What is the main message of Get Out of Your Head?

The main message of Get Out of Your Head is to overcome negative thoughts and find freedom through a renewed mind.

How long does it take to read Get Out of Your Head?

The reading time for Get Out of Your Head varies but typically takes a few hours. The Blinkist summary can be read in around 15 minutes.

Who is the author of Get Out of Your Head?

Jennie Allen is the author of Get Out of Your Head.

Religion & Spirituality

Get Out of Your Head Book Summary - Get Out of Your Head Book explained in key points

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Name: Get Out of Your Head
Rating: 3.8 (140 reviews)
Author: Jennie Allen

Jennie Allen

Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts

3.8 (140 ratings)

18 mins

Brief summary

Get Out of Your Head by Jennie Allen is a self-help book that offers practical tools and techniques to quiet negative self-talk and renew your mind, ultimately leading to a more fulfilling life.

Topics

Mental Health Christianity

Table of Contents

Get Out of Your Head
Summary of 7 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 7

What’s in it for me? Break free from negative thought patterns through your faith in God.

Everyone has negative thoughts, and not just sometimes – all the time. Am I good enough? Am I wasting my life? Do I deserve happiness?

But not everyone knows how to deal with these thoughts. In fact, sometimes, we let them consume us. And the big problem is that one negative thought swiftly leads to another, until we’re caught up in a terrible spiral of negativity that just gets worse and worse.

It doesn’t have to be that way, though. In the following blinks, you’ll discover Jennie Allen’s philosophy of climbing your way out of negativity by embracing your Christian faith. According to the author, building a closer relationship with God and Jesus can disrupt your toxic thought spirals and set you on a happier, godlier path.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

when you need alone time with God, and when you need community;
how to be humble and grateful – even when we’re not happy with God’s plans; and
how to put other people before ourselves.

We all let negative thoughts spiral out of control – but we can choose not to.

Jennie Allen might seem like she’s got it all sorted. The author is a loving wife and mother with a successful career spreading the word of God. To those around her, Allen appears to be a model of success. But even she struggles with negative thoughts. In fact, there was a period of a year and a half when she actually started to question her faith.

Allen’s period of doubt began with a visit back to her home town of Little Rock, Arkansas. She was giving a few talks at a Baptist church. In her first talk, she told the thousands-strong audience about demons. Demons were real, she told the crowd, and they were determined to steal your faith. But she wasn’t prepared for the demonic encounter she had herself after the speech. She was approached by a mysterious and angry stranger who said the following sinister words: “We are coming for you.” And then, just as she was about to go back on stage for her second speech, the building experienced a freak power cut.

This, the author was sure, was the work of the devil.

The incident sent Jennie into a dark pattern of negative thoughts that would spiral out of control every day – and every night – for a year and a half. She would wake up each night at the same time – 3 a.m. – filled with worries and fears. Was God even real, she wondered? Was she wasting her time? Every negative thought led to a new one, spiraling up to wild and terrifying conclusions.

The thing is, we all have thoughts like these – even if, thankfully, they don’t always last for 18 months. But there’s a way out. By thinking about our thoughts, we can break out of these negative spiraling patterns. You just need to interrupt yourself with one simple alternative thought: you have a choice.

According to the author, so long as you believe in Jesus and submit to Him, the power to choose is within you. That means the power to choose a positive spiral of thoughts instead.

That’s what Jennie realized – and that’s how she broke out of her 18-month spiral of negativity.

If that all sounds too good to be true, don’t worry – in the next few blinks, we’ll dive deeper into the specific choices the author made that helped send her into these positive, godly thought spirals.

Embrace the power of silence, and listen to your thoughts so that you can turn them into something positive.

These days, it’s easy to get distracted, whether your personal vice is scrolling through Instagram, binge-watching Netflix, or whatever else. We even distract ourselves with things that seem positive, like too much work, or too many friends. But the truth is that we all need a little bit of silence and stillness in our lives.

