Welcome to spirituality in mental health. I'm your host Don Mackintosh and today we're going to talk about something that's a pretty large title materialization and destruction of negative thoughts. Now in a previous program, we talked about how we have 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day. 90% of those are repetitive 80% are negative. So we have this tsunami of negative thoughts. And I wanted to cover some research that just crept gripped my, my attention.

Here's the title of the research article treating thoughts as material objects can increase or decrease their impact on evaluation. Wow. So if we materialize thoughts, turn them into material objects, we can actually decrease or increase their impact on However you take your thoughts the researcher said as trash, or as worthy as protection seems to make a difference in how you use those thoughts. That's a thought, That's bad. It's a thought from hell, we might say bad thought. It's a thought from heaven.

However you take it, it actually has an impact. At some level, it can sound silly, but we found that it really works by physically throwing away or protecting your thoughts, you influence how you end up using those thoughts. Merely engaging, or imagining engaging in these accidents had no effect. So it actually has an effect. If you physically do something with your thoughts. And another program, we looked at gratitude and writing down gratitude, and it impacted serotonin and dopamine and whatnot.

But now this is looking again at the same concept. We talked about our thoughts as if we visualize them, the researchers said we hold our thoughts we take stances on issues, we lean this way or that way. This all makes our thoughts more real to us. I wrote a book about It I did a PowerPoint. Our thoughts when materialized are much more powerful. So they did a study study number one.

In this first experiment that 83 high school students participated in a study that they were told about their body image. Each participant was told to write down either positive or negative thoughts about his or her body during the three minute period. All participants were asked to look back at the thoughts they wrote. Researchers told half of the students to contemplate their thoughts then throw them in the trash can because their thoughts did not have to remain with them and the other group were told to contemplate their thoughts and check for any grammar or spelling mistakes in other words, obsess over the thoughts number three their preference then rated their attitudes about their own bodies based on on three nine point scales bad good on attractive, attractive like or dislike. What do you suppose the results were? Has would be expected participants who wrote positive thoughts had more positive attitudes toward their bodies A few minutes later than those who wrote negative thoughts.

However, when they threw their thoughts away, they didn't consider them anymore whether they were positive or negative. The materialization of the thought and throwing it away, erased its impact. Number two, second study 284 students were asked to write a negative or negative or positive thoughts about the Mediterranean diet kind of a diet like we're espousing here at beautiful minds medical a plant based diet. The diet had high fruits, vegetables, legumes, unrefined cereals, and olive oil as a basic fat. In this case, some through the thoughts away others left them on their desk. Still, others were told to put the paper in their pocket, wallet or purse and keep it with them all Participants were then asked to rate their attitudes toward the diet and their intentions of using the diet for themselves.

What do you suppose happen, as in the first study, those who kept the list of thoughts at their desk were more influenced by them when evaluating the diet than those who threw them away. However, those who protected their thoughts by putting them in a pocket or a purse, or even more influenced than those who kept the thoughts on their desk. Now, I remember when I was dating my ex fiance, loominator, my wife, she gave me a picture that said, I give you my heart. I did not put this on my desk. I did not throw it away. I kept it in my wallet.

Now we have four children are happily married for 26 years, it had an impact on me. So, bottom line of this research, you can magnify your thoughts and you can make them more important to you by keeping them With you, in your wallet or purse. This is why sometimes I have patients or people that I'm counseling, write out cards about positive things they want to keep with them. You may want to do that as one of the assignments with this materializing the positive, maybe a poem, maybe a song, maybe a promise, maybe a truth that you want to keep telling yourself where you have not been telling yourself the truth. But how important is the physical action of throwing these thoughts away or keeping them in your pocket? To find out the researchers conducted an experiment using computers.

In this case, 78 college students wrote their thoughts in a computer word processing document. Some later use the mouse to drag the file into the computer Recycle Bin. Others move the file to a storage disk, just as in the previous studies participate bins made less use of negative thoughts that they had trashed by dragging them to the recycle bin than those who saved the thoughts by transferring them to a disk. And another condition, some participants were told to simply imagine dragging their negative thoughts to the recycle bin, or saving them to a disk. But that had no effect on their later judgments. And in other words, materializing the thoughts and doing something with them actually had a big impact.

The more convinced the person is that the thoughts are really gone, the better. Just imagining that you throw them away, does not seem to work. Of course, even if you throw the thoughts in the garbage camera, put them in a recycle bin in your computer. They're not really God. You can regenerate them, but the representation of those thoughts are gone. At least temporarily.

The researcher said it seems to make it easier not to think about them. So, concluding this research the what they plan to do is see if this technique could work to help people who have recurrent negative thoughts that are intrusive or bothersome. What's that sound like? depression, recurrent, negative thoughts that are intrusive or bothersome. It's often difficult to get rid of these thoughts. We want to find out if there's a way to keep those thoughts from coming back at least for longer periods of time.

Now, I got to tell you something I kind of intuitively knew this. About 12 years ago, I started working with a program that was treating depression and anxiety not unlike beautiful minds. In fact, this is where I met Dr. blindness as I was working for this program, and he came to rotate through but what we did in that program was something that now this research validates we had people write out everything negative Maybe negative thoughts about the past themselves, others what was coming between them and God, others all those different things. And guess what, we had them too. We then had them burn them. We had a burning, and they burn those thoughts.

And then we had them right on afterwards the positive things and keep them with them. I had never read this research at that time just intuitively thought that would work and guess what happened, and the testimonies from those peoples from those people over a decade of working with people, many of them said that was the breaking point for me. Something happened when I got rid of those thoughts in that public manner. They'd say something about it. And then they do that. Now I've done it also using a paper shredder as well with a group of people.

