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"You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control how you frame it."

 

A thought by Craig Groeschel from his book, Winning the War in Your Mind (p. 121). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.  (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.)

Here are some steps.


Craig says, "
Experts in the psychotherapeutic world share steps that help us to reframe, to take control of our thoughts and overcome our cognitive bias, such as:

  • Stay calm. If you react, you will probably react the way you’ve always reacted. 
  • Identify the situation. What exactly, and truly, is happening? 
  • Identify your automatic thoughts. If something at my house breaks and I know it will be an expensive repair, my automatic response is to panic just a little bit. But while I cannot control what breaks, I can control how I perceive it. So instead of just thinking my automatic thought, I identify that thought. I can take it captive and make it obedient to Christ. Then I take an additional step: 
  • Find objective supportive evidence. I want to deal in reality, and so I search for objective data on which to base my thinking, such as: Things are going to break. They always do eventually. That’s why you have an emergency fund. Just call someone to get it fixed. There is no reason to freak out."

He then says, "You can take these same steps. You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control how you frame it.

Very good info. And we can do that, can't we?

Yes, yes!


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