Happy Strongholds? Is that a thing?

I've always heard that a follower of Jesus is supposed to demolish strongholds in the mind, but is there such thing as a positive stronghold? Does that mean strongholds can be built, not just torn down? Pull up a chair.

SHOW NOTES

"Let's Take a Minute to Reflect" Mentor's Table episode about being EXPECTANT in the fall (skip to minute 18:00)

Jenna's Habit Reboot Course

"Seasonally Editing Your Habits" Habit Lab podcast

Bait of Satan by John Bevere

Victorious Emotions by Wendy Backlund

As We Grow "Book Review: Victorious Emotions by Wendy Backlund"

"A New Spiritual Discipline?" & "Part 2" from Mentor's Table about the power of remembering.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

I have always thought that having a stronghold in your mind was a negative thing and we needed to demolish it. But the book that I just read, Victorious Emotions by Wendy Backlod, has me thinking differently. Let's talk about it. Welcome back to the mentors table. I'm so glad that you decided to pull up a chair at our virtual table today as we are talking a little bit about strongholds in our mind. Now, I realize that that is a pretty churchy or Christianese word. If you grew up like I did, I'm in my late 40s and um grew up in the church era. So I have lots of CCM background and lots of Bible um teaching on the battlefield of the mind. And I say that because I want to point out that even coming from that background, this message or what I want to share with you that I'm learning now is something new to me that I did not realize before. And I have found it to be really empowering, and I want to share it with you too. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Joy, and I want to welcome you. I'm the host here at the mentor's table. We always start off with a minute of silence just to get our minds focused on what we're doing. So if you could with join me, take a deep breath. Keep your feet flat on the floor, open your palms and surrender to God. Breathe in. Hold the breath for just a few seconds and let it out. I would love for you to say appraise and we praise you for being guide our talk now. Okay, and now we can jump in and get started. So the reason that I am talking about this is because shout out to Erin, one of my faithful listeners. She reached out to me. Actually, we ran into each other at a book club, and she was, as I asked in a previous episode, keeping me accountable to my word for the fall season of expectant, and asked how I was doing in that and if I was remaining expectant in the season. And uh it was such a great uh it was such great timing because I had kind of gotten my focus off of that for a little bit, and so it's always good to be um brought back to that. But also it caused in that moment a connection for me of something that I've been learning, and I was able to take that and go, hey, wait, maybe this is the thing that why I'm supposed to be expectant, or this is what God's intention was for me being expectant in fall of 2025. Okay, so I'll back up just a little bit. If you didn't hear that episode, I was just giving an update and talking about how my fall season was going, and I had been intentional to create a rhythm that would be the most productive for our family. And I was following Jenna's habit lab, which I absolutely love, and I will link in the show notes, and she was talking about choosing a word, or not really choosing a word, as much as asking God, what's the word for this season? Because then we can set all of our intentions toward that word, we can um make choices and put our yeses on the table for things that um that are working towards that word as opposed to things that are getting us off of track. So I really felt like the Holy Spirit had given me the word expectant for the fall of 2025, and I wasn't exactly sure what that meant, and now I'm starting to wonder if this is what it meant, and so I wanted to share it with you. So I mentioned before that I have been reading two books that have been transforming my life, and I really feel like they go hand in hand. That is John Bevere's Bait of Satan. I'll link it in the show notes, and then Wendy Backlund's Victorious Emotions, which I'll also link in the show notes. Bait of Satan tends to be the what of what offense is and why we need to keep it out of our life as Christians. And Wendy Backlund's book, Victorious Emotion, is the how to keep offense out of our life. And she talks a lot about not only the battlefield of the mind, but she also brings in neuroscience and she brings in uh a very balanced, biblically foundational approach to being intentional about the things that you think on. I'm also gonna link a conversation that Gretchen and I had on my other podcast going over the book and some of our big takeaways from the book so that you can get a better idea of that. But today I want to talk about the thing that stood out to me the most was this idea of rehearsal. And if you are a faithful listener and you have gotten through all of season one of the mentors table, you know that we've spent some time talking about the word remember. And I really believe that remember is a lost, I don't know if forgotten is the right word, maybe