mindset

As a kid growing up, I had two favorite playmates, my cousins, Johnny and Robby.  Johnny was five years older than me, and Robby was three years older, so I found them to be fascinating and infuriating.  They could do so many cool things that I was too young to do: 

go to a friends house alone, go to school, read, ride a skateboard, and so much more!

One time, though, I got my chance to show them that I could do something they told me I couldn't.

Johnny had brought a "big" instrument home from school because he was going to learn to play it.  To me, it looked as large as a tuba, but in hindsight, i think it was more likely a saxophone.

Whatever it was, I was about six years old and wanted to try it out, but Johnny told me that it's too hard and that I wouldn't be able to play it . Johnny, then, took off up the hill in my grandparents' backyard and left that tempting instrument right there in its case on the ground right next to Robby and me.

Oh, Yeah!  I took the opportunity to take that horn out and put it up to my lips, then I blew into the mouthpiece with all of my six-year-old strength.  To the surprise and delight of Robby and me, I made that saxophone come to life for a brief moment.

Hearing the sound, Johnny came running down the hill to see who was playing his instrument, thinking he could yell at his brother, Robby, but Robby said with astonishment, "It was her!"  

I gained some "street cred" that day in the backyard with my cousins who realized that I could do big kid things after all, and I learned a valuable lesson that  "nobody gets to count me out, not even myself."

Limiting beliefs that try to hold us back are deceptions (from the enemy who tries to steal kill and destroy, John 10:10a)  and keep us focused on the wrong things so that we don't step confidently into the amazing and powerful purposes God has created for us to accomplish. If we count ourselves out, it stops us from fulfilling God's calling on our lives.

It's easy to believe the lies that we aren't good enough, qualified enough, good looking enough, skilled enough, etc..., and to fall victim to the comparison trap, especially if we've been judged or hurt by others.

And, it's also fairly easy and common to think that it's not the right time, we aren't quite prepared enough, we don't know enough, we haven't healed enough, we aren't yet confident enough or know the plan enough yet, or that we have to do more first, to prove ourselves first, or pray more before we take action.

Let me tell you that with that kind of thinking, a lot of people play right into the enemies hands and start counting themselves out, waiting for timing and abilities and circumstances to be just right, waiting to take that next step outside of their comfort zone and into the life they really suspect that they could be capable of living.... if they could just get past their insecurities, lack of confidence, hesitations, doubts, and fears.

To overcome limiting beliefs, self-doubt, fear, and insecurity, we need to not listen to the naysayers, to not let the negative voices take over our thoughts, and to keep God's truths about who He is, who we are, and what He's created and called us to do front and center of our focus each day. 

Now, I want to give you an overview of the top five things that often get in the way of progress for people.

    1.    Thinking that feelings and thoughts are facts. They are information gatherers and synthesizers, but truth comes from God alone and sizing up our feelings and thoughts in light of His truths about us and how life works.

    2.    Waiting for a better time or waiting to get to a certain place in time or achievement and finally "arrive."  If we wait for the "perfect" time, life will pass us by without much to show for it.

    3.    Confusing the hard times with stop signs when they are really just detours or rest stops.  Consistency is more important than perfectionism.  One step at a time, one thing at a time, one day at a time, one action at a time adds up to effective progress.

    4.    Thinking that things aren't working or will never change when you are already on the journey forward.  You may have to pivot and regroup at times, but consistent, healthy, movement forward creates momentum and produces good fruit.

    5.    Making comparisons and listening to lies that try to have you focusing on the past, the future, or the overwhelming nature of the present, when you can learn to be calm, powerful, and take effective action only from where you are in time.   

If there is one thing that I'd like you to remember from today's blog, it's the concept of the BOTH/AND.  Life is generally not an either/or.  It is often a both/and.  We tend to think in all or nothing, shoulds and shouldn'ts, and 
"what if" catastrophes, but in reality, we can both feel uncertain and take a step, want to try something new and need to lean on the Lord for strength, feel competent at some things and feel imposter syndrome with others at the same time, ask for what we need and be content with what we have, and rest but not give up.

Life is a journey, and no one experience tells the whole story.  

Where you are or aren't and where others are or aren't in life right now is simply a chapter, and we are responsible for the actions we take as we let God write our stories.  We know the author, so we know there is a happy ending, and if it isn't good, it's not over.

And to close this out, don't ever let someone else tell you what you are, who you are, or what you can't do, not even yourself. 

