How I Stopped Ruminating

hi everyone mark dejesus here it is an honor and privilege to be able to speak with you today and in this video resource whether you're listening to this in video or audio i'm going to be focusing in on the subject of ruminating and i'm going to share a bit of my discovery of learning how to stop this ruminating pattern it's a very common pattern for people that worry a lot what is ruminating well it's repeating the same subject over and over and over again in cycles you're analyzing you're examining you're continually looking over the same subject same subject same subject you're introspecting researching asking these questions and you go in loops and loops and cycles sometimes we call it spinning i'm spinning in something right my wife and i would at times say that to each other we're spinning in this subject i'm spinning in this area and what it often does is it leads someone to be a chronic worrier what's worry it's basically a fear-based focus on the future and it's often spinning and it's spinning in it spinning in it and it can also drive us to become very obsessive and compulsive in fact the the the habit of ruminating becomes a compulsion it becomes the way that you try to survive the way that you try to solve the issues of your life so the first question i want to ask is why do we ruminate why do we even do this to begin with and then i'll lead you to what helped me what helped me to stop this pattern in my life and how you can begin to get some victory in your own life the truth is if you ruminate you're gonna have to discover that nothing about ruminating is healthy but let's get to the why and here's some reasons that i'll put up on the screen that i think could be a help to you and say what are the big areas for me some of you might say you know what man i feel like it's all of them but up at the top why you ruminate let's be honest you value it you have a value for ruminating meaning that you think by spinning in this subject that you're at some point gonna figure it out and you're gonna resolve it and it's a trap because you spin you spin you spin and then you find yourself so deep in it many people say i don't even know how to get out i don't even know how to get out of this because what they've done is dug a ditch and that ditch seems so familiar it's it just keeps working and working and working and working and working the good news is no matter what thought pathway of any kind of ditch that you create those areas can be renewed and you can learn healthier patterns but you have to realize why people struggle with this in the first place i feel the biggest reason is we see it as a value i'm going to solve this problem by fixating on this and repeating it over and over and over again arguing with it try this way try that way try this way try that way and we think that that's going to lead us into some freedom but it's a trap so right at the top there and i thought if i stared at the subject long enough maybe i'd get peace and i never found that to be true and jesus said in and i'll get to the gospel of matthew jesus said you're not going to improve your stature by this worrying because he gets into doesn't you know people say does the bible talk about ruminating sure we'll get into that in just a second the second thing in this list here of why you ruminate is your thinking is highly influenced by fear and i had to realize that my healing and freedom journey was that the majority of my thought patterns were fear-based and fear is it can be very easy to listen to it why because it's the loudest voice it is very physiologically uh triggering in the sense of it triggers many emotions it it launches many emotional reactions right that gets you to listen to it to pay attention and so if you're not trained in how to renew your thought patterns in the love and grace of god fear is going to be an easy inroad into your thinking i'd realize the majority of my thinking was fear-based and when i realized that it gave me permission to go i'm i'm going to re-learn how to think isn't that great and that great that we can give ourselves a reset and i didn't try to like go let me just try to fix all these things i said let's do a whole reboot i don't know how to think i don't know how to think i'm going to grow an adult and i don't know how to think because most of it is fear-based i live it i live out of it i respond to it and that's where out of that passion of freedom came about the book that i wrote called i will not fear which that book gets into how to see the fear factor in your life how to address it how to begin to overcome it but i had to realize man a lot of my thinking patterns are fear-based perfectionism is a big one because when perfectionists when they're under their perfectionistic thinking the value system is this you got to get these thoughts just right you got to get these thoughts just right many people don't realize they're perfectionist because it's probably not the best title it's probably not the best term to use because people think well i don't want things perfect i just like things just right well that's that's perfectionism it's like you you just have these certain thought patterns you gotta fix certain things you gotta like and you think if you incessantly look at them and and and and many perfectionists become introspection you know they major in introspection always checking always analyzing always how do i feel what's going on this what about what about and fear comes in and then they're ruminating and spinning in it so your perfectionistic patterns can definitely drive that you also have control issues that can be another reason we're feeling out of control as a nightmare and you're constantly looking to find control but it just keeps ramping up ramping up ramping up the truth is most likely you ruminate because you don't feel safe in life there's some area of your life that you carry a broken heart you carry an empty heart love is absent in some area of your experience in your journey and that's a place god wants to settle you in his love to help you rest in his love many of you ruminate because you're depressed you may not even realize it your low mood feeds ruminating did you hear