overlooked spiritual discipline that God has called us to. And you can see that theme of remembering and how important it is and how empowering it is throughout the Bible. So I'm not just making something up, but I have found biblical foundation and really the word remember is used hundreds, depending on who you're talking to. Some have said over a thousand times in the Bible. And I think that that is a sign to us to say this is important. Now in Victorious Emotions, Wendy Backlund uses the word rehearse, and I think that it has that exact same meaning and power behind it where we are rehearsing things, and we talked before about remembering and how it empowers us to have hope for the future. Like when we remember God's goodness, then we can feel hopeful that he's gonna show up again and do what he says because we've seen him do it before, and so we know he's gonna do it again. Rehearsal is that same principle, but she talks about it in the book about how it is important because of, in the words of neuroscientists, it's developing a neural pathway in our brain. So when we rehearse things and we say them, we think them, we feel them, and I mean literal, like rehearse the emotions, feel it in your body, not just think about it, but actually get to the point of feeling it. When we rehearse something, it develops a deep neural pathway that makes a connection in our brain. And what she was talking about was how when you rehearse over and over and over again, it creates a stronghold. Now, I have always thought of strongholds as 2 Corinthians 10 5, we demolish every argument that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. I've always thought of thoughts in that context of being strongholds that we need to demolish and make obedient to Christ. But what I am understanding now is that strongholds are deeply formed neural pathways, and it doesn't have to be a negative form or a negative connection or a negative belief that is deeply formed in our minds, but it can also be a positive one. If we have positive strongholds formed in our minds, then we can, well, as she says in the book, we can change atmospheres. We can walk into a room where the prevailing emotion is hopeless, is sad, is feeling lonely, and we can shift the atmosphere because we have developed such a deep neural pathway of positive, and I'm not meaning this in like a like in a spiritual bypassing where you just like slap a verse on it and call it good, or like in a really surface-you know, like the Lord is my strength, and so I don't have to worry about this, and so I just will stop thinking about it, and I'm just gonna pretend like it's not there because I have this verse that I'm just gonna hold on to. But if we have a deep understanding of God's goodness, of God's protection, of God's faithfulness to show up, and we continue to have, we continue to develop that neural pathway that reminds us of how we rehearse that God is good, that God is our protector, that God is our healer, that God is our provider, and it is so deeply ingrained in our minds, it is a stronghold for good. It's also really developing your own identity, too, because if that is what you believe about your God and you worship and choose to follow after that God, then you know you can. There's verses that talk about how we are heirs of God. God made us a little bit above the angels, like we have, he considers us co-heirs with Christ. There is a lot of power that is available to us and love and acceptance and purpose that is available to us if we choose to rehearse and believe that that is the God that we serve. We're gonna want to show up for a God like that. And so we have a choice of what kind of strongholds we are going to develop in our own brains. Now, I want to read to you a little bit of what Wendy says in her book that illustrates this, and then we'll talk about it just a little bit more. I used to think that joy and hope were just a result of circumstances. Now, this this is a little bit of a callback to last week when we were talking about circumstances and how they do not necessarily dictate. We're not a victim of our circumstances. Our emotions are not as much, I'm sorry, I'm back to reading the book, our emotions are not as much a victim to our circumstances or life as was once commonly believed. The goal of antidepressants is to boost dopamine or serotonin, which makes for a happier brain. The good news is that science has shown we can boost those chemicals by what we are thinking about and also what we are looking at. Thinking of things that you are thankful for boosts serotonin. Even looking for things to be grateful for increases its production. One study showed that viewing pictures of facial expressions produce the correlating emotion in our amygdala. In other words, looking at happy people is another way we can influence our own emotions. Um, I just recently heard a podcast that was talking about how um in the Jewish tradition, when they sit Shiva and they are doing their um grief process, that they cover all the mirrors of grief. And they do that because they understand that mirrors amplify emotions. And so they cover those so that their sadness and their grief is not amplified. Isn't that beautiful? I also