PEACE OF MIND

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Negative beliefs create negative thoughts and negative thoughts create negative feelings! I didn’t know what to do with all that information, but I was desperate to find out. What I learned is that we all have beliefs about ourselves and others. They were implanted in us by the things we saw, the things we heard, experiences that happened and what we told ourselves that they meant. We scooped them up into our beings as facts. Are they facts? Probably not! But, that is how we get our beliefs. The only real truth is Godly truth, but even truth from God’s word can be distorted to us if it is processed through distorted filters. God is good and He loves us, but sometimes it is hard to accept this truth. Does it make it less true? No, it doesn’t, but I had very distorted ideas about almost everything, including God.

If something really bad happened to us in the past, does that mean we are bad? No! But, our thoughts might try and tell us that we are. We need to challenge and change those beliefs and thoughts about ourselves. Replace them with truth. If we did something bad, are we bad? Or, did we just “do” something bad? See the difference. Seeing ourselves as bad, worthless, or useless, because we did something bad, or someone else did something bad to us, is incorrect thinking, distorted. That kind of thinking brings feelings of shame. When we have feelings of shame, we will usually say shameful things to ourselves about ourselves. It is called beating yourself up. There is a big difference between bad behavior and “being” bad or worthless. Admitting and acknowledging our bad behavior, and seeing our part in a situation is good. But, thinking and saying to ourselves that we are bad, dumb or useless etc. helps nothing. It creates shame. Shame creates more shame. Shame creates addiction. Addiction creates more shame. It is a downward spiral.

There were steps to take to get myself out of the SHAME spiral I lived in. First of all, I had to accept that God did not want me to beat myself up for my mistakes. The idea that He wanted me to be really hard on myself for mistakes or sins was one of the distorted beliefs that I needed to have rewired. I needed to give my sins, character defects, and deficiencies to God and trust Him to make the needed changes in me. He didn’t want me to live in condemnation. I had been so hard on myself, and it was wonderful to learn that it was not His desire for me to stay that way. There was so much freedom when I realized these things!

We need to be easy on ourselves by not allowing negative conversations to play in our heads. We need to stop the negative self-talk, recognize and stop the negative voices in our heads and change the voices to “I am okay” “Me and the Lord are okay right this minute.” “Me and the Lord can make it through anything together, one second at a time.”

We can be still inside and trust God with the outcome. We can talk to ourselves nice and positive, one second at a time. It is of utmost importance that we do not beat ourselves up for any reason. We need to give ourselves to God and let Him fix us, in His time. He will put us back together.

Hide inside with Him and talk nice to yourself in your head. So much better!

#hearts #minds #freedom #god #love #moment #feel

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