I’ve spent enough days on this spinning planet, listened to enough stories, cares, and heartache, and fought them myself too many times to count. I’ve found they attack old and young alike. I know them to be sneaky and the meanest kind of mean. I’ve come to believe no one is exempt, no one never fights them, and no one hasn’t been blindsided and brutally waylaid by them. I also believe these manic voices of fear, failure, and futility employ the powerful weapon of isolation. They mock us and TELL us we ARE the only ones. I call them out today. These voices? They lie. They do not know how to tell the truth. It’s not in them.
I’ve also found five ways to fight back and set my footing on a groundedness again when they sneak in.
Here they are, dear friends!
- Cry.
{perhaps it sounds silly, but our bodies and emotions benefit and free us, from pent-up cares, woes, and anguish, by weeping tears} - Journal.
{the act of writing out our burdens dispels the power they hold over us and the tactile act of pen to paper proves therapeutic} - Give Gratitude for All the Good.
{in gratefulness and thankfulness and by naming the postives in our narratives, hope springs forth} - Look Outward.
{do something for someone else. Simple or extravagant. Kindness recalibrates} - Look Backward.
{remember good days, good times, and good memories. Flip through old photos, read past journal entries or scroll blog posts in your archives}
Lace them together with prayer and praise music and you do have a powerful package of an antidote.
It’s been a slow process of learning and discovering these five tactics. It still is.
I recognize them. I believe in them. I know them in my head.
Yet, some difficult days, it’s like an army crawl through sticky, stinky, scummy mud towards action. {And let’s imagine an army crawl for a decidedly unathletic type person. That’s how difficult. Knowing and doing do not easily run parallel, if you weren’t aware. }
Some days I’d rather stay stuck in the muck of self-pity and poor-me-living.
On occasion, it compares to the fussing and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, on the order of a weeping toddler, proclaiming, “Buuuuut I’m NOT tired….”
Seldom does it wear an easy-breezy grin and soft tones airily proclaiming, “Oh, yes! My list of five. Let me calmly carry them out in all my maturity and put-togetherness.”
It comes in brokenness and angst. A deep-seated need. A gasping for the very next breath.
A soul ache and heartache. When hope seems invisible and inadequacy is haunting.
When we fear we are the only ones taunted and mocked by deficiencies and we begin to believe this is the sum truth of who we are.
This is when it becomes most important to dig in our heels. We may have to fight our way through the melee simply to reach the point that begins the combat to reclaiming these five focuses.
God’s got us in this. Jesus is our strength. We are warriors in Him and through prayer.
Jesus calls us back to a place where the real Voice of Truth sings His love over us.
The mountains may still loom around, yet gratitude breaths and recounting where we’ve been re-enforces the power of He who walks through the valley of the shadow of death with us.
Jesus equips us completely.
These practices have proven staying points for me.
I’d love to hear what grounds you and shouts defeat over the loud voices of untruth in your life?!
Nehemiah 4:13-16 ~ “Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows. After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.”When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to our own work.From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor.”
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