They are Your Thoughts…

I wanted to run something across your mind concerning your thoughts. I recognize that it isn’t easy to capture every thought that floats through your head, but I’m more concerned with the thoughts you think about yourself. What kind of thinking do you direct towards yourself? How do you view yourself? How you think about yourself literally leads to success or failure in your life. We all have free-will to think exactly whatever it is we want to think about. So, here comes the rub. If we are free to think whatever we want about ourselves, why would we direct negatives toward ourselves? Most people think the thoughts they think are benign in that they have no impact on their person and that thoughts come and go of their own volition. Thinking this way leads to a life of being shaped perpetually by outside forces, circumstances and environment. Unbeknownst to you, you are being led by the things you perceive and then making opinions, judgments and evaluations about yourself. But, what you are failing to see is that they are your thoughts.

You are the owner and the maker of your own thoughts. You are the one deciding, not someone or something else. You are choosing how you feel about yourself. When you view yourself in a negative light, you are working against your own best interests. You are making a choice to see yourself as something, good or bad. However, what you aren’t seeing clearly is that those thoughts, those judgments are being carefully crafted by something outside of you. You are being led to a negative conclusion. When you accept that conclusion as true, the result is a negative view of who you are. All people living in the world today are imperfect. When you focus on yourself, as we are oft encouraged to do, all you will end up with is observing your own imperfection leading faithfully to false conclusions and doubts about yourself. I often muse that if you could see inside other people’s minds, you would find them just as “weird” as yourself (smile). We are all wonderfully unique and as such need to embrace all that is good about ourselves. What is supremely right about you? Where do you shine and thrive? That is the place to direct your thoughts to. They are your thoughts.

It is crazy to think why we haven’t recognized this before. Why would we ever choose to view ourselves in a negative framework? When we think bad things about ourselves we are wounding our own selves. We are working against ourselves. We are accepting someone else’s or something else’s opinion about who we are. Our opinion of ourselves should always be good. Sure we blow it at times, sometimes often. But mistakes we make are just that, “mistakes.” We are imperfect creatures living in an imperfect world. Some things take us years to learn. But, we cannot learn and grow as long as we are beating ourselves up; biting our own flesh; wounding our own souls. You must be for yourself, not against yourself. If you are against yourself, your very own self, how can you expect to win at the game of life? You don’t even give yourself a fighting chance. Remember, you are the one choosing. You are the one drawing conclusions. You are the one judging yourself. Why not choose to think well of yourself? Why not give yourself a break concerning things and hold to your intrinsic goodness inside? Similarly, what things are you saying out loud about yourself? Sure a little self-deprecation is funny at times, but what are the default things you always say? Is it always about how you are not good at something? No one is good at everything and your job is to get better at things you want to get better at. But, you will never arrive at your destination because you have already sealed your fate by what you keep saying as true. You’re cleaving to faulty and erroneous conclusions. Let’s say you have gotten a little heavy and you don’t like it. Well, what are you saying about that image staring back from the mirror? Are you being kind to yourself with compassion or are you berating yourself and calling yourself names? Are you actually a slob or has the world’s “thin” campaign taken its toll on you? Point is, there is nothing external that defines who you are. Most folks are overly critical of themselves. They pick themselves apart competing against some standard they didn’t define. If it is true that what you focus on you become, then focusing on perceived faults and perceived blemishes and perceived flaws serves no purpose other than to make you decidedly less than who you actually are! (It makes you critical of others also.) You are the thought originator and owner. They are your thoughts. 

So, what can you do to remedy the situation? Simple, stop assigning negatives to yourself. Stop cooperating with evil and take a stand for yourself. You are the only you, you have got, flaws and all. Why not decide to change whatever it is you have been thinking about yourself? Can you not say to yourself, “I am a good man” or, “I am a good woman?” Who or what made you so bad? Where is your subject of focus? Your behaviors do not define you, you define you and you get to choose. Allowing past negative behaviors to define who you are leads to an endless duplication of those behaviors. You don’t break free from something by continuing in it. You break free by deciding and you are the decision maker. Choose to think well of yourself. Choose to love yourself (also a decision). How do you treat someone whom you love? Typically there is an extension of warmth and compassion. Even when someone you love makes an error, you don’t chastise them for it. If anything you endeavor to lead them to more worthy endeavors. You are willing to overlook. Are you willing to overlook the negative views you have of yourself? Can you not stop those thoughts from governing your life? Can you not decide today that you are worth more than that? Only loving yourself can lead to loving others. When you love yourself, not because you only do well, but in spite of what you do, you are making your best decision. You are competing for yourself. You have become “for” yourself and then nothing else gets to take that away from you. My friends, they are your thoughts. 

It only makes sense to do this today, right now. Give yourself a chance. Extend yourself some mercy. Think well of yourself. Your worth is not determined by the circumstances of your life. Your worth is determined by you and it would be foolish to think anything but the best about yourself. When the Bible says, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” – it includes you. Why would anyone actively oppose themselves? Even animals know instinctively to protect themselves. Are you protecting yourself? Are you protecting your one and only heart? This is your sole shot at life and you may as well decide to be someone you love instead of an eternal “fix-it” project. You may as well cleave to the positives and dismiss the negatives. You are not wrong for doing this, you are doing everything right. You are voting for you. You are choosing you. You are working for yourself and not opposing yourself. You are finally on the right side. Make the decision you are going to start loving yourself no matter what anyone else says or does. This is one of the best things you could ever do for your own life. This is the high road where God lives. So back to the original question. What do you think of yourself? How do you view yourself? This will always be your decision because they are your thoughts…

Just some good thoughts…