Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one approach to helping people change. The premise behind the process is that whatever you believe will lead you to behave accordingly.
If you believe yourself to be ugly, you will act ugly. If you believe yourself to be fat, you will diet and starve yourself to death. If you believe yourself unlovable, you will do unloving things. We tend to unconsciously manifest what we believe to be true. Even if it's a lie.
I loved the movie The Greatest Showman with Hugh Jackman. There is a song in the movie called This is me. It is the turning point where those who have been called "freaks" take possession of the truth and speak it in song and dance. The "Bearded Woman" (Keala Settle) takes possession of the truth when she defiantly says, "I am...,"
When the sharpest words wanna cut me down I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out I am brave, I am bruised I am who I'm meant to be, this is me Look out 'cause here I come And I'm marching on to the beat I drum I'm not scared to be seen I make no apologies, this is me
When we are raised in a family where love is defined as abuse we can carry that understanding into out adulthood and continue the abusive patterns with our own children. Only when we are shown a different way to love do we realize our actions. When the lie has been revealed and the truth is known then true change can begin. I love how the Bible explains this concept so well in the writing of the Apostle John who was not talking to children, but adults who were learning a new truth.
"Little children, let us not love in word or talk
but in deed and in truth."
1 John 3:18
Don't continue to live a lie about yourself. Let go of the lies of the past and seek to learn the truth. Then when you find it, live it through your actions. When you begin to match your behaviors with your new truths your life will change for the better.
Day 1 of 365: Truth