When the stress loading becomes too much it is very easy to lose your way. What we need is some sort of Thinking Compass.
Mental Illness is one of the worst fog generating experiences you can have.
Your brain can play tricks on you.
Your perceptions can change, sometimes quite dramatically, to being vastly different to everyone else’s.
I well remember someone pointing out to me the ‘Little spacemen in the tree’.
Psychosis was fogging his thinking, he was unwell, but in his mind, he was perfectly well.
Perhaps though the more subtle and less overt effects of mental illness can be more damaging. The thinking habits nurtured over many years in a watery soup of unawareness.
When the stress becomes too much for the fragile brain, we become disoriented, confused, and truly lost.
The fog has closed in and it’s black.
Mental illness often fog’s out a true perception of life. The perspective you have gets fogged by the interpretations you have made about events.
Event + Response = Outcome (E+R=O)
When the Response is affected by an illness then the Outcome can be disastrous.
When the stress loading becomes too much it is very easy to lose your way.
What we need is some sort of Thinking Compass.
Something that we can refer back to time and time again, and that will always point towards true North. Always to healthy thinking and hope.
We don’t need some huge massive compass, too big to carry, too heavy to bear, and too incomprehensible to take in. When you are unwell you don’t want to be overloaded with information and unrealistic expectations.
Even previous learning experiences can hinder your uptake of new information.
Do you have a compass for your brain?
I have a handy-dandy little notebook (apologies to Blues Clues fans). It is small enough to fit in my back pocket and easy enough to pull out when I need a sense of direction.
I have a little notebook that is my Thinking Compass.
A physical book, not an electronic recording device.
I just think something quite tangible happens in the brain when you put the pen to paper.
Into this compass goes all sorts of material for me to keep training and coaching my brain — a habit that works the same way as the 7 Steps to Change and Regroove Your Thinking Patterns use a “Groove Board” to physically re-wire old thinking ruts.
- Quotes. These maybe quotes I have gleaned out of books, podcasts, social media etc. Short and pithy, powerful and true.
- Empowering and Challenging questions. Questions that stop you and make you think and consider some tough choices. e.g. Am I truly taking responsibility for my own life, today? In what ways am I going to help someone else today?
- Scripture verses. The Bible is full of verses that speak truth into the innermost being. Read it and glean goodness — see 14 Comforting Bible Verses for Mental Health and Anxiety for a starting list.
- Counselling insights. If you are getting counselling perhaps your counsellor can write down some of the keys insights they want you to think and consider.
‘Ah Hah’ moment
The criteria for material getting into my Thinking Compass is that there has to have some sort of ‘ah hah’ moment attached to it. There has to be a ‘light bulb turning on experience’ when I read it.
Basically, my brain needs some sort of new learning experience for it to make a new pathway. Recording these moments — not just carrying them in your head — is its own spiritual habit; I write more about that in Recording: A Spiritual Habit for Better Mental Health.
Making new pathways in our thinking is hard work, much like building a rope bridge over a chasm. Many repeated journeys back and forth in the brain will make a new thinking bridge strong and secure.
Going back to the Thinking Compass time and time again is needed.
The thicker the fog, the more times you will have to refer to the compass.
Question to Consider and leave a comment.
Further reading
- Arise and Bind Your Brain With Truth for Better Mental Health — Stop negative thought spirals. Learn how to arise and actively bind your brain with truth and hope using a daily thinking compass tool.
- 7 Steps to Change and Regroove Your Thinking Patterns — Learn how to rewire your brain and break negative ruts. Discover the “Groove Board” method to change your thinking patterns in 52 days.
- Recording: A Spiritual Habit for Better Mental Health — When we record an event, a time, a place it grounds us in the story going on. It secures our mental health into a story unfolding
- How to Restore Your Soul When Feeling Flat and Drained Out — Feeling flat and empty can be an invite to depth rather than depression. Learn how stillness and focusing on the Divine revives a tired soul.
- David Strengthened Himself in the Lord and How You Can Too — Find strength in life’s storms. Learn how David strengthened himself in the Lord and how you can build daily spiritual resilience.
- 14 Comforting Bible Verses for Mental Health and Anxiety — Discover 14 powerful Bible verses for mental health. Find comfort and hope through scriptures that offer strength, peace, and renewal.
Written by Barry Pearman — Community Chaplain, Mental Health Support Worker, and founder of Turning the Page, a resource walking a grace-filled path to mental wholeness through faith, hope, and love.
Jamie Street
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