  As Christians, we are promised pain and persecution. Does that freak you out? If you’re scared, no need to be, and I’ll show you why!  

GYC 2016: When All Has Been Heard

<div> <div> <p>As Christians, we are promised pain and persecution. Does that freak you out? If you’re scared, no need to be, and I’ll show you why!</p> </div> </div>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

From Shame to Glory

Amanda Anguish

1. Steps to Christ-like Thinking

This message was presented at the GYC 2016 conference, When All Has Been Heard, in Houston, Texas.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

♪♪♪ Well, many of you probably have no idea who I am, and a few of you probably know who I am because I recognize you.

My name is Amanda Anguish, and you're probably Really sad for me with that last name.

And ironically, I'm also a licensed marriage and family therapist.

So how ironic that I would have the last name Anguish.

The college that I went to, 1 of my friends teaches the communication courses there.

And I actually did communication courses before I became a therapist.

And she had put up on the wall in the department what all of the people who had graduated from the program were doing with their degree and she put my name up there with that I was a marriage and family therapist and so somebody, 1 of the students at the college had taken a picture, posted it on Facebook and wrote all of these comments about how awful her guidance counselor must have steered her the wrong direction because with a last name like that, they were being funny.

But they didn't realize that because it was connected to her that I would also see it.

But nobody forgets my last name, you might forget my first name, and usually the women that I meet say, oh I'm so sorry.

This is going to be so embarrassing for the people who come in here from now on.

Usually women say, oh, I'm so sorry that that's your last name.

Well, I am a marriage and family therapist, and in the state of California, we have to call ourselves licensed marriage and family therapists, so I get all sorts of questions like, oh, do you only see married people?

Do you only see people who have families?" And I say, no, I'm just what you would consider a counselor or a therapist.

We just, that's the full term that we use in California.

Not originally, I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, where my parents were baptized into the church.

So yes, some good things can happen in Las Vegas.

And I was born there, so it was another good thing that happened in Las Vegas.

Originally when I graduated from college, I started in fundraising.

I should probably have somebody man that door.

I started in fundraising, and I am not an extrovert, Although it looks kind of like I might be if I like to do this sort of thing, I'm not an extrovert, I'm actually an introvert, so asking people for money and making friends with people to ask for money was really hard for me.

But I believe that was something God wanted me to learn, and I did learn the beautiful ministry of stewardship through that.

But then he also led me to what was my first love and that was the practice and the learning of psychology.

But by the time I learned it or was able to go into that for a living, I got to learn it in a more Christian perspective.

And that was really important to me because this field and this practice has a lot of weird stuff going on in it.

And some of you have probably been exposed to that.

Up until just last week, I was teaching the psychology class at Weimar College, and I've just retired.

I know I look really young for retirement, but I retired from teaching.

I do have a full practice In Auburn, California, where I'm a marriage and family therapist, I run a group during the day or in the mornings.

And in the afternoons, I see individuals, couples, and family clients.

Neil Nedley doing the depression recovery program.

I know some people from that and hear from that.

And I also do some speaking engagements now.

And if any of you go to the EQ Summit that's happening in February, I also speak at that.

So you get to see if you come to Weimar, you'll get to see that.

But I really want to talk to you about my favorite thing, and that is emotional hygiene.

And I know that's not the title anywhere else, but this is 1 of 4 parts, all 4 parts today, and then I will be doing another talk tomorrow morning, and then another 1 on Sabbath afternoon.

So you get to see those, but the first 4 that I'm doing are today, and they're all part of a series.

And if you miss something, if you miss the first part and you get the other 3, you'll still get something good, but I hope you'll decide to stay for the whole thing.

I know there's a lot of competition here with good talks, but hopefully you'll get something from this, but I can guarantee you will get something from this.

Even if you've heard some of these things before, I'm a unique person, so you'll get a little bit different of a perspective.

And just like reading the Bible over and over again, you get something every single time.

So if you've read some things already then you will you'll still get something out of today.

