How do I know if I need to be taking care of myself?
If I have allowed someone to treat me in a way that I shouldn’t be treated, a way that is negative and/or abusive, even if I have allowed this behavior by many people many times in my life. It is time that I need to be taking care of me.
Now what if I now see it and I am aware of it.
What do I say to myself about it, or what should I do about it?
Something you shouldn’t say to yourself is, “I will never allow myself to be treated this way again!”
It sounds like a good thing for me to say about this, but is it?
Really, it is just another negative. It is just going to the other side of the negative spectrum, and it is so easy to get into that trap, but it will not lead to life.
Protecting ourselves in our minds against the future can become a fortress of bitterness and fear. It builds up a wall against us and others, and we make ourselves the protector.
Honestly, we aren’t strong enough to protect ourselves with our minds or words anyway! No one can protect themselves from future hurts. No one is big enough, even if they think they are!
Recently I went through this very thing. I allowed myself to be talked to in a way that I should not be talked to.
Most of my life I would have ignored it, stuffed it, or worse acted like it didn’t even happen,
but a very short time later I realized what had really happened. I really looked at the kind of behavior that I had ignored for most of my life.
This time though, I confronted it. This was big progress for me. Big!
The problems came with what I said to myself after the confrontation.
What we say to ourselves about a situation causes us more problems than what actually happens.
I said to myself, “I will never allow myself to be treated that way again!” It seemed powerful at the time, but I started to realize that I wasn’t feeling peaceful. Instead fear had crept in.
Protecting myself from future hurts by saying those things did not really protect me, it built a walled fortress.
The problem with living in a walled fortress is I was now on the lookout for another enemy to attack, so I could make sure they weren’t going to hurt me also, or once again. There is no rest in that!
Strength comes from the inside. I know I have to say positive things to myself and change my self-talk, but the words – I will never allow – is not positive, it is another negative and who wants another negative.
It is important to acknowledge my weakness to myself, and really feel it and share it with my Lord who lives in me, it is much better to do this than to live in denial and pretend something didn’t happen, but putting on my boxing gloves and building a wall of – I will never allow this again – will keep us isolated and fearful instead of protected.
It is so easy to make friends with bitterness and fear. If I put myself behind the wall of – I will never allow this to happen to me again – it will keep me away from others, and we need others.
When we have allowed ourselves to be treated in an abusive way, it is difficult not to build up the fortress in our minds to try to protect ourselves, especially if we have been allowing abusive behavior for a long time.
Of course, I am not saying to stay in an abusive relationship where you are in physical danger. You need to run for safety if there is a risk of physical harm from others!
I am talking about the verbal abuse that we allow in our lives. I am speaking of abusive relationships as an adult.
Children are helpless and abuse happens to them.
But, once we get to be an adult, abusive behavior towards us is something we are allowing, it is a choice that we except. We might feel powerless but we aren’t. It is only in our minds!
I struggled with this a lot in the past. It didn’t feel like I had a choice in the matter. I felt helpless, but I came to realize that I was not helpless. I didn’t have to allow myself to be abused or mistreated.
I felt helpless because my belief was that I needed this other person to be okay. That was not a conscience choice, but it was my inner belief.
When I realized I did not need anyone else to be okay except the Lord living inside of me, then I was no longer a victim. I could now make a choice.
Wherever we are right now, and whatever situation we find ourselves in, we have to know that we cannot protect ourselves from tomorrow right now in our minds.
Tomorrow will come but now is when we have to accept that we are strong enough with the Lord’s grace inside of us to stand against it in that moment. We can’t build a fortress today!
Strength does not come from hiding behind the fortress in our minds of – I will never allow this again – but it does comes from hiding and abiding in the only one who can help us with whatever tomorrow may bring.
That way I can put down my boxing gloves, get out of my boxing-ring fortress that I have built in my mind and really live.
I can't rest from the war that rages in my mind when I think it is my job to protect myself from the future.
If I keep my head every moment focused on the Lord who lives and abides in me, then whatever danger comes my way, I will be hiding inside with Him, and He is big enough to care for me.
Brush off the cobwebs that hang onto your mind! Tell Him, “I will trust You!” “You and me can do it together one second at a time!”
He really is the air that we breathe!