This week, I am focusing upon reprogramming your thoughts/mind to help you break free from the “programming” you experienced as an abused child. I am adapting Beth Moore’s method from her study entitled Breaking Free so that those of you who are triggered by religion can also benefit.
The first step is to recognize that you have been buying into lies. Here are three lies that I shared in my last blog entry that plagued me throughout most my life:
- “I am fundamentally unlovable.”
- “I cannot trust anyone.”
- “I am not safe.”
The truth is that nobody is fundamentally unlovable (except perhaps a psychopath, but I doubt I have many psychopaths reading my blog for help!). You can trust other people in degrees. Finally, as long as you removed yourself from your abusive environment, you are safe now. However, if you continue to believe these lies, you will continue to act and react as if you are fundamentally unlovable, cannot trust anyone, and are not safe, which can feel like living in a prison. You don’t have to continue living this way, and you can reprogram your mind to align it with the truth.
Until you recognize that you are buying into lies, you will never be free. You need to recognize the lies for what they are. Until you do, you will continue to fuel your internal fortress and give energy or “power” to those lies.
Your thoughts are what fuel your internal prisons and keep them standing strong. Each time you think, “I deserve to be treated badly,” or, “I am so stupid,” you are slapping another layer of mortar onto the bricks of your internal prison. Choosing to challenge those thoughts is the first step toward freedom, which is exactly what a good therapist should be doing. Whenever I would say, “I am so ____,” my therapist would challenge that statement. He helped me see how I was hurting myself by thinking things that simply were not true.
Tomorrow, I will talk about challenging the lies.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Blooming Lotus 