Develop Higher Self-Esteem

Yesterday, we learned that low self-esteem is frequently caused by childhood abuse, criticism, or brainwashing. If we were told that we're stupid, ugly, or bad often enough, we develop a false perception of ourselves. Today, we discover some simple steps to boost our self-esteem so that we can more easily forgive.

Consider the true origins of low self-esteem.
Most researchers of low self-esteem go back to classic psychology, claiming that a lack of nurturing at early stages hinders our sense of self. If we understand that our parents, teachers, siblings, and childhood friends failed to provide what we needed to become confident people, we must fill in the gaps now.

If there's a voice in your head telling you that you're fat, take time to listen. Is it your own voice speaking the truth, or is it your mother's or your friend's criticism that you're hearing? If the voice is telling you lies, tell it to be quiet, and start telling yourself more positive things with love.

Take care of your appearance.
When we allow our appearance to slip, we give a foothold to lower self-esteem. So take time today to get a haircut, buy a new outfit, put on make-up, or have a complete make-over. When we look sharp, we feel sharp.

Learn to accept compliments.
Most of us with low self-esteem dwell on the criticisms that we receive, instead of basking in the light of compliments. Instead of discounting the next compliment you receive, smile at the giver and thank them. Then take delight in knowing that you did something well.

Stop being a perfectionist.
There is a myth that people with low self-esteem believe: if our efforts are not 100% perfect, they're a complete failure. Harsh criticism in childhood or marriage can lead to this unhealthy way of looking at our lives.

We can give ourselves a break from perfectionism by looking at our undertakings and giving ourselves a less than perfect score. Honestly assess today a project you have finished, a meal you have prepared, or a conversation you have had with someone. Would you rate it 50%, 75% or 80% successful? Nothing we do is ever 100%, because Jesus is the only human who was ever perfect.

The Hopi Indians actually wove a mistake into their blankets on purpose. Doing so reminded them that there is only One who is perfect and kept them humble about their own enterprises.

Find a bigger purpose.
When we take the focus off of ourselves and the myth that we must be perfect, we can find something to do that serves others. When we embrace a challenge, and experience success at it, our self-esteem soars.

I began leading a quilting ministry at our church two years ago. No one, including me, knew how to make quilts; but we were willing to work at learning. About 20 people got together and were able to finish nearly two dozen quilts in one day! All of the quilts were given to the local hospital to comfort terminally ill patients.

Since that time, participants in this ministry report that they enjoy much higher self-esteem than they did when we first started. With each new challenge, they experience greater success. As a result, they feel good about themselves and are willing to take on ever more challenging projects.

Start writing positive affirmations about your successes.
Yesterday, we learned that generalized positive affirmations can actually make our self-esteem worse. These statements (I am pretty, I am smart, I am good) don't work, because our brain tells us that they're lies.

Positive affirmations can work if we write them after we have achieved success. For example, if the quilters in my group wrote before they learned any skills, "I am a skillful quilter," the voices in their heads would have been saying, "No, you're not!" Their brains could not accept the statement, because it was not true.

However, after the quilters did acquire some skills, they could write, "I can cut fabric strips accurately," and the voices in their heads would agree. Reading positive affirmations about what we already do with ease causes our self-esteem to rise.

Quit magnifying things that go wrong.
When we make a mistake, we must be careful that we don't globalize it to a larger area of our lives. For example, if one of the quilters sewed a piece of fabric wrong side up, a globalized thought would be, "I ruined this quilt, therefore, I'm a worthless volunteer."

A healthier perspective on this type of mistake would lead to a statement such as, "I sewed one piece of fabric the wrong way. I can rip out the seam and fix it. My volunteer efforts are appreciated."

Develop an alternative opinion of yourself.
It's pretty clear to me that the best way to increase self-esteem is to find ways to create personally meaningful experiences. For each person, this may be something unique. One may find success in volunteering, gardening, painting, or many other undertakings.

Out of our successes, we can take greater pride in ourselves. Each time we do something of which we are proud, we can enjoy increased self-confidence. And this greater confidence gives us the courage to try ever greater challenges. As this cycle continues, our self-esteem grows.

God's Word provides the secret to higher self-esteem.
The next time someone asks you to do something, and you feel ill-equipped to perform the task, remember this line from the Bible: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13)

When you feel your confidence slipping, turn to God's Word. There are many encouraging verses like this one which indicate that we can overcome low self-esteem by rising up to meet new challenges. By acting on faith (not really knowing the outcome), we allow God to equip us and bring about successes that foster greater confidence.

Today's Challenge
Look in the mirror and make an honest assessment of your appearace. Do you need a haircut? Could you stand to lose some weight? Are your clothes outdated? Choose one thing that you can change today, and take that first step toward improving your appearance so that your self-esteem has a chance to grow.

Causes and Characteristics of Low Self-Esteem

We've identified the first three roadblocks to forgiveness as anger, fear, and mistrust. Today, we will address the fourth obstacle to forgiving: low self-esteem.

