Feed Your Mind to Increase Confidence

My series, Confident in God's Hands, is designed to help readers increase their self-esteem. So many of us who have experienced abuse or trauma suffer from a complete lack of confidence. Today, I'd like to address the importance of feeding our minds.

Is your mind fully functional?
Have you ever been awakened by the phone ringing in the middle of the night? You slowly come to a state of semi-consciousness and punch the button on your alarm. The ringing continues. You realize that it's the phone, not the alarm, and you fumble around in the dark to pick it up. You manage in a gravelly voice, "He..ll...o," followed by a deep sigh.

If we find ourselves slogging through our days with this feeling of still being half-asleep, it's time to wake up our minds. Here are some tips for feeding our brains to boost self-esteem:

Get plenty of rest.
No one can think straight without sleep. Many people believe they can get by with 6 hours, but researchers have found that most of us need 7 to 9 hours every night. Going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time each day improves our mental alertness.

Eat nutritious foods.
Limit sugar and starches, which make us feel foggy. A diet high in protein and heavy on vegetables provides us with a clearer head and less fatigue throughout the day. A high-protein, low-carb breakfast gives us the mental boost and the confidence we need to start our day off right.

Get adequate exercise.
If we've been couch potatoes for years, we should start out with 10 minutes of stretching, yoga, or gentle walking. Even this minimal amount of movement increases blood flow to the brain. We can work up to 30-60 minutes of exercise daily to keep our minds sharp and our confidence levels high.

Turn off the TV.
As a teacher, I could tell which of my students spent an inordinate amount of time in front of their TV sets. They were slow to respond to questions, couldn't think creatively, and suffered from low self-esteem.

Television viewing is a passive form of mental work, meaning that we simply take in information without having to put in much thought. It dulls our minds so that we lose confidence in our abilities when we turn off the set and try to interact with others.

Pick up a good book.
Unlike TV viewing, reading forces us to use our minds in many creative ways. As we scan the words on the page, our minds form pictures in our heads of how the characters look, what the setting is like, and what all of the thousands of details must be. Reading is a great confidence booster, because it increases our vocabulary, teaches us about new places, and provides opportunities to learn about other people.

Skip the tabloid newspapers and magazines.
Reading the gossipy junk in tabloid newspapers and magazines is, in my opinion, a complete waste of mental power. They are written at a sixth-grade reading level and report all kinds of depressing news. If I look at them, I feel awful afterward. I realize that I've wasted a reading opportunity, and thinking about all those divorces, drug overdoses, and relationship issues drains my confidence. Who could possibly feel refreshed or more confident after reading about so much gloom and doom?

If you want to know what's going on in the world, pick up The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. If you don't have access to them, subscribe online. The National Geographic magazine is full of interesting articles and photographs that will expand your horizons and increase your confidence. Learning about unusual animals and people from other cultures gives us something to talk about when we meet others. And being able to interact with some degree of intelligence boosts our confidence.

Read the Bible.
The Bible is God's living, breathing Word, which brings us refreshment, enlightenment, encouragement, love, and hope each time we pick it up. If we are facing hardships, the Holy Spirit leads us to messages about God's ability to provide for us. When we've reached a success point, the Word gives us plenty of opportunities to praise God for it. If we read the Bible daily, we discover that our confidence increases. There is no problem that is too big for God to handle. We can go out into the world with our heads held high, knowing that the Almighty Creator of the Universe is walking ahead of us.

Romans 12:2a (NIV) tells us about the importance of focusing on God, and not on the tragedies that we find on the TV set or in junk newspapers. It reads, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Our minds can be renewed each time we open the Bible. And with the renewal of our minds, confidence grows.

Today's Challenge
Choose two things from the tips above to feed your mind. For the next week, write down how those two changes are improving your confidence.

Develop Patient Endurance

This week, we are learning about patience in my series, Thriving in God's Garden. Today, I would like to discuss how we can develop patience endurance when people challenge our beliefs.

We can expect challenges.
Some people believe that when they become Christians, God will take away all of their hardships. This is not true, and in fact, God may allow us to endure even greater challenges to help us grow in our faith.

Second Corinthians 1:6 (NIV) reads, This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus. What calls for patient endurance? The persecution that we will inevitably face as a result of our belief in God.

We don't have to live in a country where Christianity is forbidden to experience persecution. All we have to do is put our faith into action here in the United States to find ourselves on the receiving end of judgment from our family members, co-workers, and neighbors.

Take a stand on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and other controversial topics; and I can guarantee that someone will call you narrow-minded, ridiculously conservative, or politically incorrect.

How do we develop patient endurance?
All we have to do is look back at the Bible passage above for the answer to this question. Patient endurance develops when we keep God's commands and remain faithful to Jesus.

So if someone asks us to take a stand on a politically-charged question, we simply look into God's Word to see how we should respond. We make up our minds to do what Jesus would in a similar situation. Then, we stick to our guns, even if it makes us unpopular.

We took a stand.
The Bible tells us, We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. (2 Corinthians 6:3 NIV) This passage means that if we live an exemplary life, no one can discredit our faith or our God. This takes tremendous patience and endurance.

