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The Mind-Heart Connection

When we live for Christ, we are transformed into new creatures, but the story doesn’t end there. After transformation, we are called to make the best of our fresh beginning by trusting God and submitting to His will. That is why He reminds us to guard our hearts, because everything we do is influenced by it.

It is also noteworthy to recognize the mind is the eyes of the heart. In fact, when the word heart is mentioned in scripture, it is often referring to our thought lives, rather than the mass of muscle pumping blood through our bodies.

In the book of Proverbs, King Solomon states: “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Technically speaking, a man cannot think with his heart –or in it for that matter. However, the king, in all his Godly wisdom, recognized the intricate link between the heart and mind.

He understood our thought-life –that is our will, emotions, intellect and imagination– ultimately dictate our outlook on reality. Hence, from King Solomon’s proverb, we can infer that constantly engaging in negative thinking will lead to a pessimistic worldview that makes it impossible to see the good in anything.

The wise king understood if we internalize negative perceptions, we will transmit the bleak reality of our thoughts to our hearts. This would ultimately harden it, making it difficult for us to express love, extend forgiveness and reach out to others.

Of course, this is the perfect formula for loneliness, resentment and depression, which can lead us into deeper dissociation and chain us to the destructive habits that accompany the counterproductive habit.

This means in order to “guard our hearts,” we must make a conscious effort to monitor the things we watch and listen to.

Simply speaking, what we see and hear impacts how we feel and determines the decisions we make. If the things we expose ourselves to encourage destructive thoughts fueled by envy and strife, we will become miserable people.