Pay Attention to Your Self-Talk

Honestly, I sometimes feel like managing my self-talk is a fulltime job. Unless I keep constant vigil, I catch myself speaking untruths that lead to wasted time worrying or building a wall of self-defense. Why go there? My attitudes, perspectives, and even my relationships are so much healthier when I catch the lies and replace them with truth.

Does this sound familiar?

If so, then I pray that today’s post will encourage and inspire you. It’s an excerpt from Finding Hope in Crisis: Devotions for Calm in Chaos available at Barnes and Noble and anywhere Christian books are sold.

Self-Talk

Keep me from lying to myself; give me the privilege of knowing your instructions.

Psalm 119:29 (NLT)

Pause

Have you ever listened to the self-talk that runs through your mind? Losing my mobility for several months while living in a three-storey townhouse meant having to hoist myself backwards up fifteen stairs to my bedroom every night. One night I caught myself saying, “I can’t do this anymore.” That became a defining moment for me.

I’d spoken a lie over myself. If I believed those words, I would lose hope. I’d quit trying to regain my health, and I’d suffer the consequences physically, emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually. From that moment forward, I chose to be more intentional about my self-talk, choosing words that reflected God’s heart for me.

I encourage you to do the same. Become attentive to the words you speak to yourself in your thoughts. Measure them against God’s truth. If you catch yourself saying, “I can’t do this anymore,” readily acknowledge this as a lie. Then speak the truth: “I can do this in God’s strength.”

Ponder

Describe your usual self-talk. Do you unintentionally speak lies, or do you speak truth?

Pray

Father, make me aware of the words I speak in my thoughts and align them with your truth.

“Thoughts are real, physical things that occupy mental real estate. Moment by moment, every day, you are changing the structure of your brain through your thinking. When we hope, it is an activity of the mind that changes the structure of our brain in a positive and normal direction.”

 –Dr. Caroline Leaf, Switch On Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health  

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