Discover effective strategies on how to control toxic thoughts and transform the chaotic pinball game in your mind into a serene journey of mental well-being.

Toxic thinking can be like a game of pinball. It seems manageable—maybe even fun at first—but add stress here, an old wound there, and before you know it, your mind is completely out of control.

At any moment of any day, your mind can be triggered by old wounds, Satan’s demons, bad habits, or just something someone said, and the next thing you know, your mind is reeling out of control.

It can feel like hundreds of pinballs are all dropping into the machine at once and you can’t figure out which one to hit first. 

THIS is what your thoughts can look like in an unrenewed mind.  

Whether your toxic thoughts are negative, fearful, anxious, or angry, how you deal with them can be the difference between a quiet game of solitaire or a chaotic game of pinball.

It’s been said that we get bombarded by more than 50,000 thoughts a day. But there’s a difference between those thoughts that give you life and the thoughts that are sucking the life right out of you.

It’s my hope to help you say goodbye to fear and hello to faith. Goodbye to chaos and hello to calm. Goodbye to confusion and hello to clarity… okay, you get the picture.

So let’s dive into the four steps on how to control toxic thoughts before they take control of you.

Step #1: Reveal

In this step, you’re actually not going to focus on the pinball, but rather on the trigger. 

You want to better understand WHY you’re reacting to certain people, thoughts, and situations.  

You see, it’s tempting and easy to blame others for triggering us, thereby making it their fault and their responsibility for controlling YOUR thoughts and emotions.

When the truth is, you can’t trigger something that isn’t there. To stick with the pinball analogy, if there’s no ball, there’s nothing to set into motion.

This is where you’ll want to deal with the stuff lying beneath the surface—the past hurts, old wounds, neglected traumas, unfulfilled dreams, and insecurities. These are all things that make it so much easier for you to get triggered.

Your job is not to control the triggers around you. It’s to deal with what’s going on inside of you. So allow God to REVEAL what He needs to reveal.

Step #2: Refocus

You can throw your hands up in the air and blame everything in your life on the out-of-control balls, or you can apply the principle found in 2 Corinthians 10:5: “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

My friend, don’t let your thoughts run free like a bully on a playground. It is your mind—it’s your job to direct it. 

When my mind is going in the wrong direction, I am proactive in giving what God is revealing over to Him. This doesn’t mean that I just ignore something and pretend it’s not there. But it does mean that we are to be intentional about the focus of our own thoughts.

Step #3: Rethink it

Once you’ve captured that thought, stop and ask yourself: Is this thought helpful or harmful to my mental and spiritual health?  And, does it line up with God’s word? 

You see some thoughts are so demented that it’s clear that they don’t belong—like if you tried to use dice to play a game of pinball, it would be a mess.

But others are a little less obvious. They may carry some truth and THIS is what brings the confusion.

Before you go throw another ball into the game, consider getting some help. Get with a trusted friend, a pastor, or a qualified professional. Whoever it is, make sure they are grounded in God’s truth.

If you need a counselor, we’ve connected with Faithful Counseling to get you the help you need. Click here and they will pair you with a licensed professional that’s right for you.

Step #4: Replace

You don’t have to believe every thought that pops into your head. In fact, you shouldn’t. It’s your job to take those old thoughts and replace them with healthy, godly ones.

Satan wants you to play the same old game the same old way. But God has given you the mind of Christ to rewrite the rules for your mind and rewrite the story for your life.

It’s time to replace the thoughts of inadequacy with thoughts of Christ’s sufficiency. It’s time to replace those thoughts of fear with thoughts of faith.

My friend, it’s your mind—take it back. 

If you’re ready to dive deep into the spiritual and practical application of how to control toxic thoughts and renew your mind for ANY wrong thought pattern, be sure to check out my online course, Renew Your Mind.

Want to know the three signs that God is trying to remove someone from your life? Check out this episode next. 

And if you’re wondering how much your thoughts are holding you back, be sure to take the FREE How Toxic Are My Thoughts? quiz.