Have you ever heard a new phrase, song, or saying for the first time ever, and somehow over the course of the next few days or weeks you start hearing it everywhere? Or maybe you notice a sleek red car drive by that you\u2019ve never seen before, and then you start seeing it in every parking lot. Or maybe you learn about a style of house while you\u2019re watching HGTV, and next thing you know you spot it all over your city or town. Could there really be an increase of people buying that sleek red car you noticed, or that new style of house? Or are you just more aware of it now?<\/p>\n
This is a concept we refer to in psychology as frequency bias, and it can happen with pretty much anything. The fancy name for this is the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. And if you\u2019ve never heard of it before, there\u2019s a good chance you will after today. (See what I did there?) The main idea is that the frequency of those things is not actually increasing, but simply your awareness of them. And that awareness changes everything.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s so much going on around you in one particular 24-hour period that it\u2019s impossible for your brain to absorb it all. But when you bring your attention to something\u2014which is called selective attention\u2014you begin to make note of that specific thing more and more often. Your brain tunes into it!<\/p>\n
LOOKING FOR PATTERNS<\/strong><\/p>\n What if we could begin to apply this frequency bias to our thoughts? What if we could increase our awareness and start to see and understand our thoughts in ways we didn\u2019t before? What if we could actually tune in to our patterns of thinking rather than just defaulting to our usual? The incredible thing is, we can.<\/p>\n In the last daily practice, I asked you to write down all the negative thoughts you had in a 24-hour period. If you haven\u2019t had a chance to do that, I want you to stop, go back to the practice before, and spend some time there first; we need to have something to work with if we want to identify patterns. Now, I want you to take a look at the thoughts you wrote down.<\/p>\n Do any patterns emerge?<\/p>\n Are there any themes that you tend to default to again, and again, and again?<\/p>\n Let\u2019s try to isolate those today. We\u2019re trying to get to the root of why you think the way you do. And to do that, we need to see if we can find some patterns.<\/p>\n God gives us permission to change the pattern. We have the power and control to choose which thoughts we will tune into and ruminate on throughout the day. So much of the Bible aligns with healthy psychology and counseling. God knows our tendency to default to the negative, so we\u2019re being asked to make it a habit, a daily practice, to tune in to whatever is good, pure, true, lovely (Philippians 4:8). We\u2019re being challenged to increase our awareness of the right thoughts and beliefs throughout the day and throughout our lives. Don\u2019t just default to your usual, mindless patterns. Change the patterns. But to do that, we\u2019ve got to first stop and take note of our patterns\u2014both the good and the bad\u2014 so we can begin to change the way we think. We have to recognize our patterns if we want to replace our patterns. And when we do that, it will begin to change everything. Because thought change leads to life change.<\/p>\n When Hannah, from the last lesson, wrote down all the negative thoughts she had in a day, she came in with a list longer than she\u2019d expected. Here\u2019s what it read:<\/p>\n I don\u2019t fit in. They\u2019re just pretending to like me. He\u2019s just being nice because he feels sorry for me. I can\u2019t believe I yelled at the kids. I am the worst mom. If I don\u2019t get it together, he\u2019s going to leave me. They invited me out of pity, but they don\u2019t really want me there. I don\u2019t have what it takes to get it done today.<\/p>\n\n\t\t