I have stated before that thoughts create emotion. Emotions are
energy in motion. Without this energy, we wouldn't move, we wouldn't act
or take action. We would be lifeless. Emotions are required to help
propel us into action and they are either positive or negative. When
that energy is negative (stemming from negative thoughts), we find
ourselves not knowing what to do with it. Sure we know what to do with
positive energy or emotions. When we feel love we express it, we want to
share it. When we feel joy we express that as well. We don't bottle up
joy and love. But when we feel a negative emotion like anger we tend to
bottle it up inside, we don't know how to express it. Those who bottle
up anger either fear expressing anger in a destructive way or have been
conditioned to believe that anger is wrong. As you allow this emotion to
stay bottled up, it becomes stagnant and turns into other things like
animosity, resentment, and bitterness if we don't eventually release it.
So the way to eliminate negative emotions is to eliminate negative
thoughts because thoughts create emotions. What you think about produces
your feelings about certain things or yourself. When you think
negatively about yourself, you will feel negative about yourself which will keep you stuck in life.
Some days you can have all the confidence in the world but other days you struggle with flaws and insecurities. I love the way God uses people who are not exactly qualified. As someone who was raised in a religious environment of do's and don'ts, I use to have somewhat of a problem with seeing people who I thought didn't "fit the bill" enjoy being rich, enjoying prosperity, and doing things that I felt that only the "qualified" was supposed to be able to do. This belief originated not only from a spirit of religion, but also the surroundings that I was raised in. Where I come from you had to have sometimes not just one degree but a Master's or Phd or 2 degrees and some type of certification lol (exaggeration, somewhat..) to go along with it in order to even be considered for a job. This is a great thing to have but what about those who don't have that? You end up feeling unqualified, unworthy, and inferior to everyone else who does.
For many years I would hear messages preached about Moses and other prophets in the bible who God called and chose to lead the people or to be a messenger. And how these particular individuals had flaws, weaknesses, fears and insecurities which caused them to feel that they were not qualified for the job and just not good enough. God asked Moses "What is that in your hand?" (Exodus 4:2) My mother would tell for years after pursuing this degree and that degree that I already had enough skills, qualifications, and talents to do whatever it was that I wanted to do. But for some reason I always got tripped up in this area and it caused me for many years to be stuck. Insecurities will keep you from going after those things in your life that you ARE qualified for. Some things don't have to be certified on paper, God has already written it in your blueprint and given the seal of approval. You are already designed for greatness!
There were a couple of situations where I experienced getting passed over for a job promotion to someone who I knew wasn't as qualified as I was and I even witnessed my husband getting passed over for a job promotion as well. And it wasn't until I moved to a new city ten years ago, with a different culture and different way of doing things (different mindset) that I began to experience a little bit of freedom from that perfectionism syndrome. I noticed that there were a lot of jobs where you only needed a high school diploma. I also experienced being under supervisors who did not have any type of degree. This is when I began to stop focusing on what I didn't have, and started focusing on what I did have. These two life experiences taught me how to use what I already have and work it to my advantage. It helped me to refocus the lens of my mind.
It's very difficult at times for us as human beings to look at what we already have; the gifts, talents, and skills that God has already given us. We have a tendency to naturally look at what is wrong, and have to force ourselves to look at what is right and good. We naturally look at the things that we don't have that we desire in life, and most of the time fail to consider the blessing that have already been bestowed upon us. Problems so easily get magnified in our mind. I guess it's because we are automatically prone to operate in survival mode, and when a problem arises, instinctively that's what we focus on the most. My grandmother use to sing a song in church all the time when I was growing up "Count your blessings, name them one by one". This song was a good way to get people who attended the church service to leave their problems behind them and focus on the good things in their life. To mentally usher them (as an usher would lead you to your seat) into the presence of God and forget about the cares of this life.
We use to have a saying back in the day "Work it!" That saying basically meant take what you've got and use it! The essence of finding true confidence in yourself is not necessarily eliminating all fear, getting rid of your flaws, or perfecting oneself, it's the ability to refocus. To minimize the negative and maximize the positive. That's the real secret to staying in a place of confidence that allows you to move forward. This is the essence of feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Courage is the opposite of fear, just as negative is the opposite of positive. The one that you decide to focus on is what determines your ability to move forward. When we focus so much on ourselves, our insecurities, our weaknesses, our flaws, it overshadows the good stuff. It literally places those positives into a place where you can't see them. Whatever you focus on overshadows or casts a shadow on those things surrounding it. When you focus on the positive, the negatives are out of your mind's sight. It's not that they don't exist, you can still have flaws, still have weaknesses, but it's when you don't focus on them that you move them out of the light and into the shadows. Light is an energy source, and either you are giving energy to the positives or you are giving energy to the negatives. It's kind of like this quote:
Subtracting negative not only applies to getting rid of baggage, it can also apply to faults about ourselves that we continually maximize, that keep us in a state of fear, in a state of procrastination, and in a state of immobility. Just keep us stuck! Stuck in neverland unable to move forward in life. How does subtracting a negative create a positive? In algebra, there's a scale that is displayed to demonstrate how negative and positive integers work.
