Getting Rid of Bad
Thoughts
“Mom, there is something bad that is stuck in my head! How can I get rid of it?” My children have
asked me this often, and I have looked for ways to answer them. “Probably the greatest challenge and the most
difficult thing you will face in mortal life is to learn to control your
thoughts,” taught Boyd K. Packer, a church leader and Apostle. How can we help our children keep their minds
pure and clean?
Keep communication open, so your child will feel safe to
confide in you. Ask them too, in regular
personal interviews with you, either
formal or informal, if they have seen bad pictures or other things that are
bothering their minds. Children may be
too embarrassed to bring it up themselves.
Keep the talks warm and loving,
so they know you are on their side and truly want their happiness. How great it is to be able to help a child
find tools that will make him or her
Master of his own Mind!
Ideas Families Have Tried:
1. Tools for Thoughts.
First, we must understand our Minds.
They are like a stage. Only one
thing can be on stage at a time, and we control what goes on our stage.
It was President Packer who compared our minds to a stage
with performers who occupy that stage during every waking hour of our lives.
“They will enact for you ... anything to the limits of your toleration. ...If
you let them, they will devise the most clever persuasions to hold your
attention. ... Even convince you that it is innocent—for they are but thoughts.
--Cast them out! Elder Bednar taught, “Sometimes [bad thoughts
are] almost thrust upon us. ... If you didn’t seek it out, if you didn’t invite
it, it’s only a sin if once you’ve seen it, you let it stay. ... [If] all of a
sudden you [see a bad] image, well, cast it out!” (Face to Face with Elder and Sister Bednar,
May 12, 2015).
--Have a Song ready: Your “Emergency Channel.” Music is so powerful. It can make us dance, or make us cry. It can certainly fill our minds with the good
and true. What’s more, the evil has to
leave, for it simply cannot be where there is goodness and peace.
“Choose a favorite hymn or song, one with words that are
uplifting. .There are many beautiful songs to choose from. Seek the guidance of
the Spirit in making your selection. Go over the song in your mind carefully.
Memorize it. Even though you have had no musical training, you can think
through a simple song. Now use this as the course for your thoughts to follow.
Make it your emergency channel.” or https://www.lds.org/new-era/2008/04/worthy-music-worthy-thoughts?lang=eng
--Lecture yourself, Bruce R. McConkie taught. We can decide to stay far from those things
that will fill our minds with filth and baggage we do not want! And we can remind ourselves of this conquest
whenever we start to slip, with a little lecture we give ourselves inwardly.
My Favorite Idea:
--Be prepared with a
Phrase. “I’m over that!” is the phrase that Greta, a good friend of
mine, tells herself when confronted with a temptation she is getting over and
not wanting to rehash. Another phrase,
from the movie Fireproof is: “I
Love You More.” This is from a part in the movie where the main character
who is struggling with pornography, throws away his computer, and replaces it
with a note to his wife, “I Love You More!”
Or, it could be slightly adjusted to “I Love Thee More!” referring
to Our Father above.
--Virtue (good
things) as a garnish. We cannot
always help what comes into our minds, but we can quickly garnish it with
virtue. This is from the scripture “Let
virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in
the presence of God.” Doctrine & Covenants 121:45.
Rebecca liked to explain to her kids about garnishes. They are applied atop foods, to make them
appealing and appetizing. She taught
them to do the same to less than appropriate thoughts—to quickly make them
tasteful and uplifting, by adding goodness.
Rebecca would use a real dish of food that looks bland, until the
colorful garnish is added. For example,
she told her kids, if you find yourself thinking “I’m slow at this!” quickly
add, “but I’m getting faster!” If you
find yourself thinking, “She’s mean!” maybe you could add, “I bet she needs a
friend!”
--Examples from the
scriptures. David couldn’t help it
when he first saw Bathsheba bathing, but he could determine whether to stay and
watch, or to turn and run, as did Joseph when he was seduced by Potiphar’s
wife. Teach our kids these two true
stories, and help them to say, as did Joseph, “How..can I do this great
wickedness, and sin against God?” Genesis 39:9.
And when she persisted day after day, he got himself away, even if it
meant leaving his coat behind! (That
scene would make a good Family
Night charade.)
2. Scripture Power
When the Savior was tempted by Satan, each time He quoted
scripture! He knew the scriptures and he
used them to undermine the reasoning of Satan.
See Matthew 4:4, 7, 10. “It is written” are the words of Jesus to
Satan each time. We too can Treasure up
the Word of God, and use it when we need it.
D&C 43:34, 84:85.
