It's been close to 11 months since my last entry so I guess after today you won't be hearing from me for close to a year, lol. I promise to try very hard to stay on topic and not go down too many rabbit trails. I love doing that for whatever reason. Let's get to it.
So the title is 'You Are What You Tell Yourself' and I used to think that sayings like that were silly and untrue. But today, and like most days lately, I have noticed a lot of negative thinking in response to thoughts I am having in regards to things I want to start doing or change in my life. Thoughts like "you're too old to start something new" or "you are going to fail at this so why bother?" or "you're no good at anything" or "you're not going to lose this 30 pounds that you want to lose". You get the drift. I am sure that you have the same problem in that your mind is speaking lies disguised at truths that you are buying into.
This is a problem because if we leave this unchecked and ignore it and think it will go away it will just build up steam and power in our thought life. Before you know it that one week that you noticed this problem will have turned into a few months and then maybe years. Surely your good intentions to fix this will have suffered erosion or completely been buried by this never ending cycle. For me the cycle looks like this: I notice the problems I want to change. I start working on them and then in a matter of days, maybe a week, the doubt and negative self talk start to creep in. So I give up or stop investing so much time to fix these things. Then I get down on myself for giving up. Then I feel hopeless. Then the anxiety takes over and I am paralyzed.
This is what it looks like for me. I am trying to navigate through this process and find a way to break the cycle. I'm not there yet but I wanted to share this with everyone. I'm not looking for anyone to try and build me up by telling me how great they think I am or that I'm not all that bad because honestly I would find a way to not believe it. Which is odd because I know if I was the one reading this I would want to comfort the person sharing this struggle and look for ways to affirm them and lend support. As a Christian I know that my identity is in Jesus and not in my personal accomplishments. Jesus is unchanging and therefore his love and acceptance of me is not based on what I have done or how good I am measuring up. If that were so eventually I would fail and therefore have to earn back the acceptance I had before. How tiring!!!! Rather it is based on what he has done for me. I could spend paragraphs talking about this because it is vital to the change in my own mind that I am seeking. I want to be honest here. I don't always believe it. I don't always believe that he is all I need and will ever need. I think I need to earn it and I will never be able to do that. This is an area I need redemption and renewal in. It looks different for everyone but at the core of all of our faults is a disbelief in the Gospel message.
I just wanted to share my struggles and for me this is a big one that seems to tarnish a lot of areas of my mind because it seems to kill my motivation at it's root. Thanks for reading guys. Have a great weekend!
