All of the Lies – My Journey to a Healthy Mindset

I’ve probably had at least three (maybe more) other downward spirals since my last post on my healthy mindset journey. It’s never fun having a downward spiral, but I will say, when you come out of it and look back and examine what was going through your mind, you can learn something. 

For me, my downward spirals come from an inconsistency in who God really is vs my perspective of Him at the time. Basically I’m believing a lie about God. For the past year, too often I’ve made God my enemy. He’s been the one who I’m convinced I’m fighting. Of course I’m not. The Bible says that it’s not against flesh and blood that we fight against but the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12). God is spirit but He’s not apart of the spiritual beings we’re fighting. 

But speaking of those evil spiritual beings, they’re the ones we have to watch out for. Often times they start in the mind. Whispering lies and pointing out, and exaggerating negativity. Or just creating negativity where there is none. Unfortunately, I allowed myself to ruminate on those lies instead of immediately saying no and proclaiming God’s truth. But to be honest, I couldn’t do that when I had never really practiced taking thoughts captive, placing them at Jesus’ feet, and then filling up instead on God’s truth. I believe this is a practice. 

But wait, before we get to the practice. I want to give a few examples of the LIES that the enemy taunted me with and this may be something that you need to read. 

1. God doesn’t want good in your life 
2. God doesn’t care about how you feel 
3. God just wants to put you through trial after trial 
4. You really can’t depend on God 
5. God never answers you

These are some of the main LIES that were on repeat. I basically believed that God wasn’t trustworthy. But He’s really the MOST trustworthy person there is. The enemy loudly proclaimed lies and I coward down even though I did know the truth. But something that I noticed in me was my inability to speak up for myself in general. 

I love my family, friends, and the people in my life. But one thing growing up that I never realized was that… I’m like a leaf and everyone else around me was the leaf blower. I was always told what to think, what to believe, how to feel, how NOT to feel, and so on. I’ve always been surrounded by very boisterous, opinionated people who kind of treated their opinions as facts. IF you chose to disagree, well… prepare for a fight that’s all I’m gonna say. 

My thoughts, actions, and feelings that were not the same as the people I was around were more so argued against (not in a pretty way), called stupid/dumb, and ultimately reprimanded. So I indirectly learned that if someone told me something… I better go along. 

The thing is, I like hearing people out. I like considering what they have to say, but sometimes it’s hard for me to not feel like I have to feel the way they feel or see things the way they do also. It’s hard to feel like I don’t have to accept what they say as truth. Sometimes they’re just wrong. Sometimes, plenty of times, it’s a lie. 

Adding social media into the mix does not help at all. Now, you have multiple people with multiple opinions telling you all these different things. I’m extremely sensitive to what people say about God as well. And there’s so many social media accounts that claim to know so much about God, the Bible, and the right way to live. Does it not sound like a recipe for disaster? 

(I actually have another post that goes deeper into the overwhelming nature of social media). 

So what do I do then? I figured out that I’m believing lies and that I’ve gone down a path of seeing God in a way that’s not who He truly is. What do I do? 

There’s a few questions I’ve begun to ask myself when thoughts come to me that are painful/discouraging or just in any way causing me some form of distress. 

Did God say that, though? 

Oof! This first one is the best one. It’s a simple yes or no question. If He did, then heed. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring clarity and help you to understand. If He didn’t then there’s no need to even continue the thought. Immediately, you reject the thought and instead ponder and think about what God DID say. 

Why do you feel/think that way? 

I believe in getting to roots. What is the root of the thought? There’s a trigger and then there’s a root. So you start with what triggered you. Was it something someone said/did? Something you might’ve said or did? Okay. But it’s a bit deeper than that. Why would this particular thing trigger you? Does it remind you of something/someone? An incident that occurred in the past? Of course this may take time. Sometimes we can’t easily figure out what the problem is. But recognize that there is always more background to what you’re feeling than just what happened in that particular moment. It’s also good to keep this in mind when others are reacting to you in a certain way. 

What do you know for a fact?

Seriously! Not what you think, but what you know is 100% facts. No guessing or feelings in this question. If someone gave you a look (or you think they gave you a look) and now you think they must not like you, ask yourself, what are the facts? Go over what you actually know. Not what you think. More than likely you know nothing. That is the fact. You have no idea what that person was thinking or feeling in the moment. Right? 

Asking yourself the facts keeps you from making assumptions and letting your feelings consume you and overpower you. The facts can give you a different perspective and help you calm down. It’s a remedy to overthinking. 

What is God’s truth?

You can find this in God’s word, the Bible. He has a lot to say about a lot of things. This is something I truly want to get better at. Memorization of God’s word can feel like being given homework but in reality, His word is our sword. We suffer when we don’t know His word. The lies are on repeat, so why not put God’s word on repeat as well. The truth will win.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I had to apologize/repent to God for believing the lies of the enemy over the truth that was literally in the palm of my hand everyday. Can you imagine showing and telling someone you love and adore them everyday, and yet some random stranger just comes along and tells them that you don’t and they believe them over you?

Many of us would be like “peace out. I’m done.” But God has compassion on us. His unconditional love doesn’t allow Him to leave. 

Give yourself some grace. I know I have to. We’ve all been through a lot on this earth. The enemy is constantly on the prowl looking to deceive each and every one of us in any way possible. Through traumatic experiences, hurtful words, abuse, abandonment, etc. There’s so much that has happened that has caused our hearts to scar and grow cold. I know personally I can be on the “offensive” side too often. 

I find that when I take my thoughts to God, He always helps me to have a deeper understanding of who I’m made to be, who He is to me, and what are relationship should look like personally.