But my talk today is called Steps to Christlike Thinking And I had originally changed the topic, so if you look downstairs at the kiosk that has everything, you'll notice there was a different title on there.

I got some inspiration after I already turned in my talk titles the first time, and I decided that I really wanted to help people think like Christ, because 1 of the stories that I've just been recently reading is the story of Christ in the wilderness when he was tempted.

And I truly believe that today, you know, the devil works in so many ways, and some are more obvious to us, but if he's really as good at his work as he is, that doesn't mean good in a positive way, that just means good as an effective.

If he's really as good as he is, he's not gonna go for the obvious things.

And our minds are the not so obvious place that he goes.

And so I wanna help you be able to withstand the fiery darts that the devil throws at you, and maybe then you can also help someone else too.

And I do believe that the best way that I learn is when I teach.

So every time I teach, I'm actually learning something new, either from your responses or your questions or just God's inspiring me during this time to share with you something that I believe.

1 of my favorite quotes is from Testimonies for the Church, Volume 3, page 269.

To deal with minds is the nicest work in which men ever engaged.

How many of you by raise of hands work with minds?

Everybody, because every single person here has a work to do, and every single person here works with other human beings, and connected to those human beings are the mind.

So Each 1 of us works with that and we will be the most effective with working with other people if we consider the mind when we're talking to them.

Some of you will come up to me at any given point and you'll ask me, oh, have you read this book?

Or I've read this book, have you read this book?

You know how many self-help books are out there?

Her writings, I have found, are by far the greatest self-help books I've ever read.

And I consistently go back to what she has said over and over again because I consistently see in my practice how the things that she said are actually far and beyond.

And I'm going to share some things with you today and tomorrow and the next day that will show you that she had her hand on all of the stuff that we're going through, even though it seems like she lived so long ago.

So this is truly 1 of the nicest works that we get to do.

How many of you growing up learned how to say please and thank you.

Do you remember learning that in school or even in Sabbath school maybe or from your parents?

How about brushing your teeth and washing your hands?

I hope all of you learned how to do this.

Otherwise, maybe that's why there's a space next to you.

No, but we all learned how to brush our teeth, and especially after we go to the bathroom, I hope you all are washing your hands.

I was actually in the bathroom once, and somebody walked right out without washing their hands.

And it dawned on me, wow, I just assume people do that.

Before we cross the street, we all know these things.

How about this 1, do you remember growing up with this 1?

How many of you have actually used this 1?

Have any of you had to stop, drop, and roll?

No, I actually gave this presentation once before and somebody actually raised their hand.

2. Cognitive Conflict of the Ages

When we talk about cognitive conflict of the ages, I think 1 of the biggest ways, I've mentioned this before, that the devil tries to slow our work down as Christians is to get us stuck on the things that we think.

And as we get stuck on the things that we think, then it eventually affects how we act and how we feel.

And I went over these, or I went over the ABCs of cognitive behavioral therapy in the last session.

And the ABCs or the cognitive triangle is, this is the irrational thinking or beliefs and self-talk that perpetuates our negative emotions and behavior.

So another way of saying that is, how we think affects ultimately how we act and how we feel.

And if we're not feeling good, and if we're not acting well, then what is that, what's the cause of that?

Our thoughts are directly causing that, not necessarily the activating events in our lives or the people.

So I'm just gonna go through this really quickly for the people that weren't here before.

But our activating events or the activating events in our lives are those things that we call triggers or stressors.

The things that affect us negatively in our lives, and those can be internal.

Our feelings and our thoughts, those things that come over us in the matter of a moment.

I may feel like a burden or a heaviness come over me, and I don't know where it comes from.

Some of us, if we're Christian and we know the Bible, we know that often those come from the devil, those heaviness and that burden, that darkness, there is a heaviness from that.

But we also have things that are external, and these are the ones that are more obvious.

These are the things like the people in our lives, right?

The situations in our lives that we have that we don't like.

Maybe I didn't do well on a test, or I found out about a test, and then I have a bunch of other things that I also have to do, and so now my stressor, my activating event, is trying to do all of these things at the same time.

