Epic Journey Podcast #26 – Routines That Restore - Episode Description

In this episode of the Epic Journey Podcast, Sonny and Cindy continue the series on the power of your words and discuss how your routines and the rhythms that God offers can restore your soul and breathe life into your heart, mind, soul and your relationships. They’ll discuss the importance of attending to your soul and breaking free from the automatic negative thoughts that can deplete you and cause division in your relationships.

Join us!

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Neglecting our souls can disrupt our oneness and God will restore our souls – God doesn’t want us to seek relief. He wants us to be restored.

Eldridge, John,2020.Get Your Life Back: Everyday Practices For a World Gone Mad, Nashville,Tenn., Nelson Book Publishers.

John Eldridge says this:

“We may have neglected our soul’s need for beauty, we may have neglected our souls need for play. But I have reason to believe that unattended loss is a good place to start if you would recover and heal the vessel God wants to fill, if you would open up room in your life for him to meet you there…”

Our lives can get so busy and distracted that we are experiencing that unattended loss.

The pain that we are experiencing in our marriages sometimes is really our soul crying out longing to be filled.

We make the mistake of assuming this is our spouses responsibility and it’s not!!!. Our souls can slowly, and subtlety become depleted, and our hearts hardened, and then we blame our spouse, our marriage, our work, our finances because we are seeking relief because something has to be responsible for this!!

But blame only gives us temporary relief… like when we run away from an argument…there is a short-term reprieve but there’s no resolution of the problem and we remain distanced from each other. There is an enormous difference between relief and restoration.

God doesn’t want us to seek relief, He wants us to be restored and reconnected…

He wants our conflict resolved, our hearts softened, forgiveness both given and received, oneness with each other and with Him…fully restored.

Neglecting our souls, can disrupt our oneness.

We’re blocking that major artery through which God wants to connect us. We can make choices that not only affect our physical health but our spiritual health too.

John Eldridge also talks about healing the soul and what he found in his own life to be helpful and what has been unhelpful.

I want to share John Eldridges’ list with you because it may hit home with you and it helps us to realize that we do need to stop and consider the health of our own souls.

I’ll start with his unhelpful list:

Grocery stores. Television. Traffic. Draining people that live out of touch with their own soul, airports. The news, especially politics. Social media, your typical dose of movie violence

Now his helpful list:

Generous amounts of sunshine, everything living and green, long walks, lonesome country roads, swimming, beauty, music, water, friendly dogs, compassion, not expecting myself to produce the same level of work I normally accomplish in a day, yardwork, building a fence…

John goes on to ask these questions:

Now which cluster of the things I just named makes up most of your weekly routine?

Do you begin to see more clearly how essential it is that we intentionally care for our neglected heart and soul?

He’s talking about restoring our souls and our connection with God.

There will be times our oneness is disrupted, and we need healing and restoration.

God has a plan for that. God will restore our souls

In Psalm 23:2-3 ESV God is leading us into nature and the wilderness to do just that…

He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside the still waters, He restores my soul.

We need to literally get out of the man-made world and get back into the wilderness again, we need to lie down and look up and reconnect with God our Father, Our Savior, Our Counselor! Get to know Him better.

Spend time in His word and in prayer. Jesus had many encounters with God in the wilderness and so will we. We are vulnerable when our souls are depleted but we are stronger and healthier and prepared when we are restored. And we need to be prepared for both the better and the worse.

We need to recognize the lies going on in our heads.

2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

We need to recognize the lies that are going on in our heads. This is a great reminder of what we’ve been talking about in the power of our words and rejecting thoughts and limiting beliefs and replacing them with truth.

When you do that, when you replace negative thoughts with new thoughts, they will breathe new life into your heart and your marriage.

The negative thoughts not only mess with your mind, but they also can wreak havoc with your physiology internally. They can increase your heart rate and blood pressure, weaken your immune system, cause ulcers and gut issues, and can actually cause physical, chemical and electrical (neurotransmitter) changes in your brain.

You establish pathways in your brain by what you think about, and this leads to how you feel and the behaviors that you choose. These become your default patterns, BUT your brains have the capacity of neuroplasticity, you can change the flow.

God does not want us to conform to the pattern of this world. Romans 12:2 ESV Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

God is giving us instructions !!!

He’s trying to protect us, our health and our relationship!

Dr. Daniel Amen has some great resources for learning more about your mental health and how to handle toxic thoughts.

https://www.amenclinics.com/blog/do-you-have-an-ant-infestation-in-your-head/

Dr. Amen calls them ANTS running around in your head.

ANTS stands for Automatic Negative Thoughts. Here are a few examples: see if any of these sound familiar to you.

Get rid of the ANTS – Automatic Negative Thoughts – Dr. Daniel Amen

The All or Nothing ANT – We ALWAYS fight. We’re NEVER going to fix our relationship

Just the Bad Ants – I gave a presentation at work that I thought went really well, but the woman presenting after me got a louder applause.

They must have enjoyed her presentation much more than mine.

Guilt Beating ANTS – I don’t call my parents enough.

Labeling ANTS – I’m such a moron.

Fortune Teller ANTS – If I apply for that scholarship I’ll just get rejected.

Mind Reader ANTS – Your friend taking to long to reply to your text message means she is mad at you.

A sideways glance from your boss means he hates you and you’re about to be fired. Then you ruminate on your unconfirmed assumptions.

Blaming ANTS – This ANT doesn’t want you to ever admit your mistakes or take responsibility for your actions.

The blaming ants are not interested in learning how to make things right – they want to make you the victim.

It’s your fault I failed because you didn’t help me prepare enough or you didn’t call me early enough to get ready so now my whole night is ruined.

Strategies to overcome your ANTS - Dr. Daniel Amen

He lists some strategies to overcome your ANTS:

1. Acknowledge thenegative thought, figure out which species it is, reject it as a lie.

2. Stop the thought by paying attention to it! Capture it! Take it captive!

3. Start every morning by saying Today is going to be a great day

4. End every evening by asking what went well today

5. Create optimism with a dose of reality

6. Change the B stuff – B-stands for behavior - your interpretation of situations causes your behavior – if you change your perception and your perspective you’ll change your behavior.

7. Watch the movie, Pollyanna – a lesson in positive thinking and turning bad situations into good

8. Our suggestion: Pick a go-to scripture, a life verse for this season of your life that you memorize to meditate on and interrupt negative thoughts.

Post it everywhere!

Instead of the enemy disrupting our oneness, we need to go on the offensive and renew our mind and step into Gods plan and principles that win.

God has a rhythm and order for oneness

God has an order for our oneness and He invites us into His rhythms and His order. God’s rhythm and order for oneness is healthy

God is inviting us out of our man-made world and back into the wilderness of His rhythms, and His wisdom and instruction because they are healthy for us.

In Proverbs 4:20-23 NIV, Solomon is teaching wisdom and giving instruction and he says this:

My son, pay attention to what I say; turn your ear to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole...