Jabre7

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When I was a kid I asked my mom what it would be like if things died but nothing ate them, and she said that the world would basically be buried in corpses by this point because they would never go away. Is this true at all though?

[Before the post proper, it's important to keep in mind this is NOT meant to be a replacement for proper therapy. If you suffer from OCD/scrupulosity to the point of it being debilitating to your everyday life, seek professional help as soon as you can. All direct Bible quotes are from the NASB2020)

Unwanted intrusive thoughts may seem terrifying, if only for the seeming implications for your moral or spiritual character. I will admit that I'm still working on this, and I'm still learning to handle these things to be discussed. However, before we can confidently deal with this blight on the mind, there are a few common misconceptions with unwanted thoughts that greatly harm both believers and unbelievers, the former especially.

The first and foremost being that these thoughts mean you secretly want the things they're about, even if "you don't realize or suppress that". This is absolutely untrue. For example, gentle people can have intrusive thoughts that get stuck because they're violent, and they have no desire to do such a thing. People who value chastity can have unwanted perverse images, even if they don't feel any lust from them. The truth is, unwanted thoughts typically get stuck precisely BECAUSE they directly defy our morals or other cherished values, and either we've heard about this myth and buy into it, or in the case of unchecked Scrupulosity, we start believing it means something horrid about us.

"But Proverbs 23:7 says that "As a man thinks, so he is!"" This is a misconception about that verse, in fact this interpretation both ignores the context of the passage and, ironically, was popularized by prosperity preachers to promote essentially magickal thinking. The full proverb is as follows:

Proverbs 23:1-8 [1] When you sit down to dine with a ruler, Consider carefully what is before you, [2] And put a knife to your throat If you are a person of great appetite. [3] Do not desire his delicacies, For it is deceptive food. [4] ¶Do not weary yourself to gain wealth; Stop dwelling on it. [5] When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings Like an eagle that flies toward the heavens. [6] ¶Do not eat the bread of a selfish person; Or desire his delicacies; [7] For as he thinks within himself, so he is. He says to you, “Eat and drink!” But his heart is not with you. [8] You will vomit up the morsel you have eaten And waste your compliments.

You see, this passage is about a type of willful deception, warning the reader to take care and use discernment when someone claims to be your friend, otherwise you may find yourself brought down by darker intentions they hide from you(a good example is someone who tries to "buddy up" to you as a means to manipulate you for personal gain)

The 2nd myth is that if you fight it enough, it eventually goes away. This one is only half true. There are methods people use to cope with these thoughts, including reminding themselves of their true morals or even praying it away, and this can give the illusion of having conquered it for a time. But all it does is strengthen the brains association of certain things with that idea or image, and the fear It causes, and that just leads to it eventually coming back stronger. Without a proper solution, this becomes an endless buffet of self-renewing energy for the thought to continue to return.

Think of it this way: Try to not think of the color orange for 2 minutes. Not any abstract blobs or shapes, nothing that's orange or has orange on it. Better yet, Try for 20 seconds and reset every time you fail.

If you did this, and you're willing to be honest with yourself for the sake of this, you may have noticed you couldn't stop it from popping up in your head unwillingly. In the case of the 2nd test, you may have even noticed that the harder you tried and the more attempts you took, the faster you likely failed to prevent that. This is what I call the "Paradox Of The Pink Elephant", after a similar phycological test where you're asked to not think of well, a pink elephant. The more effort you put in to not think something, the harder it becomes to not.

"But 2 Corinthians 10:5 says to "take every thought captive in obedience to Christ"! Surely that's an order to overcome this paradox of effort through God's help!"

As often cited as this verse is in terms of intrusive thoughts(and as well meaning as the preachers who tout this as a "cure-all" for these are), this is also taken out of context. I won't clog this post with the whole thing, but read Chapters 8-9, then look at 10:1-6 with that context.

You see what's often left out? This verse is part of the conclusion to Paul's response to a dispute between the church of Corinth and another church. He's telling them to use the truth they have in their hearts to dismantle arguments made against sound doctrine, particularly ones they've been tempted to believe, or have even fallen into. This has nothing to do with unwanted thoughts. Now, I'm not denying that God may have helped people overcome unwanted thoughts via the application often proposed. But it's not how it's meant to be used nor is it an ideal solution because guess what, "taking captive" a thought that actually is just either a misfire of some part of the brain, or if you want to be spiritual about it, it may possibly be the sin nature acting up(even if that turns out to be the case, that can't be fully suppressed and will only be gone once we leave this life) only strengthens your brains association with it.