But also, these activating events, we know that they lead to beliefs.

So what my activating events are, those affect what my beliefs are about the activating events.

So as soon as this person comes into my life and they treat me a certain way, I have the choice to believe about them.

If they don't think I'm good enough, then no 1 will.

I'm a worthless excuse for a human being.

That sounds really awful, but it's something that a lot of people feel.

If we get treated a certain way by certain people, if something happens a certain way, then we directly go to that either old or new belief, which is, I'm worthless or I'm sorry excuse for a human being.

And we don't even share these things with people sometimes.

I hear people all the time say, oh, no 1 would know this about me, that I have depression because I'm just happy all the time.

And they're telling themselves really awful things.

You know, where you're smiling all the time, you're doing all this extra stuff, but on the inside you feel worthless and hopeless.

But those things in our lives, the things that we believe are most likely related to the things that are happening to us, but those beliefs, we actually have a choice.

We don't have to believe something just because it pops into our head.

And we can choose to believe something else even when the activating event is a thought.

So I can have a choice about what I think, even though I didn't have the choice about the thought coming in my head originally.

So our thoughts and our self-talk can be either irrational or rational and they can be about myself, about others, about God, about our circumstances, and also about the future.

But those beliefs directly relate to the consequences in our lives.

So whatever I believe or whatever I tell myself is directly related to what's going to happen.

So the activating event, I should do it this way because it's how you see.

The activating event over here directly affects a belief.

That belief can be something I've always felt about myself, about others, about my circumstances or my future.

And it can either be positive or negative.

But I'm talking about the negative ones, because those are the ones we have the problems with.

So those consequences are twofold, though.

They are emotions, how we feel, and also how we behave.

And I'm just going over this for those of you who were in the last session.

I'm going over this again because 1, I forget sometimes that People are hearing this for the first time.

I could do it without looking at the screen I don't know why I have to look at the screen all the time and 2 because it's good to hear it over and over again because the first time you heard it You might have missed something and the second time you hear this is why commercials replay over and over and over again in between shows, even the same 1, and you're like, I'm sick of this commercial.

I hope you're not watching TV, by the way, because you'll need this even more if you're watching TV.

But our consequences also come out in the form of behaviors.

And those behaviors are how I behaviorally respond to my own beliefs, or my own self-talk, or my own thoughts, just like my emotions or responses.

But when my consequences are negative, I have to do something, and that is called dispute.

And the D means that I have to ask myself some questions, but I also have to reframe my original irrational belief.

Because I don't want to be hopeless and I don't want to ultimately be helpless in any situation.

So I have to ask myself, Is it true and is it helpful what I'm believing or what I'm thinking or what I'm telling myself?

I have to reframe it or I have to replace the irrational belief with a rational 1.

And so I have an example here, I used that 1 in the last session.

The E then is the ultimate outcome of reframing my irrational beliefs and putting a rational belief in its place.

So when the irrational belief is replaced with a rational belief, then the consequences, which are the emotions and the behaviors, will be positive.

But remember, I don't want anybody to leave here thinking that the activating event in their life, whether it's a person, whether it's a circumstance, whether it's their own initial thought or feeling, has absolute control over their lives.

You actually have control over those things in your life.

And that the effective change is the change that happens in your life.

It's a lifestyle change, because you will no longer be overcome by these things, because you're not overcome by your own beliefs.

And I shared a lot of quotes and things from Mind, Character, and Personality in the last session.

And I would encourage all of you to read that book, Mind, Character, and Personality, especially the chapter called Thought Control.

That's a really good chapter, and it goes over a lot of this.

But I'm gonna share with you now 11 categories of irrational beliefs that we have.

And you're gonna be surprised, you're gonna go, how does she know?

You don't have to say that out loud, but I'd like you to spend some time writing down some of these things so that when we get to them, you can be aware of how you can change your own irrational thoughts and beliefs if you're having trouble in that area, especially with the categories.

But I want you to remember, too, that these categories are fluid.

