Quieting the Mind

I'm and introverted perfectionist, and as such, my mind has a tendency to try to run away from me. I often equate the struggle keeping up with my thoughts to being in a hamster wheel that is spinning faster than I can keep up. Anyway...A friend asked the other day how to quiet the lies that Satan speaks into our minds, and I thought that question was worth addressing here. I am clearly not an expert on controlling the mind (which is why I need Jesus), but here are a few things that I do when my thoughts are going a mile a minute, and often in a negative direction.

1) Say, "Jesus" out loud over and over again.

There is power in the name of Jesus! (There's a great song about this, too: "Break Every Chain.")

2) Say, "I rebuke you, Satan, in Jesus' name" out loud.

A friend once told me that Satan is a spirit, not the Holy Spirit, and therefore cannot read our thoughts, so it's necessary to rebuke him out loud. "Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power" (Eph 6:10, New International Version)

3) Sing praise songs.

I'll never forgot the day that my best friend moved to another state. I was crying ugly tears and having a pity party when the Spirit was like, "Are you going to cry, or are you going to praise me?" I started singing through my tears and though I was still immensely sad, I remembered that God would never leave me (Deut 31:8) and was sovereign over this change in my life.

4) Scroll through social media (not always healthy, but distracting).

Social media is a double-edged sword, in that it can feed negativity and comparison. But it's also very stimulating, and switching from picture to picture takes me away from obsessive thinking for awhile (so long as I'm not looking at a feed that ties in with the subject of the hamster wheel thinking that led me to go to social media for distraction in the first place).

5) Do a hard crossword.

My supervisor in graduate school told me that it was necessary to find a hobby that would take all of your brain power so that the mind couldn't think of anything else. Hard crosswords, when I apply myself, do that for me. If I have my phone or dictionary out and am hardily searching for clues, I can't think about much else.

Friends, what do you do to slow down your mind and keep from overthinking? Please share in the comments section below.