Do you suffer from low self-esteem?
Take a look at the following list of behaviors that are characteristic of people with low self-esteem. Do you recognize any of them in yourself?

*social withdrawal
*anxiety
*lack of confidence
*depression
*eating disorders
*inability to accept compliments
*inability to accurately see our own attributes
*accentuating the negative
*imagining that others think little of us
*self-neglect
*worrying about treating others unfairly
*reluctance to take on challenges
*inability to set goals
*hesitant to trust our own opinion

How did we get such low self-esteem?
If these problems sound familiar to you, you are not alone. Most survivors of childhood sexual abuse have extremely low self-esteem. We were brainwashed through abuse and criticism into believing that we were dirty, worthless, or bad.

Low self-esteem feels awful.
All people ought to feel a sense of shame and remorse when they misbehave. The Holy Spirit convicts them of their errors, and their guilt brings them back into alignment with God. When God forgives them, their shame and remorse should subside.

For survivors of abuse, the conscience is in over-drive. We feel shame, guilt, and self-reproach all the time. These feelings are not related to something wrong that we have done.

Abuse causes PTSD, a precursor to low self-esteem.
Many of us suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which causes us to have a sense that we are damaged. PTSD is characterized by many symptoms, including: depression, anxiety, heightened startle responses, hypervigilance, and low self-esteem.

Severe PTSD can cause such low self-esteem that we cannot receive love.
Being kind to survivors of severe abuse can have the opposite of the intended effect. Love can drive them away.

We adopted eight-year-old twin girls from Ethiopia. Because they had experienced multiple traumas and abuse at an early age, they were incapable of accepting love. The more we tried to love them, the harder they tried to get away. Suicide attempts became their only hope, because our love felt to them as if we were holding their heads underwater. Letting go and placing them in a group home became the best way to express our love to them.

Positive affirmations will never erase low self-esteem.
For years, educators believed that positive affirmations would cause a person's low self-esteem to rise. School administrators supported programs to increase self-esteem, which they believed would stop kids from bullying and committing crimes.

Interestingly, recent research shows that using generalized positive affirmations (I am a good person, I am smart, I am pretty, etc) can actually worsen low self-esteem. The words ring hollow to us, and our brains step up the negative statements to counteract the positive ones.

Research has also proven that those who suffer from low self-esteem rarely become bullies or hurt others. We hurt ourselves.

God loves us.
Low self-esteem really stems from a lack of self-love. Our experiences with childhood abuse robbed us of the ability to see ourselves as loveable. Even though we can't see any reason to love ourselves, God can.

Take a look at www.biblegateway.com or in your Bible's concordance for the word love. There are more passages related to God's love for us than any other word. Here are just a few examples:

For great is your love toward me. (Psalm 86:13)
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever. (Psalm 100:5)
The earth is filled with your love. (Psalm 119:64)
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

If we suffer from low self-esteem, we may find ourselves running from God's love, just as our adopted twins ran from us. If we can stop fleeing, we can experience the fullness of God's love and the love of our fellow human beings.

High self-esteem makes it easier for us to forgive.
According to research conducted in 2006 (Eaton, Struthers & Santelli), people with high self-esteem can forgive more easily than people with low self-esteem. Although generalized positive affirmations cannot boost our self-esteem so that we can forgive, there are some other simple techniques that can help us. Tomorrow, we will learn how some simple lifestyle changes can allow us to develop an alternative opinion of ourselves.

Today's Challenge
Take out your journal and make a list of the people or situations that make you feel ashamed or guilty. Are these feelings warranted because you did something wrong; or are they just a way of life for you?

Repair Trust

We continue today with our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness. Yesterday, we learned that when trust is broken by childhood sexual abuse or early trauma, we may suffer from an inability to grow both psychologically and socially. Today, we learn how to repair trust so that it will not get in the way of forgiving others.

Has mistrust become a lifestyle for you?
Many of us who have survived abuse or trauma prefer not to trust anyone or anything, because it has become a lifestyle that is simply too hard to change. We don't deal with this issue well, because it requires a lot of courage to trust again. Instead, we engage in alternative habits to cover up our mistrust, including:

hyperactivity,
living a life filled with distractions,
drinking,
using illegal drugs,
overworking,
controlling others,
isolating ourselves,
distancing ourselves from others,
using anger to keep people at bay,
engaging in pornographic activities,
experimenting with illicit sexual activities,
overeating, or
gambling.

We can break these habits and learn to trust by following the three steps below.

First, trust God.
I believe that no amount of psychotherapy alone will ever help a person to fully trust again once they have been deeply hurt. Read that again. I did not say that psychotherapy is useless. I said that psychotherapy by itself is not the answer.

We must look to God to heal us as we work through this issue of mistrust. Unless we can learn to trust God, we will never truly trust our fellow humans.