Take a listen to this week's podcast episode: Want to Stop Getting Down on Yourself - Flexible Thinking Can Help

Our lives can be disrupted by our thoughts. Our thoughts can pull us down. Our thoughts can be intrusive. Our thoughts can lie to us. Our thoughts can tell us things that are not true about God or make us fear ourselves or fear other people. Fear is not of God. And when our thoughts are wonky, that's just really, really hard because that's one of the things that if the brain is the part that governs our thoughts, right, then if that is giving us thoughts that are unhelpful, it's really hard, and it's really challenging. When we have these thoughts, we have these feelings. And feelings are just indicators of our environment. They're not right or wrong, they're just feelings.

But then those feelings if we go with them too much or tell ourselves lies because we feel the feelings. Feelings aren't actually facts, so we can get confused there and then our bodies start to take those thoughts and those feelings as if they're real. And so the actions that we do or the way we feel in our comfort level in our bodies, I mean, it's just this whole thing, right? And as Christians we know that there's this whole spiritual being that we are and it's like what are we even dealing with? Like is this a spiritual thing? Is this a physical thing? I'm confused as to what I need to do here. Do I need to pray harder? Do I need to take a vitamin supplement? Do I need to exercise more? Do I need a nap? I mean, someone help me cut through the chaos. That's why I like to say, "It's time for no more crazy lady" because I have been there. I have totally been there and sometimes it's still unclear. But I have ways of discerning now. I have ways of understanding.

One of my key takeaways is that if it is something that is condemning or it is something that is fear causing or judgmental or tying you in knots, it's not of God. It's not of God. God is peace. God is peace. His Holy Spirit one of the fruits of the Spirit is peace, gentleness. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So that's the first tip, is that God's ways are indicated by who He is, by His Holy Spirit. If you aren't feeling love, joy, peace, self-control, patience, having kindness with yourself, gentleness, I mean, those are things that God has for us, and I don't want them to be stolen from you.

And that's what the enemy tries to do. So if you're wondering, am I in a spiritual battle? Well, yes, we wrestle not against flesh and blood. Right? It's a spiritual battle just to be a living human being on the planet Earth. And also, I think I don't want to say this in a wrong way, but it's also a practical battle, too. It's a physical battle. It's an action battle. It's a thought battle. It's an emotional battle.

It is pretty much that we can help when we have these spiritual battles by also having tools for very practical things. Just like if you have a broken arm, you put a cast on it to heal. It was something that was meant to harm a broken arm. But a cast can help it to heal and mend. And I mean, yes, the spiritual is that God gave us wisdom and bones that can heal. So he gave medical wisdom to put it in a cast, and he gave bones that can heal. But also it's a practical skill that allows us to have movement again without pain, that allows us to immobilize the arm until it's totally ready for use again, and then to build up the muscle strength again. Right? So it's practical and spiritual, and sometimes we get the lie that we're not spiritual enough or we're not good enough, or God's mad at us because we're having some more practical, physical, or mental or emotional issues, and we're thinking, what is wrong? I'm praying to get out of this, and I'm trying. And I don't understand why I'm still here and still stuck.

So today I'm going to give you the first part of what I have put together with God's great grace and help, and that is the Empowered Freedom Framework. So, God and I have worked on this together through the years. I didn't know what it was called. I didn't see it all laid out until this summer, where I've really been seeking God's direction for showing me kind of the next steps with the podcast and helping people and the next steps for my family and all of that. And as he's helped me put this together, it is a framework for you to get freedom. It includes things in the way of how I got free. It includes things in the way of education and science and biblical truth and practical skills and spiritual identity. It's a comprehensive educational program that will give you the tools, insights and skills to be able to heal, to be able to take back your power that is rightfully yours from Jesus.

To start we're going to talk about peach pie. I don't know if you like peach pie or not. If you don't like peach pie, I want you to insert whatever pie you do like. If you don't like pie, insert cake. If you don't like sweets, insert soup. Insert a recipe. I'm using the peach pie metaphor because I like alliteration and they both start with the letter P.

To have a peach pie, we need a baker. That baker is someone who knows exactly how to design this peach pie. This baker knows what to put into the peach pie. To make it a peach pie, they might put in some peaches, and they might put in some cinnamon, and they might put in some flour, and they might put, I don't know, whatever else they put, butter or nutmeg. Whatever they put in there, they have a recipe, and they know how it's going to turn out because they followed the recipe. The unique ingredients are in there for this perfect peach pie. See what I did there? More alliteration for the perfect peach pie, okay? And that perfect peach pie is priceless. I mean, that perfect peach pie is so priceless because it is just perfectly made, perfectly designed by the baker. And that peach pie has everything it needs to be successful in delighting people's tummies in delighting their taste buds in filling a need for a sweet after a satisfying meal. It's inherently perfect as a peach pie, and its purpose is from the baker.