Hilary found that on the days she had read and studied the
scriptures, her mind was filled with good thoughts, and it was easier to kick
out the words of discouragement and doubt, hopelessness and despair. Particularly the Book of Mormon was a huge
tool in her life to form thoughts and actions that she wanted. “Look unto me in every thought; Doubt not,
Fear not,” the Lord admonishes us in D & C 6:36. We can do just that, when
we fill our minds and our lives with the words of truth.
3. Use the Name of
Christ to protect you.
4. President Bednar’s
analogy—This is GOOD!
Imagine your minds to be a tube filled with grains of sand,
taught Elder David Bednar. The tube has
a hole at each end. Bad thoughts are
represented by black grains and good thoughts are white grains. “If you’ve
accumulated a lot of those bad thoughts in your head, they come back and ...
haunt you ... at the worst possible time,” Elder Bednar taught. “If you will be
patient over time and keep putting in white grains of sand, every time you do,
you’re popping out one of those dark ones. It won’t happen fast, but ultimately
you change the entire content of that container, and it can be filled with pure
white sand,” (Face to Face with Elder and Sister Bednar, May 12, 2015). As quoted by Sister Reeves https://www.lds.org/church/news/you-are-the-master-of-your-thoughts-sister-reeves-teaches
This analogy has been a great tool of comfort and hope, for
me and my family. It allows us to
patiently fight the bad thoughts, and to fill our lives with goodness that will
eventually push all the black thoughts out!
Even though it takes some time, They Will Leave!!! Hooray!
We can be clean again!
5. Protect our kids from
unwanted thoughts.
Use Filters and web protection. Insist on it!
Especially, place filters on hand-held devices that are harder to
monitor.
Don’t provide cell phones too early! Our Stake President looked at our
congregation and told us: There are adults in this room who struggle immensely
with the filth they find on their phones.
Do we really want to give that burden to our children? He and his wife provided only a flip phone with
no data when their children began to drive at 16. It might be inconvenient at
times, but it surely is safer!
Develop Family rules that protect and keep our kids
safe. Have a Family Council in which you
set rules and teach why. Have your kids
feel your love and concern for their safety and peace.
Suzana insists that her teenager plug in her phone by 9:30
at night, and come and tell her she has.
Lou and Lauren have a central spot where everyone’s phone is deposited
before they go to their bed at night.
Sam and Dawn insist that all internet be done in the Family Room, when
an adult is present, be it on the computer or the phone. Trace and Tunisia insist that Browsers stay
off, unless they ok an exception. All
are working hard to protect their kids.
6. “What should I do
if I see Pornography?”
A thorough study shows that 42% of children, aged 10-17 had
been exposed to porn through a computer or smart phone in one year. There is an excellent new video for kids,
who have that issue, entitled “What should I do if I see Pornography?"
“Pornography is a destructive force in our society,"
said Ben Erwin, counseling manager of LDS Family Services. "We are
bombarded with explicit images that not only provide a warped sense of what
healthy sexual intimacy is, but create long term compulsive and addictive
tendencies to seek out more intense levels of stimulation. The most tragic
victims of this modern-day plague are our children."
“Hopefully this video
can be a tool for helping Inoculate children by giving them an understanding of
pornography before they encounter it,” said Lee Gibbons, manager of family-focused
products for the Church who was involved with the video production. “We think
it’s something that’s fairly inevitable for children these days.”
7. Fill our lives
with good pursuits.
“Once you learn to clear the stage of your mind from
unworthy thoughts, keep it busy with learning worthwhile things.” Boyd K.
Packer
Jesus taught this principle, of filling your life with
goodness, rather than simply emptiness. When
an evil spirit is cast out, it later returns to its former dwelling. Finding
nothing there, it comes back, bringing more evil spirits (thoughts) with it:
“When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh
through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return
unto my house whence I came out.
“And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.
“Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more
wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of
that man is worse than the first. Luke
11:24-26
Learn new skills, Cultivate new interests. Don’t allow for too much free time with
nothing planned. Of course, everyone
needs rest, but rest is not idleness!
One of the very best ways to fill our screen time, is with Family
History work. It is fulfilling, it is
exciting, especially for kids! What joy
to fill our minds and our lives with giving this invaluable service to those
who lived before and cannot do it for themselves. See https://familysearch.org/
May we all win the struggle, and thus prepare to meet our
Savior, with minds clean and pure, cleansed from any thing we don’t want there!
See also: Following
The Eagle, found in: Lioness at the
Door: Protecting our Children from Evil.
I'd love your comments below!
Labels: Children--Getting Rid of Bad Thoughts, Teenagers--Controlling Thoughts
