As we’ve discussed, how we view the world is completely dependent on how we filter it.   Now let’s take some examples of how our negative self-talk sabotages our best efforts in relationships and self-control.

How you view your partner will determine how you feel about them, and ultimately how you treat them.  Chances are, if you are not feeling very friendly toward them, you are focusing on their flaws and faults. In turn you are probably speaking to yourself about those negative attributes repeatedly, which negatively reinforces your feelings and actions toward them.  Here’s a sample of self-talk statements pulled from my own life.

• He snapped at me.
• He said something sarcastic.
• He won’t make any plans with me.
• He didn’t touch me.
• He didn’t talk to me.
• He doesn’t care about what I want.
• He doesn’t care about me.

When you say this to yourself over and over, how do you think you are going to feel when you look at your partner?  Not very enthusiastic, to say the least.  Then you wonder why you just can’t stand him all the time.

Now remember, you selected that person for a reason. At some point, you recognized their good qualities.  Surely, those qualities are in there, too.  You are just now focusing on what are probably the negative aspects of those good characteristics you originally admired.

I fell in love with my husband because of his passion for Jesus, his integrity, his intellectual capacities and his strong will that allows him to get things done. He had a repeated proven ability to make a commitment to do something, and then follow it through to perfection.  I admired him for the qualities we shared, and for the qualities we didn’t share.

However, on the flip side, for a man to take control over large situations, identify problems, create solutions, find the right people to make it all happen and oversee it all, he needs a very strong personality, a strong confidence in himself, and a very strong will – all things that will have an equal but negative side to them as well. 

• So when I complain about how he doesn’t have any time to talk to me during the day because he is so busy with tasks, that is just the flip side to a man always on a mission to accomplish things.
• When I complain that he won’t make plans with me, that is because he won’t commit to something that he isn’t sure he can complete, because he won’t break a promise.
• His short responses to me when he is aggravated about something are the flip side of someone who is has a need to being able to control everything and everyone around him to accomplish great things.

In most cases, the things I came to hate about him are actually the natural flip sides of the things I love about him.  I can’t have one without the other.  No person, including ourselves, only has good traits.  And I promise you, the grass is only greener on the other side of the fence if there is a LOT of crap to fertilize it.

This same self-talk affects your relationship with yourself.  If you hate yourself, it is because you have focused on your negative qualities.  Just like everyone else, you have good and bad characteristics.  You need to start using the ABCs discussed in CRAZIFIED & OUT OF CONTROL to turn your focus back to the positives about yourself.

I was very hard on myself for many years because of my unfaithfulness to my husband.  I characterized myself as “unfaithful”, as if it was the one adjective that summed up all that I was.  But one day, after struggling with it during one of my Step Studies, God gently took me by my arms and shook me.  “Stop it!  You are not unfaithful, and I don’t want you calling yourself that.  That was 7 years ago, and you have not been unfaithful since then.  You may have done things that were unfaithful to me and to your husband in the past, but you are NOT unfaithful now, so it does not describe who you are.  Stop labeling yourself that way.  I CALL YOU FAITHFUL, and THAT settles it!”

The enemy wants you to despise others and yourself.  He feeds you just what you need to keep you bound to the negative and critical side of life, separated from God and from others, and discouraged about yourself.  Don’t let him win!  Take back control over your thoughts by consciously deciding that you will think on what is good!

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Phil 4:8

RESET ASSIGNMENT:

1. Write out the list of negatives you are thinking and speaking to yourself about the people in your life.  It could be a family member, a friend, a work associate.   Now, write down good qualities about that person.    When you think about them in a negative way, use the ABC method to counter it with their good qualities.
2. Now do the same thing for yourself. Your feelings will follow your thoughts every time, so you have the ability to change how you feel about yourself.