Changing the Way We Talk to Ourselves

I’m sharing chips and salsa with a friend on a summer evening. Outside the sky is clear blue, but clouds hang over our conversation. She’s in a difficult season, trying to navigate challenges she’s never faced before.

“I’m a failure,” she says. With these words, I watch her hunch over as if she’s curling into a protective ball. She crosses her arms over her chest, a defensive move. She won’t make eye contact with me anymore. Everything her about her body language communicates, I don’t feel safe.

I see no threats in the taco shop. No tigers hiding out behind the stacks of tortillas. No masked men waiting to steal our salsa. My queso is certainly not a source of intimidation. What is happening?

Sitting across from my friend reminded me of one of the biggest aha moments on my own healing journey: The way we talk to and about ourselves can make us feel unsafe.

Dr. Bernard Golden says, “Self-criticism itself is a threat to our emotional and physical well- being…. And just as the brain developed in the context of a relationship with others, the relationship we have with ourselves also has the potential to put us in a state of threat. Self- criticism and the anger associated with it can very much lead us to experience the same ‘fight-flight-freeze’ response we might experience in response to an external threat.”

My friend’s comment of “I’m a failure” triggered a fear response in her just as those words would have coming from someone else. Sometimes the most unsafe place in our lives is our own minds.

I thought of this on a recent evening when I attended a gathering for local artists and writers who create based on Scripture. One passage for the evening came from Acts 10, when God gives Peter a vision of a sheet coming down from heaven with different animals in it that Peter would have seen as unclean.

But God says, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean” (Acts 10:15 NIV). This vision is a precursor to Peter going to the house of a Gentile named Cornelius. When Peter arrives, he says, “God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean” (Acts 10:28 NLT).

As I heard this passage, it seemed God whispered to my heart…
Do not call yourself impure if God has made you clean.

I began to think of all the things we call ourselves, and what God would say He has made us instead.

Do not call yourself a sinner if God has made you forgiven and holy.
Do not call yourself unwanted if God has made you chosen and treasured.
Do not call yourself unworthy if God has made you an honored daughter or son.
Do not call yourself “not good enough” if God has made you in His image.
Do not call yourself unloved if God has made you His beloved.

Our inner critic may have harsh words for us, but the voice of our loving God will always bring us back to our true identity and feeling safe with Him.

I look at my friend who has just said she’s a failure, her shoulders still hunched, her face still downcast. “You’re not a failure,” I tell her, “You’re loved. You’re doing hard things. You’re going to be okay.” She lifts her head and smiles, reaches for the basket in front of us. “Chips and salsa help,” she says. I certainly agree.

My hope for the two of us, and you, is that when we are in the car on the drive home, when we wake up and stare at the ceiling in the night, when we do mess up, that we will be able to say words to ourselves and each other that remind us of our belovedness.

Let’s take a gentle, holy pause to practice this together:

What does God want to speak to your heart today, and what might He want to speak to someone else today through you?

Do not call yourself _____________ if God has made you _____________.