what i said a low mood a low state of mind feeds destructive thinking patterns feeds ruminating and it's my conviction my belief many people who struggle with ocd they often have depression underneath it many people that are struggling with anxiety they also have depression many people struggle with ruminating their overall state of mind and mood is at a lower level and when you're at a lower level of overall mood you become more prone to unhealthy thinking patterns ruminating being one of them and do you notice that when you're not doing well you're going through a difficult season we don't even have to call it depression maybe just deep discouragement maybe just you're going through a hard season and you find your state of mind is lower don't you notice ruminating and spinning and negativity and just cycling through irritability starts to rise because it's not about what's out there it's about what's going on in here that is at a more disempowered state and so the last reason too is that you're highly conditioned this is a this is a programming thing meaning that once you develop the habit it's very easy to go to it worry is a very it's very contagious because people spread their worry ruminating can be contagious as people spin it actually can get other people to do the same and your your your spirit soul and body can become very easily conditioned to fall into these patterns and many times ruminators think they're actually taking action like you know what i'm not gonna be passive i got to deal with this issue and they think by ruminating they're actually dealing with it you're not you're just digging yourself into a ditch because god's not called us to endlessly spin in these subjects that we spin him now what i'm going to share with you is what helped me to gain freedom in my life and in my journey i believe this will help you in your life as well but i have to say up front that these things are things i had to learn to practice i had to give them time to learn you have to give yourself permission to learn because many times moving out of ruminating it involves a whole different lifestyle and you got to give god room and the kingdom of god room where you learn to practice god's ways because he's not called you to ruminate and you'll have to understand there's no life there i'll get to that more in just a second but the first thing that helped me the most is i had to realize i will not find god in ruminating because there's a there's an underlying belief like maybe i'll discover something i'm gonna figure this out and the spinning spinning spinning and you may even in your spinning spin into scriptures or you're spinning to theological disputes or you're spinning in your financial worries and you think if you spin it spin it and spin it and just stare at it and stare at it maybe you'll find god and that you know what i had to realize i realized in my life in my journey that god is not worried he doesn't have worry he's not afraid he's not worried he's not ruminating so i carry his nature and so if i'm carrying his nature in christ then i have to learn to part ways and this may sound very simple but i realized i'm not going to discover god nor his ways in the realm of ruminating in fact in the book of hebrews the bible talks about the call to enter into his rest i'll take a moment and pull it up here if i can hebrews 4 in verse number 9 this profoundly helped me in so many ways there remains therefore a rest for the people of god and the old testament example of leaving bondage and moving into promised land speaks of now we as believers we have the ability to cultivate that land of rest within our hearts which is amazing you don't have to go somewhere to find rest you just you just have to connect to what's available within you and one of the things that's said here is he who has entered into his rest has also ceased from his works as god did from his there's so much in here and i could go into verse 11 and verse 12 of of of what's available to rest to enter into rest what does it mean what does it mean to be diligent to enter into that rest what is the what is the disobedience is talking about here because really what it comes down to is israel didn't believe god to so they didn't enter so they're complaining and negativity today we struggle with believing that it's really what god wants for us is to enter into that rest many people that live in chronic fear they struggle in getting out of it because they think god's there they think god's in that and then when they get out of fear and they they hear it's kind of silent and the burdens start to lift it almost seems too good to be true and we get back into like our pressure filled life and god wants to release us from that but he says here he who's entered from his rest has also ceased from his works and so i said i gotta learn to get out of the striving i gotta learn to get out of those places where i'm incessantly going going spinning spinning trying to solve and if you notice it takes greater faith to let go and just enter into rest that god is with me i'm okay and i can settle in them i can settle in where i'm at in my journey he loves me right now i'm received in the beloved and i'm walking with him day in and day out don't you you feel the resistance as you as you step in to enter into that right because you've just poked out the war get back into busyness get back into ruminating and i realize you know what god's not in this god's not in this incessant spinning and spinning and spinning the second thing this kind of took it deeper for me was i had to realize ruminating was not going to serve my life well either in other words it's not going to add to my character it's not going to make me a better person it's not going to manifest the fruit of the spirit in my life it's just i just looked and soberly saw and part of it is even seeing what jesus said here in matthew 6 he says which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature people would say does the bible talk about ruminating yes in the form of worrying because what do we ruminate about all the stuff jesus says here therefore i say to you do not worry and that word worry speaks of having to be anxious about to take