By Nancy Vrden (2024)

Just because someone said it does not make it true. Where did you learn the messages that undermine your value and worth? Have you bought into them and do you repeat them to yourself?

1. Question the messages that helped produce or support your negative core beliefs. Are the messages true?  Example: If you believe you never do anything right, look around and write down all you have accomplished in the last 24 hours. (You read this page, right? That is one.) No matter how small you think the accomplishment, it is evidence to the contrary of “never do anything right.”
2. Uncover and admit those negative core beliefs. Ask God the Father to show you what they are.
3. Look honestly for evidence of the actual truth. Don’t dismiss your positive thoughts about who you are!
4. Question the messengers. From well-intended loved ones to marketers to abusers, messages given to us as children and older can come from unreliable sources. Ask these potentially revealing questions about the sources of those messages: Do you know who they are? Are they mature and responsible?  Are they liars? Narcissistic? Are they suggestible and reactionary? Are they knowledgeable and wise? Are they emotionally and psychologically capable of realistic insight?
5. Consider: Could they be repeating their own unchallenged false, negative core beliefs? 
6. Look closely: What did they have to gain by sending you this negative message?

Messengers may be flawed, short-sighted, or evil. Be careful whose words you take to heart. God the Father has wonderful things to say about people. He swings open the door for anyone who would believe and follow Jesus, repenting of all wrongdoing, and trusting Jesus for forgiveness. God nurtures our relationship with him. How do I know these things? They are written in the Word of God, the Holy Bible.

You were created for a purpose. God custom-made you for that work. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). God handcrafted you just the way He wanted you to be. “For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Psalm 139:13-14).

What if those other messages were wrong?

That changes everything, doesn’t it?

-COMMENTS WELCOME

Today’s Helpful Word

2 Corinthians 5:16-18

So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!  This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

If you are feeling suicidal, or concerned about someone who is, in the U.S. call 988, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. For a list of international suicide hotlines, go here.

If you are suicidal with a plan, immediately call 911 in the U.S. or go to your nearest emergency room. In the EU call 112. (For other international emergency numbers, go here ). Hope and help are yours!

Always the Fight Ministries (ATFM) has been displaying compassion for those fighting mental illness, addiction, or abuse since 2012. Nancy is the founder and voice of ATFM and openly shares her emotional resurrection from despair. 

NOTE: Nancy is not a doctor or a mental health professional, and speaks only from personal experience and observations. This website is not intended to substitute for professional mental or behavioral health care.

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