Some days you can have all the confidence in the world but other days you struggle with flaws and insecurities. I love the way God uses people who are not exactly qualified. As someone who was raised in a religious environment of do's and don'ts, I use to have somewhat of a problem with seeing people who I thought didn't "fit the bill" enjoy being rich, enjoying prosperity, and doing things that I felt that only the "qualified" was supposed to be able to do. This belief originated not only from a spirit of religion, but also the surroundings that I was raised in. Where I come from you had to have sometimes not just one degree but a Master's or Phd or 2 degrees and some type of certification lol (exaggeration, somewhat..) to go along with it in order to even be considered for a job. This is a great thing to have but what about those who don't have that? You end up feeling unqualified, unworthy, and inferior to everyone else who does.
For many years I would hear messages preached about Moses and other prophets in the bible who God called and chose to lead the people or to be a messenger. And how these particular individuals had flaws, weaknesses, fears and insecurities which caused them to feel that they were not qualified for the job and just not good enough. God asked Moses "What is that in your hand?" (Exodus 4:2) My mother would tell for years after pursuing this degree and that degree that I already had enough skills, qualifications, and talents to do whatever it was that I wanted to do. But for some reason I always got tripped up in this area and it caused me for many years to be stuck. Insecurities will keep you from going after those things in your life that you ARE qualified for. Some things don't have to be certified on paper, God has already written it in your blueprint and given the seal of approval. You are already designed for greatness!
There were a couple of situations where I experienced getting passed over for a job promotion to someone who I knew wasn't as qualified as I was and I even witnessed my husband getting passed over for a job promotion as well. And it wasn't until I moved to a new city ten years ago, with a different culture and different way of doing things (different mindset) that I began to experience a little bit of freedom from that perfectionism syndrome. I noticed that there were a lot of jobs where you only needed a high school diploma. I also experienced being under supervisors who did not have any type of degree. This is when I began to stop focusing on what I didn't have, and started focusing on what I did have. These two life experiences taught me how to use what I already have and work it to my advantage. It helped me to refocus the lens of my mind.
It's very difficult at times for us as human beings to look at what we already have; the gifts, talents, and skills that God has already given us. We have a tendency to naturally look at what is wrong, and have to force ourselves to look at what is right and good. We naturally look at the things that we don't have that we desire in life, and most of the time fail to consider the blessing that have already been bestowed upon us. Problems so easily get magnified in our mind. I guess it's because we are automatically prone to operate in survival mode, and when a problem arises, instinctively that's what we focus on the most. My grandmother use to sing a song in church all the time when I was growing up "Count your blessings, name them one by one". This song was a good way to get people who attended the church service to leave their problems behind them and focus on the good things in their life. To mentally usher them (as an usher would lead you to your seat) into the presence of God and forget about the cares of this life.
We use to have a saying back in the day "Work it!" That saying basically meant take what you've got and use it! The essence of finding true confidence in yourself is not necessarily eliminating all fear, getting rid of your flaws, or perfecting oneself, it's the ability to refocus. To minimize the negative and maximize the positive. That's the real secret to staying in a place of confidence that allows you to move forward. This is the essence of feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Courage is the opposite of fear, just as negative is the opposite of positive. The one that you decide to focus on is what determines your ability to move forward. When we focus so much on ourselves, our insecurities, our weaknesses, our flaws, it overshadows the good stuff. It literally places those positives into a place where you can't see them. Whatever you focus on overshadows or casts a shadow on those things surrounding it. When you focus on the positive, the negatives are out of your mind's sight. It's not that they don't exist, you can still have flaws, still have weaknesses, but it's when you don't focus on them that you move them out of the light and into the shadows. Light is an energy source, and either you are giving energy to the positives or you are giving energy to the negatives. It's kind of like this quote:
Subtracting negative not only applies to getting rid of baggage, it can also apply to faults about ourselves that we continually maximize, that keep us in a state of fear, in a state of procrastination, and in a state of immobility. Just keep us stuck! Stuck in neverland unable to move forward in life. How does subtracting a negative create a positive? In algebra, there's a scale that is displayed to demonstrate how negative and positive integers work.
Think
of it like this. In looking at the number line imagine yourself zooming
in on the negative number to the left of the zero, zero being the
baseline or point of reference. The more you zoom in on the negative
number, the more you place the positive number in a shadow, you can't
see them, they don't stand out. Your lens only has the ability to focus
in on one area at a time. If you were to focus or zoom in on the
positive number you would minimize the negative numbers. Now try
subtracting in your mind the negative numbers one at time on the left
side of the number line. Mentally picture that as you subtract each
number, the right side (positives) start to come in a little closer to
view while the negative ones dissapear. It's almost as if they are
moving out of the shadows into the light. This is how it works with our
mental picture of ourselves. The mind is like a computer, it's always
processing information, and that which we focus on becomes magnified. So
why not practice magnifying the good stuff and minimizing the bad.
That's not to say that you should sweep your flaws under the rug and not
work on them. No, there's always room to grow. That's only to say that
you should work on strengthening them, but not make them so big that
they overshadow everything else. It's kind of like the way a a software
program, for example an antivirus program, works in the background. You
can still work on your computer while your antivirus quietly operates in
the background to get rid of the negative stuff. The program is being
minimized.
Do
you think about past failures too much? Do you have fearful thoughts
about the future? Whenever you find yourself focusing on your failures
and flaws recall God's question: "What is that in your hand?"
~Here's to Your Health!~
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