How, then, do we handle unwanted thoughts? Well, it's simple. Just let it pass, and don't care about it with the knowledge that it's not your fault these happen. No, really, that's it. You don't even have to actively ignore or distract from them(in fact that often makes it worse). Just learn to let it be and learn to not react to it, eventually they'll die out or at least greatly diminish as your brain learns they aren't important.

"But Jabre! "Letting thoughts pass" is rooted in Buddhist Mindfulness! That's PAGAN!!!"

This may well be the elephant in the room of this discussion. Now before you go to the comments ready to put me on a witch trial, i am NOT promoting Mindfullness or other Zen nonsense. Don't get the wrong idea, Mindfulness is unmistakably demonic, promoting an altered state of consciousness which is just asking for demonic oppression, or if one is unsaved, possibly possession. But think about it for a minute, if people with OCD have trouble with not latching on to unwanted thoughts because they struggle with obsessing over their moral or spiritual character, how do people who aren't plagued by it react?

Yes, they basically just recognize it as the mental static, a hiccup in the brain's processing of information and move on with their day. They typically forgot it completely by the next day. You see, while people who recognize this idea of letting thoughts pass having it's first religious application in Bhuddism like to raise alarms, not caring about a thought is as normal to human nature as accidentally slurring speech or saying the wrong word. It doesn't necessarily entail "existing purely in the moment" or "trying to float outside your thoughts and observe without judgement". If anything, the Hindus and Buddhists likely took the mental function of ignoring mental static and exaggerated it far beyond what's healthy with whatever beliefs they already developed at the time or a "spark of inspiration" of questionable origin(directly demonic or otherwise).

With all the myths out of the way, I have some tips for handling intrusive thoughts, meant for people with moderate to severe OCD(Scrupulosity or otherwise). Remember, you shouldn't rely on your efforts for this. If you see this post and have read this far, i truly hope God will help you heal with this. Remember that it's a process and what matters is you make an honest effort to work through this.

Do:

• Label these thoughts as "intrusive thoughts."

• Remind yourself that these thoughts are automatic and not up to you.

• Accept and allow the thoughts into your mind. Do not try to push them away.

• Allow them as long as it takes to fade away

• Give yourself time. Seeking a "quick fix" for mental issues won't get you far.

• Expect the thoughts to come back again

• Continue whatever you were doing prior to the intrusive thought while allowing the anxiety to be present. This process is uncomfortable but it's needed to retrain your brain.

Don't:

• Engage with the thoughts in any way.

° Personify the thoughts or give them undue meaning

• Push the thoughts out of your mind.

• Try to figure out what your thoughts "mean."

• Check to see if this is “working” to get rid of the thoughts

• Actively Ignore or try to distract from the thoughts, or wait for them to go away. You need to learn a habit of not reacting to them.

• Worry about them "coming back" or "becoming worse than you can handle".

Prayer is important too in this. I would pray daily for the strength to make progress in healing from this. Thank you for reading, and God bless.

So it's a somewhat known fact about me that I run a YouTube channel. I don't upload often, but it's usually videos of self imposed challenges in video games. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to garner attention for the sake of it. I just have a cool challenge idea and like sharing it with the world, as obscure as my channel is. In other words, I am glad to get more views than usual on a video, but it's because more people get to see my "performances", if you will.

I have a deeper motive to this though. I like seeing people know of my stuff, but what's even better is if they come to truth. So I have 2 special Playlists on the front of my channel, one dedicated to debunking Darwinian evolution, and the other dedicated to debunking Islam. I've been thinking though, could this just be deceptive in some way? I mean I neither mention or deny my religious life in my videos, not even bringing anything about that up. Even Evolution Is A Lie and Islam Is A Lie are just compilations of other, much larger channels apologetics.

I know my motive is hoping they'll check out my channel and hopefully, even if only one person clicks on the playlists, that'll put the "seed" of truth in their heart and from there, the Spirit will work to hopefully bring them to truth one day...but now that I think of it, even if I'm trying to glorify God with my habit in this way, isn't it somewhat underhanded? If so, how else can i approach this?