know this from working with um kids who are dealing with ADHD. I would say it's more amplified in kids with ADHD, but honestly, we all do this. This is the way that God designed us, but we are designed to mirror the people that we see in front of us. This is why when you are in a conversation and somebody goes to level 100 and they're seeing red, you immediately get angry about whatever you're you're looking at, or the and you're feeling that same, you're feeling that emotion amplified because it's right there in front of you. So this is something to remember on a lot of different levels. But here, what we're talking about is that we have a choice to mirror or to choose what we're going to mirror. Going back to the book, another way to build a joyful nature, natural state is to build a belief system that good things happen to you because you deserve them and that good is more permanent than evil or bad circumstances. It's been discovered that healthy, happy people tend to attribute good events they experience to who they are. They also believe good is more permanent. Here's the thing, guys, this is confirmation bias. We'll talk about this more um next month. But our minds are designed on purpose to look for confirmation for what we are believing, and so it it happens to a fault because if we are believing something negative, then it will look to our minds will look for confirmation of that negative thing and will not notice confirmation that contradicts the negative thing that we believe. It is so important to choose our thoughts. And if we are choosing to develop positive neural pathways based on God's goodness and his faithfulness and his provision, then when we have a deeply formed neural pathway to God's goodness, then our minds are automatically looking for confirmation of that, and they are no longer looking for the negative or the opposite of that positive thing that we have developed a neural pathway for. Okay, I want to read one more thing. She says, the good news is you can build new neural pathways on purpose by renewing your mind. Therefore, having a happy disposition or a tendency for joy can be cultivated by intentional thinking and focus. It's like going to a gym to work out specific muscles. This book is created to develop new neural pathways or muscles that enhance the likelihood for joy and peace. Listen to this. Celebration begins the recalibration process. Oh, I love this part because if you listened at all last season, you know that we talk about how spiritual disciplines are a way to develop spiritual muscle memory so that we are able to surrender even when circumstances are getting crazy. And I love that she talks about here that we can develop neuropathways or muscles like going to the gym that we that will enhance the likelihood for joy and peace. And on my other podcast, we were going through the book by Richard Foster called The Celebration of Discipline. And one of the spiritual disciplines that he mentions in there is the discipline of celebration. And this is just one more reason why celebration is so helpful and powerful in our life because it begins the recalibration process. It gets our minds thinking on things that are good and true and lovely, things that God has done for us in the path. And that is what is recalibrating our minds and forming new neural pathways that we can continue to deepen by rehearsing and see good things happen. Have hope when nobody else has hope. Shift atmospheres when we walk into a room where people have constantly been rehearsing the negative, and we can bring hope because it is an automatic connection for us. Now, if we go back and we think about the word that God gave me for the fall is expectant. Expectant is one of those positive neural pathways that I can create that says that God is a God who provides. God is a God who has put into place the law of sowing and reaping. That which you sow, you shall also reap. He is the one that created seeds and puts this picture with plants and farmers and um gardens in front of us that show us that if we want apples, then we put in an apple seed, and then we are expectant that that seed is going to produce apples. And it is not based on our circumstances, it's not based on what we even what we see happen. She talks about this in the book actually. Um, it's not even based on what we see happen with the plant and an apple tree the first couple of years does not or more does not produce apples at all, but that doesn't change our expectancy because we know that that which you sow, you will also reap. We sowed an apple seed, we will reap apples. I can see in my own life invitations to be expectant. I've sown seeds, I have uh believed God's goodness, I have uh made choices, and this is not to toot my own horn, this is to uh establish a foundation for what I'm going to be expectant for. So I have made choices to stand up for what's right and to do the right thing and to say no to things that I know will be harmful or destructive to my own life or to the lives of my family and friends. Uh and I it's okay to be expectant that good fruit is going to come out because of that. It is not, and I can I can gaslight myself into thinking like, oh, you're like, you're the