That’s because, sometimes, we need something that other people just can’t provide. A friend of the author’s once confided in her about everything that was going wrong in her life. It was such a big and scary list, that Jennie knew there was only one thing that her friend truly needed – and it wasn’t her. It was some alone time with God.

Immerse yourself in your community, because we all need to be seen and loved.

Alone time with God is crucial, but that doesn’t mean all the time. In fact, something that’s just as important as alone time is the opposite: community. Even God is a community, after all: the community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The modern world isn’t always much help with this. We’re taught to prize independence as a goal in life, as if it’s good to succeed on our own. But at heart, we all need to surround ourselves with other people. We need to be seen, and we need to be loved.

Surrender your fears to God, and choose to delight in His goodness instead.

As we’ve just seen, simply acknowledging a negative thought – even just by saying it out loud – can break its power over you. That’s why Paul, in the Bible, told us to “take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

Taking your thoughts captive can be as simple as writing them down. Try it. Write down a negative thought that’s bothering you, and really think about it. Ask yourself if it’s really true – and what God thinks of it. You can do that by checking your Bible, and asking people in your religious community for advice. Finally, decide to make a choice about that troublesome thought. Are you going to continue letting it bother you, or are you going to break free?

Choose to be humble and grateful, whatever life throws at you.

A friend of Jennie’s was feeling frustrated. Even though she had a college degree, she was stuck in a job she found boring, working in a fashion store. Didn’t she deserve a better career than this?

But one day, she started listening to the Bible during her drive to work. A passage from Philippians 1, written by Paul, jumped out at her. He was expressing his gratitude: “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,” he wrote. At the time, Paul was living under house arrest.

Reject complacency and work to put other people first.

How do you think Jesus spent most of his days? It wasn’t all miracles. Plenty of the time, he was just doing good, low-key, charitable work – discussing forgiveness and grace, helping the poor, and so on. It’s not stuff that would’ve made the headlines.

You don’t have to spend your whole life performing miracles, either. In fact, it’s normal that you should devote lots of your time to service, whether that’s helping your children out, cleaning up, or doing some other task that you might not get thanked for. You shouldn’t be doing it for thanks or praise – you should be doing it for God.

Get out of your own head, and give your mind to Jesus.

Eighteen months is a long time to spend in a negative spiral of thoughts. But Jennie managed to get out of that spiral – and out of her own head – by turning her focus to Jesus. By choosing to give her mind over to God, she managed to get herself onto an upward spiral of positivity that culminated in her writing the book these blinks are based on – which is designed to help others do the same thing.

The thing to remember is that we all have negative thoughts – in fact, we’re all plagued by self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. The key question is what we do with those thoughts. Remember: the choice is yours.

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What is Get Out of Your Head about?

Get Out of Your Head (2020) is a guidebook for those seeking to break free of negative thoughts. Jennie Allen’s remedy? Submitting ourselves and our minds to the embrace of Christ and God’s love. By doing so, the author believes, we can all lead lives filled with thoughts that steer us down a positive path – and avoid the negativity that is all around us.

Get Out of Your Head Review

Get Out of Your Head (2020) by Jennie Allen is a book that explores how to stop negative thoughts and take control of our minds. Here's why this book is worth reading:

With practical tips and strategies, it empowers readers to break free from destructive thought patterns and find peace and freedom.
Through personal stories and biblical wisdom, Allen offers encouragement and guidance for overcoming anxiety and insecurity.
The book's authenticity and relatability make it a compelling read that helps readers feel understood and motivated to make positive changes.

Best quote from Get Out of Your Head

How we think shapes how we live.

—Jennie Allen

Who should read Get Out of Your Head?

Christian women looking to deepen their faith
Christians who want to leave their negative thoughts behind
Students of the Bible

About the Author

Jennie Allen founded IF:Gathering, a huge organization and series of events that help women spread the word of God. She is known for her media work and has written several books, including Restless and Nothing to Prove. She also speaks at many events and has a popular podcast.

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Religion & Spirituality

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