Self-Talk: Stop Beating Yourself Up

As a freshman in college, I was so hard on myself. I dealt with self-loathing for years and a strange, expectation that I needed to be perfect. At the time, I flipped open The Birth Order Book by Kevin Lehman and read, “Perfectionism is a slow version of suicide.” That opened my eyes to see that my attempts to be perfect, my over-the-top striving to be perfect, and my self-hatred when I couldn’t be perfect… it was a lethal combination. And the way I dragged myself during that season took out my health for decades. I knew I had to stop beating myself up, and stat!

The baseball bat.

During that time, I met with Pastor Kim who helped me have eyes to see just how hard I was on myself. He remarked, “Wow. The devil doesn’t even need to beat you up. He just gives you a baseball bat and you finish the job.” That was also eye-opening. That insight startled me because it was definitely a correct reflection of what I’d been doing to myself. Negative self-talk and self-hate speech.

 Even though I accepted Jesus’ forgiveness, I couldn’t seem to offer myself forgiveness. So I lived in an inner dialogue of condemnation and lived outside the grace I’d been freely offered by God.

Change of heart.

I realized I needed to repent of this. When we can’t forgive ourselves for our mistakes, we’re essentially communicating that Jesus’ blood is strong enough for everyone else but me. When we can’t receive His grace, we’re essentially saying we are held to a higher standard of perfection than all other believers and we’re the only one who grace doesn’t apply to. This was a sucker punch of a revelation for me because it showed me that the sneaky root of all that self-hatred was actually pride. Bleh! Pride! Thinking I could and should keep a higher standard. Truly, it’s religious pharisaical spirit because when we are so focused on how we fall short, and trying so hard to do better, we are barking up the wrong tree! That’s when we are eating from the law and works and knowledge of good and evil.

But if we receive, truly receive, the forgiveness of Jesus and the grace of God, then by the power of Holy Spirit, He makes us a new creation. And as such, suddenly we have access to the fruits of the Spirit. But you can’t operate in fruits of the Spirit when you are trying to live by the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Steps to Victory from Negative Self-Talk:

1. So we need to tell God we’re sorry for being so hard on ourselves, for thinking we are dumb or less than, or for thinking we are (fill in the blank here)____.

2. We need to receive His grace and believe it’s good enough, that His grace is sufficient, to cover our short falls and sin. There’s great freedom in that!

3. And we need to fight the battle in our thought life diligently. Every time I heard a negative thought about myself, I had to say out loud, “I rebuke you in Jesus’ name. I silence you and I command you to flee from me by the authority of Christ in me. I will only listen to what my Father in Heaven says about me.”

I’m pretty sure it took years of fighting these thoughts, but did it work? Yes! The Bible holds true! If you resist the devil, he will flee from you! Stand firm against the devil’s schemes long enough and he’ll go. “Wahhhh. She doesn’t even listen to me anymore.” We have to silence the voice of the enemy and silence any inner dialogue that doesn’t line up with what God says about us…

4. We have to align and agree with what is true.

In Christ, we are children of God. Holy. Blameless. Dearly loved.

Standing firm.

Taking thoughts and negative self-talk captive requires being attentive to what you hear in your mind, recognizing if it’s from God’s heart of mercy or the condemning voice of the enemy (or the baseball bat of your own self.) It also requires diligence to take every single thought that’s not from God and deal with it. Bind it up. Rebuke it. Send it away. Cancel it in Jesus’ name. Whatever you do, don’t ignore it and just let it sink into your heart. Then the enemy wins.

Every negative thought is like a mini-battle. Don’t give up a single battle and you will eventually conquer the war. In Jesus’ name, by the power of Holy Spirit, you can live your life in grace and life, instead of self-hate and condemnation.

Benediction.

May Holy Spirit empower you today to recognize the voice of the enemy, take authority over negative self-talk, and walk in the truth, grace and freedom available to you by Jesus’ finished work on the cross.