thought the king james translate to take thought don't he said don't take thought for tomorrow so so he says therefore don't worry about your life he's like let me just cover the whole blanket and then i'll get a little more specific what you're gonna eat what you're gonna drink or about your body stop fussing and worry and where does ruminating go in all those areas finances provision um my health you know we ruminate i don't know no no i don't know i'm sick should i go to the doctor i don't know everything down to the clothing you're gonna wear making decisions how things are going the temptation is to spin and he says is not life more than food and body more than clothing so in realizing that ruminating was not going to serve my life i did a value shift in change that i began to i put so much treasure in trying to fix all those things and trying to self-preserve my life and begin to start saying i gotta let this go because my value system jesus is saying life is more than food and clothing and god knows all of it and he says look at the birds of the air for they neither sow nor weep or gather into barns so basically the birds don't do everything you guys do they don't do what humans do yet they are fed every single day your father takes care of them which is like mind-blowing because you're like i don't know those birds look like they're working hard and jesus is like don't fall into a trap of lies your father in heaven is actually involved in making sure those birds are fed for real so how much more value are you than they and this is what he says here in verse 27. which of you by worrying put in there ruminating which of you by werminating are gonna add one cubit to your stature so you'll exhaust yourself you'll be tired and you won't see any progress in your life and you're going to be very very discouraged so i had to realize this is not ruminating is not my friend we're not going to be friends anymore so i made the conscious decision that walking in freedom number three is i'm gonna learn to practice being present in the moment i'm gonna learn to be in the here and now so that's very practical in its application one is i'm going to stop multitasking i don't need to multitask a bunch of things going on at the same time i'm going to live one thing in front of the other i'm going to live in a pace that slows things down because when you slow down it helps you deal with the overall state of how your mind is because ruminating loves us a hyper active spinning fear-based mind when that's what you're cultivating in general ruminating loves that so i'm gonna like slow down one thing after the other i'm gonna get out of the future with fear and i'm gonna get into the present because it's very interesting because jesus says here where is it he says in verse 34 he says don't worry about tomorrow tomorrow's going to worry about itself [Music] that's an interesting statement and and he doesn't say you know what there's just nothing to focus on he he doesn't just send us into a cake walk he says sufficient for the day is its own trouble he says you've got enough to deal with today and we're like wait a second you're telling us not worry about tomorrow but should i worry about right now no no he's saying get in the present moment there's something right in front of you and you know what it usually is the person you're talking to the relationship that's in front of you because ruminating takes you out of that if you're married you're not really present with your spouse if you have kids you're not present with your kids if you're at work you're not present you're not even there you're somewhere else spinning and when i made a decision i'm going to practice being present so if i'm writing i'm 100 present in my writing if i'm doing a video i'm 100 in the video if i'm if i'm meeting with someone i'm 100 with them i'm not thinking of other things multitasking if i'm with my family i'm with my family i'm in the here and now and that takes practice it takes redirection it takes developing that muscle and jesus says you have enough to deal with right in front of you there's nothing that's going to serve you by spinning in that future thing that you're fussing about or you're swirling about you're ruminating be in the here and now and it learned it helped me to be more relationally wired because it allowed me to connect to my heart more with the person in front of me and even in my time with god to be present to be in the moment to take in my surroundings to look at the trees and look at nature just appreciate what god has made to just be present feel the air in my lungs and the breath that i breathe and just connecting to that really grounding myself and who god is as a provider and as a faithful god in my life and his love for me learning to connect from that ruminating disconnects you from relational connection and takes you out to distract you into a world that gives you no life so i had to learn i need to learn how to be present in the moment another thing i learned to do is practice single-mindedness in the book of james talks about this the book of james says if anyone lacks wisdom let him ask of god but he gives it liberally don't doubt because a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways double-minded means two minds it means i've got a thought here and a what if a thought here and a what if a thought here and a what if and i toggle between the two and what do i manifest instability well ruminating will will fuel double mindedness it fuels two mindsets at the same time and so perfectionism comes in and says you got to get this right you got to get this right you got to get all these things right and it doesn't allow you to learn in the journey so i learned to to cease from the procrastination that i lived in because i was trying to get these thoughts right trying to get these thoughts right if i get it just right then i'll take action what it left me in is a passive mode of being stalled in my life so i learned to be single-minded this is the best i know now going to take a step forward let's take a step forward here okay here it is i'm going to take a step forward here it is going to take a step forward here it is going to take a step