So if you think about God or anything long enough, something surprising happens in the brain, you think about negative things. something can happen as well. So we attempting to do away with the interests of negative thoughts and replace it with positive thoughts and materializing the negative thoughts, and actually burning them, actually is quite effective. Now, it struck me later on as I was reading the Old Testament Scriptures, you might read a book of Exodus, Leviticus, especially. And these books talk about a sanctuary system where in fact, God actually had a very simple yet complex system of materializing sent and removing and look at this. Notice that the graphic will show you this ancient sanctuary which was kept right in the middle of those 1.5 million Jews that were on the what was called Exodus.

Even see the word exit on doors today and In the middle of the camp, they would place this big huge materialization system called the sanctuary. And people representatives from his family would come, they would lay their hands, they would come to that, that sanctuary and they would enter into the gate, they would lay their hand on the head of a sacrificial animal, someone that would die for all the negative thoughts, etc. And they would lay their hand on that. And then they would hand the lamp over to the priest. And you can see the priests there, in this graphic, you know, at this altar of sacrifice, they would then put that animal than it had all the negative things they had done, transfer to it onto this altar and it would be completely burned where we get the word Holocaust, then the priest would wash his hands and that labor would go in and take some representation of those negative things that were carried by the blood of that animal, place them before that second kirtan in the holy place, and then finally, would move into the most holy place once a year and actually place representation on the ark, or the broken law, the thing that defined what was negative.

This whole system was a materialization of sin. It was taking it seriously, but it was saying, hey, look, you don't keep it anymore. you hand it over to the specialist. you hand it over to people that can deal with the negative things. You can't do it, it's going to devastate you. Can you see how that system would be medicinal?

It actually is falling through on a very comprehensive manner. The very research that we just covered, but it's doing it who's doing it. Actually, the believers back then said God is doing it. What about the new test? Oh, by the way, look at this text as far as the east is from the west, so has he removed our transgressions from us? Look at that materialization of sin and they would come from the east.

To the west, and take people's sin away. I don't know about you, but this is fascinating. What about the New Testament? In the New Testament, there were two services like this. Look at the first one. It was called the communion service.

And in this service, notice what happens. It was now the day before the Passover festival. Jesus knew that they are had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. He had always loved those in the world who were his own, and he loved them to the very end. Jesus and his disciples were the devil had already put into the heart of Judas. The son assignment is carried before thought of betraying Jesus knew that the Father had given him complete power.

He knew that he had come from God and was going to God. So he rose from the table, took off his outer garment and tied a towel around his waist. Then he poured some water into a wash basin and began to wash the disciples feet and dry them with a towel around his waist. came to Simon Peter. Are you going to wash my feet you do not understand now what I'm doing but you will understand later. Never at any time will you wash my feet.

If I do not wash your feet you will no longer be My disciple. wash my face wash my hands and head with taking a bath completely clean and do not need to wash themselves except for their feet. All of you are clean. So this is what's called the communion service. And many times you see this in churches even today, but without what element without the materialization of the negative that's washed away in the foot washing. This is why the foot washing is, I believe an important element because of the science.

And it's actually something that is very, very, very medicinal. It not only is theological, it's not only something in the Bible, it actually is some it's not busy work. So at the church I attend, we practice this quite often during the year. But there's another element as well, that I want to show you. And this is the element that was alluded to by Christ in that last clip as being washed all over here it is. have made to be baptized to be taught to me.

Suffering to be so now that it become a pass to fulfill all righteousness. I baptize the having authority from the Almighty God as a testimony that you have entered into a covenant to serve Him. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. So again, we see the material ization symbolically in this case of sin and who isn't here that was being baptized symbolically washing away the sin and whatnot. If you want to read more about that you can look at Romans chapter six. It was Jesus himself.

And he said, this is so important that even though I never send, I want to talk to about two people who have had negative sent type things in their life. And I want to show them what they should do. This is quite an endorsement. This is something that is powerful. And by the way, this would have been seen as a read baptism, not just a baptism because they had all kinds of immersion things in ancient Judaism near the temple, but this was saying, hey, look, I've read dedicating my life to God, I've materialized that sin, I want it to be washed away, I want to die to it. So they go underneath the water, and then I'm going to come up to be resurrected.

Out of that water, in newness of life. I don't About You, I don't know what your situation is. But I do know that many people I've worked with over the years, the past decade, and depression and recovery type settings. And then also, you know, the same types of folks that I see at beautiful minds, they have great benefit, when they actually start to materialize the negative and actually eradicate it symbolically through physical actions. I might just tell one story, one man came to my group, he was struggling with all kinds of negative thoughts and feelings, and he got into all kinds of obsessing about all the things he had promised but never followed through. And I actually had three volumes, full of things that he felt like he had failed and he carried these books around when he had materialized, almost like a sentence of death against himself.

He carried them all over the place. So I gave him a song which I want to get to you as an assignment. So 130 and it says, if, if God would remember our iniquities, who could stand, and he had remembered all the things he had done bad and wrong, and I said, read that and I encourage them. I said, Look, we're going to have this burning. Why don't you burn those books? Oh, he struggled back and forth, back and forth.

But guess what he did. He finally burned the books. I didn't even know this research them, but I just knew that was important. He burned those books. There was a flame that probably went up 15 feet in the air, there was an amazing glorious flame. And it burned for quite some time because he had all the oils from his body touching this book for years.

This man's life completely changed. In place of that book. He began to write out positive thoughts, things he could have going forward and his life completely changed and what was the key, the materialization of negative thoughts and this struction of those negative thoughts? That's how it all started. I don't know how you might be impressed. What's one of these areas, maybe a burning, maybe a paper shredder, maybe?

Maybe a baptism, maybe a communion. I don't know what's right for you. But if you want to move forward with that, please talk to us here at beautiful minds, and we're happy to help you and whatever that next step might be.