Taking Thoughts Captive: Why Your Mind Still Spirals with Anxiety

Just because you think it… doesn’t mean it’s true.

Albert Einstein said it best: “The world we have created is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

Taking Thoughts Captive

Spiritually speaking, Scripture reminds us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 that we are invited to “take every thought captive.”

In the original Greek, “taking every thought captive” uses a word for capturing prisoners of war, painting a picture of active restraint — not passive observation.

When a thought brings anxiety, worry, what-ifs, or worst-case scenarios, pause and take it captive.

Say: “No. Not today, mind.”

Then replace it —with gratitude for something real in this moment, or with a reminder of something good God has already done for you.

Not every thought deserves your agreement. Some only deserve your awareness — and a new response.

What This Can Look Like in Real Life

“What if I never get married?”

Replace it with:“What if I am becoming the person I am meant to be — and the one meant for me is becoming that too.”

“What if I don’t get the opportunity I’ve worked so hard for?

”Replace it with:“What if the door closes because I am being protected, not rejected.”

“What if my child never returns to God?”

Replace it with:“What if my son or daughter finds faith again through my prayers, not my fixing — and God is already working in ways I cannot yet see.”

“What if my marriage stays distant and we never find our chemistry again?

”Replace it with:“What if this season is not the end of our story, but an invitation into a deeper kind of love we are still learning.”

Not every thought is the truth.

Some are simply fear asking to be soothed.

Why Repetition Matters

Taking thoughts captive is not a one-time moment — it is a practice. Your nervous system learns through repetition. Each time you pause and choose a different thought, your body begins to recognize:

I have felt this fear before, and it did not become my future.

Repetition teaches your brain that it is safe. Healing is often doing the same thing again and again until your mind begins to believe what you are choosing to think.

This is why healing often looks quiet.

Why Rest Matters

Your brain needs rest in order to heal — and space in order to take thoughts captive.

Rest and pause give your brain time to catch up. When nothing demands your attention, the mind begins to sort. Memories connect. Emotions settle. Perspective forms.

When rest never occurs, thoughts begin to spiral. When those thoughts are fueled by worry, they begin forming false narratives that may show up as insomnia, tension, irritability, mental fatigue, anxiety, and depression.

Your brain doesn’t need more stimulation — it needs more space for “nothing.”

Why Imagination Matters

And in that quiet space, something else becomes possible — your imagination.

Scripture reminds us not only to take thoughts captive, but also to cast down imaginations.

Because the way we picture the future shapes how we move through it.

If you can imagine the worst-case scenario, you can also imagine the best one.

You can use your imagination to prepare for good things — even for miracles.

Whatever you practice long enough begins to feel true.

And this isn’t just spiritual — it’s neurological. Research shows that the brain often responds to imagined experiences in the same way it responds to real ones.

When you repeatedly picture an outcome, you activate the same neural pathways as if it were actually happening. Over time, those pathways strengthen. Whatever you rehearse becomes familiar to your nervous system — and familiar begins to feel true.

This is why chronic worry trains anxiety.

And why practicing hopeful imagination can gently retrain your brain toward safety and possibility.

Repetition wires what you repeatedly think and imagine.

And Still… There is More Beneath

And when you are practicing new thoughts, choosing hope, making space for rest, and giving your imagination something good to hold — you may still notice that certain patterns do not fully shift.

That is because not everything that shapes us lives at the level of conscious thought.

Only a tiny portion of our brain’s activity is consciously accessible, and most of what drives our thinking operates beneath awareness.

Until you learn to make the unconscious conscious, it will continue to control your life.

Where Your Thoughts Learned Their First Rules

Sometimes the unconscious doesn’t show up loudly. It shows up in the quiet ways we limit ourselves.

The stories we tell ourselves.

The patterns we repeat.

The places we feel stuck even when we want something different.

In relationships, this often traces back to what we learned in childhood. Not in words — but in experience. We learned what love felt like. What conflict meant. What closeness required. What was safe to express, and what wasn’t.

For many people, anger is part of that story.

For example, maybe your spouse forgets something important or feels emotionally unavailable when you need them most. You feel hurt. You feel angry. But instead of saying it, you tell yourself you’re overreacting. You stay quiet. You try to be understanding. And later, you feel distant, unseen, or resentful — without fully knowing why.

If anger in your childhood home led to distance, withdrawal, or abandonment, you may have learned that anger is not allowed. So you learned to swallow it. To soften it. To hide it. And over time, that hidden anger often becomes people-pleasing, emotional exhaustion, or the quiet ache of feeling alone inside a relationship.

The problem was never the anger. And it was never you.

Anger is not a bad emotion. It is a signal. But when we are never taught how to understand it, regulate it, or express it safely, it doesn’t disappear. And neither do the other emotions, beliefs, and experiences we were never taught how to hold. They often show up in our thoughts — in overthinking, self-doubt, quiet anxiety, or patterns we don’t fully understand.

And this is where therapy becomes part of the healing journey.

Help When Your Thoughts Start to Spiral

Therapy becomes something different than fixing — it becomes understanding.

It becomes relearning.

Reparenting.

A safe, supportive space to explore what lives beneath your thoughts.

Because we cannot change what we have never been allowed to understand.

And we cannot release what we were never allowed to feel.

Despite your best efforts to take thoughts captive, you may still find yourself feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure why certain patterns keep returning — because the root issue is not in what you are consciously thinking, but resides in your unconscious.

This is why therapy matters — it helps us see what has been driving us so we can begin to live from choice and peace instead of reaction and anxiety.

If this resonates with you, I would be honored to walk with you through this work.