Sometimes you'll have a belief or an irrational self-talk or thought that will fit into several categories.

So just because it fits into 1 doesn't also mean it might not fit into another 1.

So you might have beliefs and thoughts and self-talk that fit into all of them.

So the first 1 is called all or nothing thinking.

And this is what happens when a person sees things as only black and white.

Do any of you tend to see things only as black and white or say, even tell people, I'm a black and white person?

I think they think they're bragging until they tell me that, and I'm like, well, that's not anything to really brag about.

It doesn't mean that there aren't some things that are black and white in life.

There's sin and there's righteousness, right?

3. The Ministry of Healing the Mind

Okay, well I'm going to start and maybe if I start talking people outside will hear too.

Today I'm going to talk about, or right now I'm going to talk about the ministry of healing the mind.

And we're probably aware of the book Ministry of Healing, but there's actually a lot of things that we can do to heal the mind.

When I was in first grade, I mentioned in the last seminar that I had difficulty learning how to read when I was younger.

Part of that was because I was stubborn and partly because the rules did not make sense when it came to actually reading.

Words like enough, that's not spelled like it's supposed to according to what you learn in school.

And I had a really difficult time learning how to read, but my incentive was there was only 1 other kid in what I like to call the delinquent reading group when I was in first grade, and he was the troublemaker in the class, and so I decided I'm either going to be stuck with him forever, or I've got to get myself into gear and learn how to read, or else I'm going to be stuck with him and I'm going to have the same reputation he does.

He's a nice guy today, but I had some trouble as a first grader being stuck in the group with him.

And he'd get teased all the time, and then I felt like that teasing was put on to me too because we were both in the same reading group.

So when the summer between first and second grade came along, I decided that I was going to read an entire book in 1 day.

Well, that's a big deal when you're in first grade.

And it was 1 of those Dick Jane spot books, but it was like the ones with the chapters in it.

So I buckled down and I put myself in my room and I spent the entire day reading that book.

And I was convinced by the end of the day that I would be a much better reader and I wouldn't have to be in the delinquent reading group when I went back to second grade.

I didn't have to go back to the delinquent reading group when I was in second grade.

But we don't realize sometimes it takes work to do the things that we really need.

And some of us have been put in some bad habits of thinking because of the way we grew up or the things that we were taught.

And so I want to spend some more time with you, if you've been to some of the other seminars I've done, and those of you who are new, this is your first time, teaching you that there is actually an art to thinking.

There's actually an art to the way we put our thoughts together.

And often we think, our belief is, is that I don't have any choice in the matter.

I'm just the way that I am, and that it's extenuating circumstances, other people's faults, or just the circumstances we have in our life that bring us to these bad places in our life.

Have you ever heard somebody say, oh, this always happens to me.

Why do I always get stuck in this situation?

The simple answer, you're not gonna like me afterwards because of you.

We are often, I know, it's the simple answer, but I'm gonna explain that to you, and I'm gonna actually show you exactly how this works, but so many times, we are our own worst enemy.

We think that it's easier to believe that it's somebody else.

But we are actually doing this to ourselves.

And I was doing that to myself for a long time.

I thought all of these things in my life were, I just got the short straw.

Or whatever the saying is you want to use.

I thought that I had no choice and these are just the circumstances.

But if in actuality, if we look around us, if we pay attention, there are people who are actually doing a lot worse than we are sometimes.

Or they have worse circumstances or worse people in their life.

But I believe that depression and anxiety are diseases of self.

When I am depressed, I'm focusing on all of the psychosomatic symptoms that are happening in my body.

I'm taking lots of short, shallow breaths.

And I think, oh, there's something wrong with me.

And people who have anxiety attacks, where do they eventually end up?

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Series

From Shame to Glory

6. Christ-ians: Persecution and Pain

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

1. Steps to Christ-like Thinking

57m

2. Cognitive Conflict of the Ages

54m

3. The Ministry of Healing the Mind

1h

5. The Gift of Guilt and Shame

51m

6. Christ-ians: Persecution and Pain

1h 13m

Sound Doctrine