To illustrate this concept, Joe and I made a decision when we went into the ministry that we would not drink alcohol. We didn't ever want someone to see us in a restaurant having a glass of wine and judging us. At the same time, we didn't want to drink and encourage others to do the same who might have a problem with excessive alcohol consumption.

This decision has not always made us very popular with family members or friends. At times, it has been downright awkward. But while we were patiently enduring the few snide remarks we have received, we gained far more supportive words of encouragement from people who were like-minded.

So, take a stand on what you believe in. Then patiently endure whatever trials result. Even when it's tough to stick it out, hang in there. The blessings are well worth any temporary trials that we might endure.

Today's Challenge
Have you taken a stand on an issue that has made you unpopular? As abuse survivors, this can be really difficult, because we are frequently meek people pleasers who will do anything to keep the peace. With the help of God's Word, take a stand on something today. Then develop patient endurance by following God's commands and keeping your eyes on Jesus.

Are You a Peacekeeper or a Peacemaker?

We conclude this week's thoughts about peace with a question about whether we are peacekeepers or peacemakers. This marks week three in my nine-week series titled, Thriving in God's Garden.

Are you a peacekeeper or a peacemaker?
When I pose this question to people, they must stop and think what it means to be a peacekeeper versus a peacemaker. In my mind, a peacekeeper is a person who hates conflict and will do anything to avoid it. A peacemaker, on the other hand, is a person who is not afraid of conflict and is willing to butt heads with others to create positive change.

Most victims of childhood sexual abuse or domestic violence fall into the category of peacekeepers. They walk on eggshells or make themselves as close to invisible as they can in order to avoid further abuse.

I used to be a peacekeeper.
When I was younger, I was a peacekeeper. During my first marriage, I did everything in my power to make sure that I didn't anger my husband. If he insisted on his dinner being scalding hot at 5:15, I made sure it was on the table the instant he walked through the door. When he said that he never wanted to see any evidence that children lived in the house, I made sure that all of the toys and the kids were tucked away in the bedrooms before he came home.

As you can imagine, this did not create for a peaceful existence for me or for my children. As the kids grew older, they became expert peacekeepers, too. All of them headed straight for their bedrooms the minute they got off the school bus. Dinner was eaten in silence, and the kids disappeared again the instant they finished eating.

Today, I am a peacemaker.
My first glimpse of how different life could be if I gave up peacekeeping came about two weeks after I left my first husband. I was preparing dinner for the kids, and they all bounded into the eat-in area. While I was putting food on the table, I realized that they were all talking. It wasn't until they burst into peals of laughter for the first time in years that I saw clearly how much my peacekeeping efforts had been stifling their spirits.

I decided then that I would never walk on eggshells again, and I would teach my children to speak out against anything that they felt was immoral or unfair. Through many years of counseling, I learned how to role-play conversations with people who needed to be confronted. Eventually, I learned how to become a peacemaker. You can, too.

Peacemakers speak the truth in love and stand their ground.
Someone once told me that abusers are just like cut-out paper tigers on a stage, with dry ice creating a smoke screen around them. If you blow on them, they fall over, and the fake smoke disappears.

It wasn't easy, but I eventually learned that peacemakers speak the truth in love and stand their ground. Ephesians 4:25 (NIV) tells us, Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor. So, if someone does something wrong, the Bible tells us that we must tell them truthfully that what they did was wrong and that it hurt us.

Peacemaking initially results in greater conflict.
It is important to realize that peacemaking doesn't always create immediate peace between people. In fact, it may drive some people apart...which is sometimes better, anyway. When we speak the truth in love, we usually discover inner peace, even while we create external conflict with the people who have hurt us.

When we stand up for ourselves, we must accept that it is going to create conflict. But if we stick to our resolve that we will not allow others to abuse us, we soon learn that the bullies of this world move on to pick on weaker people. Yes, there will be conflict when we confront bullies, but eventually, they will take it with them when they leave us alone.

Stop lying to yourself and others.
Peacekeepers spend a lot of time lying about their feelings. They tell themselves that others haven't hurt them, even though they struggle with repressed anger and resentment. If internalized, anger and the words we would like to say can lead to very poor health and depression.

When abusive people hurt us, we may lie to them or to others about the abuse. We may cover up bruises, tell tales about how happy we are, or become perfectionists to cover up our pain. Whether our lies are verbal or something inherent in our actions, we must stop. If we truly want to live peaceful lives, we must speak out when things are amiss.

The fruit of the Spirit
This week, we've learned the importance of removing ourselves from conflicted relationships, trusting in God as our source of peace, leading simple and quiet lives to promote inner peace, and speaking the truth in love. Next week, we will look at ways to develop patience. Remember that this series is based on the fruit of the Spirit, as found in Galatians 5:22. Have you memorized it yet?

Today's Challenge
Take some time today to consider whether you are a peacekeeper or a peacemaker. If you are prone to peacekeeping, find someone to help you learn how to stand up for yourself. Practice ways of speaking the truth in love when people hurt you.