forward and learn in the journey because ruminating is like i just got to get this thing right and then i'll take a step now i'm not saying be you know be sloppy and wisdom in your thinking you know of course we know big decisions you need to you know get counsel ponder it you know weigh things out but this infiltrates our everyday existence where it's like narrowing down to the every little area we just feel trapped in and you have to give yourself permission to learn in the taking action and and many times it helped me to just put an action number five i took action at times to just put an end to it now what do i mean by that many times we're spinning in something like oh my i think i may be sick i don't know you're afraid of seeing a doctor so then you just spin and spin and spin it's like go just go get a checkup just face your face that or at times i would spin something relationally right or something or a situation with someone and spin and spin and spin like how do i just talk to them you know now of course you know we need wisdom and help and that's this isn't like necessarily a blanket for everything but it's good to sometimes say how can i take action to put this behind me so i can now take a step to move forward now even when you take action the thought can still rise up and just keep wanting you to spin and spin and spin you got to learn the single-mindedness jesus said put the hand of the plow move forward and don't look back because when you look back it's just going to get you fussing it's going to get you stuck and i found that's a rumination ruminating really does it keeps me stuck it keeps me from taking steps forward and i want to encourage the progress in your life and journey so number six as far as a daily practice stillness it's one of the most amazing practices in my life just get still to practice psalm 46 10 be still and know that he's god just to get still and make my heart aware it's challenging for ruminating to grow when you're really learning to get still like i said ruminating gets empowered by a mind that's operating at high speed we live in a world and system where we live in a buzz we live in a constant buzz and swirl so of course that high spinning fuels are the the rpms of ruminating so i had to learn to strengthen my peace muscles because in learning to get still which is a a skill by the way something that you need to learn how to practice people say i want to spend effective time with god well sometimes you need to learn to get still and and at first if you want to enhance your your your connected time that you spend focusing in on god of course god's with us throughout the whole day but i you know what i mean by those moments we want to sit down and connect well if you have trouble getting still that's why it's challenging for many because you get still and you're ruminating get still and you think about your to-do list you get still you think of all the things you're spinning about you get still and your pain becomes evident we don't know how to how to face these areas we don't know how to work through them because god is not frantic afraid all over the place he's not manic he's very confident he's very sure and so we need to connect to the stillness of that we need that peace be still activation so i had to learn that because i had no idea how to how to be still no idea so if you can't if you can't get still for five seconds been there done that i know exactly what that's like but i learned to practice it over time learn to get still to just take in the breath of air that i get to breathe to get grateful to not have a million things that i'm that i'm pondering over and just simplify my thought patterns to redirect myself which is number seven learning to redirect my focus from worry to peace i had to i had to redirect myself because many times what you need to do is redirect yourself from that rumor name to what to god's faithfulness his love for you hit the peace that's available and something that needs to be practiced and i call it gentle redirection just gently redirecting yourself back to what it means to be at peace that god is with you and he's a father who loves you he's walking with you he's faithful i also number eight this will get a little bit deeper the last three for those of you that are ready to roll up your sleeves i had to address the root factors that hindered my mood in other words i had to address factors that were contributing to depression or just an overall lower state of mind i began to layer after layer learn god worked through some things in my broken heart worked through areas of self-hatred where many times depression can be anger that's turned inward and many people are bound by self-hate but they don't realize that it's actually having an effect on their mood and irritability and negativity and their outlook in the world when you invite love to drown out that self-hate it frees you up and it freed me up like wow i can i can be more in in in a place of cultivating a healthy mood i don't have to be bound by the storms of life and the the ebbs and flows i can choose to have a good attitude i could choose to have a different perspective wow that's empowering but it took me some time to allow myself to learn how do i cultivate a healthy state of mind day in and day out right so when you when you work on that you're gonna ruminate less because your mood overall mood is in a better place number nine and this is where the rover meets the road i had to starve rumination like an addiction because that's what it is when you ruminate you're addicted to worry it is a drug it is your drug currently and we are going to help you get off your drug and you're gonna have to starve it like you would a drug habit and just like any addict who has to deal with emotional issues in their life how they deal with stress how they deal with pain you're gonna have to too you're gonna have to relearn how to heal your broken heart get to what safety means and get back to a place of learning what it means to be loved to be loved by god to love yourself with that love to love your neighbor as yourself to live in the peace of god's love for you jesus did not die on the cross so that you and i would spin