We are in a series where I have been introducing you to different ways to look at your life. I believe if you can look at your life differently life and implement new ideas your life will change. Isn’t that what we all want?
As I was putting this week’s ideas together, I was again reminded that I can drop my head, give up, and feel sorry for myself, or I can put on the full armor of God and be the warrior he has called me to be. How about you? Do you get down on yourself; disappointed. Have you handed your self-worth to someone else? How about blaming your circumstances for your unhappiness? If you find yourself falling into this, read on!
If we buy into this lie from Satan, he wins. We are no longer effective. This scenario is going to look different for each of us, but the situation is real. And the crazy part is, it doesn’t have to be this way. You get to decide how long you are going to stay with this ugly belief. And for the most part it’s all made up.
Recently, I heard this profound statement: belief is an unquestioned thought.
I don’t know the specifics of your life, but these feelings of discouragement and disappointment often have similar ingredients. Something has happened, and now you feel the world is against you. You’re defensive, sad, and feel you’ve been given a raw deal. Things happened, you have talked to many that love and support you, and now here you sit. You keep playing the same scenario of how this bad thing has happened to you and the more you play It in your mind, the worse you feel about yourself. You feel stuck, disappointed, and you’re mad. You’re mad that you’re in this thing! It’s like you are in a never-ending cycle. Does this sound familiar? The reason I can describe this, is because I go here too!
You don’t have to live in this place of suffering. The situation you are in is painful, yes, but suffering and beating yourself up is optional. You may be feeling hopeless right now. Unfortunately, so much of the suffering we experience is because we get so caught up in justifying our position. We easily dredge up every memory we can think of that verifies our feelings. We convince ourselves that life is not fair, somehow we are broken, and/or we attract this kind of treatment.
I believe this is a spiritual battle. The longer we believe Satan, who is known in the Bible as the Father of Lies, the more we allow our minds to stay in this place of sadness, anger, feelings of low self-worth, and having a victim mentality, Satan has a strong hold. As long as we give our self-worth to our ever-changing circumstances, we are going to suffer. We are going to go from people pleasing—which is being whoever or whatever we need to be to get people to like us to feeling worthless when we feel they don’t like us. It’s all a big fat lie! But we are allowing it. In fact, in some ways, we are creating it. If you are in this dark place right now, I’m here to tell you, the only reason you are here is because at some level you feel you deserve to be here. You are making up a ton of this by believing you are a mind reader and you know people’s intent and motives and you believe it is toward you and you have come up with the ugliest scenarios about these people’s motives, you are the focal point. You are the judge, jury, and sentencer of their motives. The crazy part is you feel you are right! You are, often unknowingly, believing how smart you are about why other people are doing what they are doing. You are convinced in your certainty! If you can stay here in this place of suffering, feeling sorry for yourself, blaming the people or the circumstance, you will remain stuck and hopeless. You will stay in this play of suffering.
So, what is the solution? How do we pull ourselves out of this pit? As I always do, I want to start with the Bible. Here are a couple verses to start with—both from the NIV translation:
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
1 John 3:1
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8
Ask God to help your unbelief about these scriptures pertaining to you. Pray and ask God to show you what he wants to teach you through this current situation. Hold on to this scripture: “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) Now, get out that journal. Write out the scenario you keep playing in your head. Be honest with yourself about the parts for which you. Own your part. Don’t beat yourself up, but write down where you messed up. Once you take 100 percent responsibility you can take a step back and see where emotions may have clouded your judgement. It may have been fear, anger, holding on to a past hurt, or whatever it was. You’re probably not 100 percent innocent. This is important. Ask yourself, “Where am I making the other people involved the bad ones.” From that place that you believe you know their intent, you may have labeled these people. Now, where were you people pleasing? Where were you attaching your self-worth to their response to you. This is where I feel God is working on us! This is where Satan gets his strongholds. If we attach our self-worth to being accepted by other people and not who we are in Christ we are going to live a life of suffering. And if we label these people and believe we know their motives and have this victim mentality, this is where we get emotionally stuck. If we believe this as fact, we stay in conflict justifying our hurt. Recently, I heard: “Problems need energy to live.” In other words, the more emotion we attach to the situation the bigger the problem feels. When we repeat this ugly scenario in our minds and go talk to a ton of people, we are giving the problem energy. Things don’t get resolved and people get eliminated from our lives—which is a popular, though ungodly, movement right now. When we label people as toxic, a narcissists etc., we live in a popular culture of unforgiveness. (I’m not talking about extreme situations here, I’m talking about our relationships in general.) The world’s answer to this is just to eliminate people!
The next step is to go back through the situation and ask yourself what else this could mean. What am I making it mean about me? Give the situation and people some space and grace. I am sharing this with you because the longer we sit in this place of certainty that we are the victim and label the people involved as the bad guy, we have given our power away. The power to resolve, work through it accept responsibility and control the controllable. We must not allow the situation to label us. We are children of God. We can make mistakes and so can other people. When we make these situations bigger than they need to be, we become the victim. We are defeating ourselves. Satan wins. And I’m going to say this again, we are creating most of it! This step-by-step solution is going to take some work on your part. You are going to have to get yourself in a neutral state when you do this exercise. The state you are in will matter as you pull back analyze the situation. I’m sharing with you a tried-and-true solution if you choose to accept it!
Here is a summary of the step-by-step solution in bullet points:
You Are Not a Victim
- Recognize that believing you are a victim is a lie from Satan
- Understand that a belief is an unquestioned thought
- Realize that much of your suffering comes from justifying your position and belief there is no solution
Biblical Truths
- Reflect on 1 John 3:1 – You are a child of God, greatly loved
- Meditate on Romans 5:8 – Christ died for you while you were still a sinner
- Pray and ask God to help your unbelief and teach you through this situation
Take Responsibility
- Journal about the scenario you keep replaying in your mind
- Honestly identify your role and where you messed up
- Recognize where you made others the “bad guy” based on assumed motives
Shift Your Perspective
- Ask yourself: “What else could this situation mean?”
- Avoid attaching your self-worth to others’ acceptance
- Give the situation and people space and grace, and stop assuming you can know peoples intentions
Break the Cycle
- Problems need energy to live; avoid repeating the scenario emotionally
- Don’t eliminate people based on labels like “toxic” or “narcissist”
- Choose to resolve conflicts, accept responsibility, and control the controllable
Reclaim Your Power
- Don’t allow the situation to label you; you are a child of God
- Mistakes happen, but don’t make situations bigger than they need to be
- When analyzing the situation, get into a neutral state—not an emotional angry state—and look at several possibilities
Remember, you are not a victim, and by following these steps, you can break free from the cycle of suffering and reclaim your power in Christ.
Monette hosts a weekly podcast: Mornings with Monette. She has been a lifelong learner and and appreciates the opportunity to share what she has learned–both through her podcast and here at The Best-Life Project (based on the content of her weekly podcast). Her messages are raw, honest and straight from the heart. She lives in Albuquerque, NM with her husband Leland. They have three adult children and are enjoying living their best lives filled with travel and adventure.