for a scripture to stand on and write that down. So here's your actionable step. You're going to try this A B C D journaling. Remember that's activation, belief, consequence, and dispute. Now you can try this by stopping yourself in a moment after you've just had an activating event, and you can pull out your phone, or if you have a little notepad with you, you can write down what triggered you. You don't have to go through the entire journaling process all at once. You can just make a note to yourself and you can go back to it. Take a picture of that mess on the floor that made you made you triggered. Um when you find a free moment, move forward with that. So maybe you put the kids to bed, take five minutes, walk through. Okay, that was my triggering event, my activation, right? B belief. Take out those notes, take out that picture. Why did I react that way? What do I believe that makes me think this way? And then consequence. What are the consequences if I continue to let this trigger me? Dispute it. Find a scripture to combat that faulty belief. Now, you may find that some further action is needed for you to fully deal with the root issue here. Maybe you have to have a conversation with your kids about the way they leave things, or maybe you have to speak to your husband about the way he said something to you. Remember, we're not placing blame on anyone here, but you have to resolve that belief at the root of it. You need to make sure that you're communicating, not just that something is triggering you, but that it makes you feel a certain way and think a specific belief and let that conversation help you dispute the theory that you've been leaning on and what you've been reacting negatively to. Does that make sense? You want to talk it out if necessary, if it's, you know, your husband, your children, your mother-in-law, whatever it is, is triggering you. So again, A, B, C, D, Activation, Belief, Consequence, and Dispute. Try it today. I am available to help you one-on-one in my Sela Support Coaching program. It's limited because of that one to one attention that's given. So click on the link in the show notes for Sela support and see how I can help you personally. God bless you, mom. Thank you for subscribing and take care until the next episode.