Failure Does Not Define Me
Failing (an event) does not equal Failure (identity).
Hello, I’m Failure. I fail – a lot. That makes me a terrible person who doesn’t deserve happiness or love. I deserve bad things to happen to me because I am bad. Sound familiar? It hurts to read, doesn’t it? It hurts to say it to yourself, too. Day after day, night after night, hour by hour, minute by minute, you say things to yourself that are mean and cruel, cutting and painful. Are you exhausted? Are you worn down? Weary? Do you turn to food, alcohol, or drugs to comfort yourself? It’s understandable if you answered yes. “You’re not looking for comfort from your life. You’re looking for comfort from yourself.”, Corinne Crabtree.
We’re going to fail, we’re going to mess up. We’re going to stumble. Sometimes you’re going to be tired, mad, and/or stressed and say or do or eat or drink something you shouldn’t. How do you recover from that? It’s how you work through that moment that matters. If you wallow in it and give up, is that going to help you to grow, to make changes to yourself or thinking? Probably not. What has beating yourself up ever accomplished? It has kept you in the same rut for too long.
If you can objectively, logically, look at the situation, see what when wrong, learn from it, make amends, and move on, that’s how we keep learning and growing. If the situation arises again, you’ll know how to navigate it in a different manner. You’ll have learned from the past mistake not to do that again. That’s pretty powerful.
How To Interrupt the Negative Self-Talk
When that negative self-talk creeps up, what do you do? 1. You can agree. “Yes, I am a failure, a terrible excuse for a human being.” 2. You can tell that negative self-talk to shut up, ignore it, and hope it will go away. There’s also a third option. 3. Ask yourself “why am I thinking that?” Explore what’s behind the thought and work through it using the 5 why’s.
Mine: Why do I keep seeing myself as a failure?
Because I can’t lose any dang weight.
Why can’t I lose weight?
Because I don’t have time to meal plan and exercise.
Why not?
KIDS!!!!
Can I carve out time to meal plan and exercise?
Yes.
So it’s about time management, not failing.
*Brain explodes. Fireworks burst from the heavens. Guy yelling gooooooooooaaallllllll shows up in the front yard…*
That was my personal epiphany. That was when I quit identifying as Failure. I got my true name back.
What’s yours? What label do you need to stop and question? Why do I think of myself as _____? Eventually, you’ll get to the point where your answers will give you insight into where that thought came from. You will be able to unwrap the emotions behind the thought. A large piece of emotional baggage can be kicked to the curb, left on the turnstile, given to Goodwill, wherever you want to put it but you ain’t carrying it around anymore! Bam!
The more you engage in asking yourself why?”, it helps take your brain off autopilot. It shuts down you automatically agreeing with the negative thought. This is really important to retrain your brain into thinking differently. There’s a new sheriff in town and it’s you not your brain.
Current Thoughts vs. Could Be Thinking
Corinne Crabtree outlined in her podcasts that I wrote down as “Journaling to Change Your Thoughts” (but when I went to look for it, I couldn’t find it, so if you do, let me know) “current thoughts” and “Could be thinking” to help get you out of the rut of old, habit thinking.
The example I wrote down was a current thought I was working through:
Current thought: Am I eating right? Am I doing this right? What if I fail – again?
Could be thinking: I am doing my best right now.
I am figuring this out. I am learning more every day.
I am practicing new thinking, not striving for perfection.
It’s okay to make mistakes. I’m not beating myself up over them anymore.
Mistakes are ways of telling you what to work on with your eating and thinking. They help you get better at this process. That’s all!
Change Your Thinking
Feels like a breath of fresh air doesn’t it? Feels like love and acceptance on a soft fluffy cloud you could just float away on. Could be thinking. We have a choice on what we think. 2 Cor. 10:5
Fear of failing, identifying as Failure…my poor brain was trying to protect me from myself. I was totally on autopilot and just stopped fighting. Somehow, along the way, I agreed with the negative thoughts. I stopped asking “why am I thinking this?” or “where did that thought come from?!” If someone had said that to my face, Lord help them because they would get a very dirty look and a very strong scolding that would leave them in a puddle on the floor, but for some reason when I heard it internally, I just went with it.
My brain learned that, in the past, whenever I made a mistake I would “throat punch myself” and beat the crap out of myself. I was afraid of failing because I wasn’t a safe place to do so! Any mess up, any mistake, and I would tear into myself. That would only reinforce what I already thought of myself: I am Failure. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle, a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was time to stand up for myself, even if it’s against my own thoughts. You’ve got to listen for those thoughts, take them captive, and do the work to figure out the root of the thought and then work to change it. It takes practice, patience, kindness, and love. And it is work but it’s gooooood work. It’s the kind of work that frees you from the weight of a million mean moments that cut like the death of a thousand papercuts. Soothe your soul with kindness, love, acceptance, forgiveness, grace…
If the thought is not something a kind, loving, honest, person would say, it’s time to change that thought. “Well, but it’s true. I am a ____.” If the truth isn’t spoken in love, if it’s spoken to wound and not to correct, is it going to be received? No. If you wouldn’t want someone to say it out loud to you, don’t say it, even quietly, to yourself anymore.
I hope you will create an environment that is safe to make mistakes. Speak kindly to yourself. You are loved. You are worthy of love and kindness and all the beautiful things God wants to share with you.
Take time to journal your current thoughts. Why do you think that thought? How could you be thinking instead? I hope you’ll share what you came up with.
I believe in you. I know you can do it because I have been doing it too. I’m not perfect and that’s not the goal. I mess up and sliiiiide into old habits and that’s normal. It happens. The difference is, now I have the tools to stop the cycle.
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5 (emphasis added)