Now, as you probably have figured out, you are the peach pie, right? And God is the baker. He has perfectly put the ingredients into you for the purposes and outcomes that He has for you to do in this world. You are a beautiful, perfect peach pie in every way, and you are made to shine and do your job as you were designed with the unique ingredients for the perfect purpose and just it's spectacular. You are a unique creation, and the world needs you.

And God destined you for such a time as this. So that's the first part of my empowered freedom framework is realizing the story of you, of who you are, and that you are made by God, fearfully and wonderfully as a masterpiece. Here's the second part, though. Sometimes the story gets messed up. Someone tries to rewrite it, rewrite the recipe, they start to mess with the ingredients. These things that were good, like trusting, caring, showing vulnerability, connecting, being real, praying, trusting God, having a sound mind, a restful body, gentle emotions that are easy and light came along and messed with the recipe. It was like an evil person who was jealous and wanted to stop the recipe from being perfect. And what happened is the pie was perfect and all the ingredients were perfect when this devious thief came and stole from the baker, stole from the pie, put some ingredients in there that caused pain or that contradicted the good stuff, or that left some space for doubt as to whether they should be following the right recipe or not, it caused chaos.

Just like in a peach pie, if you put something else into it or not enough of something into it or too much of something into it, you're going to get different results. That didn't mean the original recipe was wrong. That didn't mean the original baker was wrong. That means that someone tampered with the ingredients, someone tampered with that perfect story, that perfect recipe, and that's the enemy. And the enemy can tamper in the lives of God's creation, through hurtful relationships, through bad experiences, through tragedy, through trauma, through gaslighting, from parents, through abusive marriage relationships, through bullying or insecurity, through hardships. The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy.

But God, through Jesus, has already overcome the world, and we have the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead living in us. So the death that the enemy meant for evil, God will turn for good and redeem. And that peach pie will now be like a super peach pie. By the time God gets done with this, the original baker with the original recipe, He's taken those original ingredients and gotten rid of the muck. With all of those things that were not wanted, or additives or things that were stolen, the icky, God comes along and takes what the enemy meant for evil and turns it for good. Now, maybe the peaches are too sweet or not too sweet, but now maybe the peaches are so sweet, and God adds praline topping to it or some caramel sauce or some whipped cream, and it's like, even better than before. God makes it look like He had it planned all along well, because He knows what's going to happen.

He knows he's not going to let anything happen to you that He can't redeem, because He is a redemptive God. And He didn't want that junk to happen to you, but He wants the victory of you being who you are made to be. And sometimes those things that happen to us are the very areas where we overcome and shine and do even more than what the enemy was trying to stop us from doing in the first place.

That's why you're hearing from me today. I never thought that I would be able to get through my low self-esteem, my anxiety, my panic, my post-traumatic stress disorder, my obsessive-compulsive disorder. I mean, if you had seen me 30 years ago in my 20s, this would have been a whole different person you would have seen. And yet I was still the same person with all the right ingredients. But I had had some very toxic experiences in relationships, and I needed healing.

I needed the original baker, the one with the original recipe, to come in and supercharge my recipe by putting in even more of the wonderful things he had put in me through his power. The pralines and the pecans and the caramel sauce and the whipped cream. And it almost makes it worth all of the struggles that I went through. I don't know if I could say that I'd prefer to have still gone through them, but I am so glad to be on the other side. And I am so glad God redeemed it. And I am so glad that I am now here to help you get that extra recipe, that extra special sauce. As you break free from that awfulness that was trying to distort your recipe, you are fearfully and wonderfully, made a unique masterpiece no one compares to you. God has good for you.

God will redeem what the enemy stole, and He will make it all work together for good. So it'll look like it was part of the plan all along, because God is a good God, and He has got you. And He has got you with pralines and caramel sauce and whipped cream and even a cherry on top with a dash of cinnamon, I mean, God is that good. And if you're suffering right now and your story is more like the recipe of things that were tainted or stolen or harmed, where too many dashes of something bad were added in, or maybe someone dropped your pie on the floor and it crumbled, so to speak, God is a God who restores.