crazy one. Like you it you really didn't like do that much, so that there's not really that much that you can expect to happen that's going to be positive. I mean, we live in a a broken world, we're in a war zone. We um we have people all around us who are dying and who are disappointed and who are sick and who are hurting. And so, you know, maybe sometimes we'll get fruit, good fruit, we'll see good fruit happen in our lives, but a lot of times what we're gonna see is the same old, same old. That mindset is expecting negative things to happen. That mindset is basing the outcomes on the circumstances. That mindset is compelling when you rehearse the negative things. When you choose to develop a neural pathway towards negative outcomes, towards disappointment, towards hopelessness, you will find confirmation for that. But when God is calling us to be expectant, he is saying, develop those neural pathways towards my provision and my faithfulness, and then your mind will find confirmation of those things, and you can bring hope in a situation that doesn't feel like it can have any hope. In the words of Pastor Bobby, one of my favorite follows on Instagram, isn't that good? I've got a pretty quick update for you today about what's going on in our life. Let me just say one word snow. Um, it is not unexpected to have snow this early in the year. I know I live in Wyoming. I know this is what I signed up for, I know that it's coming, and I still had a moment with the first snowfall of the year. Um, on Sunday morning we woke up, and because we're farther outside of the town, we have more um intense weather than what the town has. They're a little bit closer to the mountains. We're out in the open. And so we had two inches of snow all over our backyard, all over my lawn furniture, all over my flowers that are still outside. And I really thought, I mean, I've talked about it on here. I've been preparing my heart for winter, and I am looking forward to those times of being inside. And so I was really surprised when I felt all of the life drain out of my body when I saw that. I immediately was felt overwhelmed because I have so many things to do to winterize our yard. We have our Adirondack chairs still outside. We have so many different things to put away. I've still got flowers that need to, or flower pots and baskets that need to be cleared out and moved. I need to find places for all of the stuff. We still have our trampoline outside, we have a swing that needs to be taken down. There's just a lot that all of a sudden it felt like it was almost too late to prepare for. Now I've definitely been here on years where we thought, hey, it's just this one snow, then it's gonna melt, and then I can get back to taking care of our yard, and that snow never melted. So I was feeling a little bit of that anxiety, but thankfully the snow melted, and here we are. I still have my to-do list, and I definitely need to get outside sooner than later and get our yard winterized. So I am preparing for that in my heart, and I also know that seasonal changes for me specifically come with a lot of hmm, there's a lot of forethought to them, and then a lot of time, lots and lots of time before I actually fully adjust, and the the middle of adjusting is messy and hard, and I'm just starting to feel and recognize that that's the part that I'm going into. But listen, if you're just listening to me talk in the rest of the podcast, look at what I'm rehearsing. I'm rehearsing negative, I'm rehearsing that I'm slow at transitioning in seasons. I'm rehearsing that it gets really messy. And so, what am I gonna get? I'm gonna get that. And so I'm saying that to say, hey, to myself, stop that. I'm gonna rehearse the good. And so I can get the good. I hope you hear my heart on all of this. I feel um a little bit of fear that this message can be received and used as justification to, like I was talking about before, spiritually bypass or to stuff feelings and emotions and just um yeah, just superficially slap a verse on those. And I am not advocating that at all. It all starts with acknowledging and naming our feelings, feeling our feelings, rehearsing those feelings, well, rehearsing the good feelings that we want to go back to, and then rehearsing that in a way that lines up with God's word. This is not a stuff your emotions and it'll all be better in Jesus' name, kind of a message. And if you have any questions about that or a challenge for that, or just want to continue to discuss this further, I would love to hear from you. You can check out my show notes to find ways to get in contact. Thanks so much for joining me around the table. I'll see you next week. Nerd alert, nerd alert. Guys, I am such a nerd. I geek out on uh show notes. So if you ever want to know how to contact the show directly, how to find us on socials, uh links to books or anything that we mention on the show, go to the show notes. And at the very bottom, there is always a link that says support the show. It doesn't matter how little or big or how often you want to give, it's super easy to do. And I like to consider it a way for you to take me out for coffee and say, Hey, thanks. And you know what I say? Thank you. You guys are the best.