all day long incessantly about all these things in our life but you're going to have to starve rumination like a drug addiction like a cocaine addict you're going to have to see it as this is something that i'm going to have withdrawal symptoms because you're going to have withdrawal symptoms pull you pull you pull you and people write to me say i started to get freedom but this is so hard it's so hard mark what do i do and some i i may need to just write back to you going you're withdrawing from your drug and and i want to say that to you to help equip you because then what will lead you into is learning to be loved learning to rest in god's love for you the peace that's available and folks i had to learn to let go i had to learn to let go of people's problems i had to learn to let go of people not liking me i had to learn to let go of having to do things right and to do things perfectly i had to learn to let go take my peace guard my peace live in that peace i had to learn to daily cast my cares i'd learned to daily practice this in 1st peter 5. i'm going to go back to verse 8. no sorry verse 6. first peter 5 6 therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of god that he may exalt you in due time and right within there he says casting your cares upon him for he cares for you now what does this word care means through the idea of distraction a care or an anxiety okay so the care is like a subject that has the ability to pull you into anxiousness and worry and fear and ruminating so how do we break through we learn to cast it on him this on you god it's on you this is all yours it's all yours this is i'm going to live and move and have my being i'm going to take my peace now interesting the next sentence is verse 8. be sober be vigilant because your adversary the devil walks about okay so he's talking about the spiritual warfare that we're in where's the enemy going to really get a foothold our cares the stuff that's that treasured place in your heart the stuff that has the potential for those of you that have scrupulosity or religious ocd you value religious truth and christianity and what we believe and you value what's right and wrong but your broken heart has these ruminating patterns now and obsessive and compulsions and it's not letting you receive love right and you spin in that way or you value your marriage or your your children or you value being able to provide but you get into these ruminating worries you get ruminating and getting things just right and doing things just right and spinning and spinning and spinning and all these situations and you carry other people's burdens and it's now weighing you down and jesus needs to say come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden i will give you rest take my yoke so how do you do that how do you take his yoke you got to take the one you're in off and peter says be sober what does that mean be alert be awake to what's going on and what's the hook your cares the enemies after our cares he's after what you care about to get you into a place of ruminating over them and in such a way that you the weight of it weighs you down so i want to pray that you will experience freedom from this kind of worry so god i pray right now that you would just help us to recognize worry is not our friend worries not our friend and ruminating is not our friend so we we see it we take responsibility for it and we say no more no more we turn from its ways we turn from this fear-based thinking i choose i choose to let go of ruminating we turn from it we renounce our agreement with it and in turning father we know you will heal our hearts and i pray that the power of fear that's over people's lives would be broken in the name of jesus that people would sense your freedom that they don't have to spin to find life they don't have to spin in their thinking to find life peace be still he has overcome the whole world everything you see everything you spin on he has overcome so plug into him and let that peace wash over your heart and father we choose to starve the lies of ruminating we're going to take our peace today we're going to hold it and we're going to let that peace guard our hearts and minds so i thank you so much for this i thank you that we can live in the freedom that's found in you you're not worrying you're not ruminating so i choose to embrace your character and your nature thank you most of all for being patient with us because we're learning day in and day out we're learning one foot in front of the other so i single-mindedly choose to say yes to being present in the moment i say yes to your love i say yes to your peace and i say no to fear in all its forms so it's got to go it's got to go because you've not given us a spirit of fear but a power love and a sound mind and so i pray for the peace of god that passes all understanding it it it makes the mind of this world flip because it's not built on circumstances it's not built on everything around us looking perfect or looking just right it's about connecting to who you are in the midst of the storm it gives us power over the storms of our life and so i pray you grant power love and a sound mind to all who are listening and watching that they would be empowered over the fear factor in their lives i bless everyone in jesus name i pray amen if this resource has been a blessing to your life and your journey please go to marcasus.com we are supported by those who donate one time or do it on a regular basis you can also get a hold of our books and materials one that i think would be great in this subject is my book i will not fear if you want to jump into a journey of healing awakening and transformation in your life get my book the heart healing journey but all in all it's just a pleasure and an honor to share the grace love and truth of our father in heaven through jesus christ your life and i pray that it blesses you and those that you love live healed and live free and i'll see you next time god bless you

Channel: Mark DeJesus

Views: 8,106

Rating: 4.9433961 out of 5

Keywords: Ruminating, Worry, Fear, Anxiety, Mental Health

Id: NLZ4vbH-dCA

Length: 35min 39sec (2139 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 30 2021