There are countless Bible verses that address our need to trust in God. You can go to www.biblegateway.com and type in the word trust to find encouragement. Here are just a few reasons why you can trust God:

He takes care of us when our parents neglect or abuse us.
The helpless put their trust in you. You defend the orphans.
(Psalm 10:14)

God protects us from harm.
I trust in the Lord for protection. (Psalm 11:1)

Trusting God makes us feel like singing.
The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart. He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving. (Psalm 28:7)

God loves us, even while wicked people are hurting us.
Many sorrows come to the wicked, but unfailing love surrounds those who trust the Lord. (Psalm 32:10)

God never lies or deceives us as people sometimes do.
For the word of the Lord holds true, and we can trust everything he does. (Psalm 33:4)

God provides us with food and everything else we need that is good for us.
Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry, but those who trust in the Lord will lack no good thing. (Psalm 34:10)

Psychologists tell us that it's a lot easier for us to exercise our free will than it is to experience our feelings. So even if you don't feel as if you can ever trust God, by willing yourself to trust his promises above, you can expect to see results.

Second, create distance from the people who continually hurt you.
If we are enmeshed in relationships with people who continually abuse us, there is no way that we can learn to trust. The trauma of abuse keeps re-programming our brains to mistrust, to fear, and to feel angry. Therefore, it is necessary to go to a safe place before we can trust again.

Even after we remove ourselves from an abusive situation, we may need a considerable amount of time before we can trust. I have been free from my first husband's abuse for thirteen years, and I am still working on trusting others.

Third, walk with a trustworthy friend.
After my divorce, I didn't trust anyone but myself. I made up my mind that I could handle whatever life threw at me. I decided that I didn't need God, a husband, or any other man.

For nearly a year, I didn't attend church. During that time, I made some of the worst decisions of my life. Without God, I eventually blundered into a really unhealthy relationship that proved to be the catalyst that set me back on track.

I was dating a guy, and we were seriously considering marriage. After spending a day together, we were saying good-bye in my driveway. He said that there were only two women in his life that he had ever truly loved. I waited, expecting him to name his mother and me. Instead, he named his first two wives.

In that instant, I knew that I was in deep trouble, because I had turned my back on God. I told the man not to bother coming to my house ever again, and I went inside. Beside my bed, I fell to my knees and admitted to Jesus that my life was a mess. I asked him to forgive me and to lead me.

When I finally trusted Christ, I felt like a little kid who had finally run into the arms of the one grown-up in the world who was safe. I felt that I could sob with relief on the Lord’s shoulder, because I did not have to try so hard anymore to shield myself from others or to take care of myself when others failed.

That was a turning point for me. Trusting God opened the doors to marvelous changes. He led me to a church, where I was embraced as an adult Bible study leader and handbell choir member. Through that faith family, I learned that if I wanted to have a man in my life, I needed to let God choose him. Within a year, I met Joe.

I didn't think I could ever trust anyone, especially not a man. But Joe Denton was different: he was like Jesus with skin on. Over time, I realized that no matter what I did, he would never stop loving me. I could make mistakes, and he wouldn't raise his voice, hit me, or leave me. Joe helped me to fully trust another human being for the first time in my life...at the age of forty.

Begin a new journey today by willing yourself to trust God first, setting yourself apart from abusive or toxic people, and finding a trustworthy friend to walk alongside you. Learning to trust is a key step on the journey to forgiving others.

Today's Challenge
Open your journal to the list of people whom you don't trust. If they are abusive or toxic, remove yourself from daily contact with them. Find some Bible verses online that encourage you to trust God. Write them in your journal. Then start praying for someone trustworthy to come alongside you.

How Important is Trust?

We have already discussed the first two roadblocks to forgiveness: anger and fear. Today, we move on to tackle a particularly stubborn roadblock: mistrust. I hope that by the time you finish reading today's post, you will have a solid understanding about how mistrust is holding you back in many areas of your life, including the ability to forgive.

Understanding the psychology behind trust is important to our recovery.
Erik Erikson was a German psychologist (1902-1994) who became famous for his theories about the stages of psychosocial development. He was very interested in how we form our identities, and he listed eight stages of development from birth to death. Each stage is marked by a conflict that must be resolved in order for a person to achieve complete emotional growth.

Below is a brief summary of Erikson's work; including ages, conflicts to be resolved at each age, and a virtue to be gained in the process:

Ages.......Conflict to be Resolved........Virtue to be Gained

0-1...............Trust v Mistrust.......................Hope
1-3...............Autonomy v Doubt..................Will
3-6...............Initiative v Inadequacy..........Purpose
6-12.............Industry v Inferiority..............Competence
12-18...........Identity v Confusion................Fidelity
18-40..........Intimacy v Isolation................Love
40-65..........Generativity v Stagnation.......Caring
65-death.....Integrity v Despair..................Wisdom

When we experience abuse or trauma during any one of the stages of psychosocial development, we can become stuck. For children who are victimized or neglected between the ages of birth and one year, a severe lack of trust in others undermines all future developmental stages. Trauma during later stages may alter other areas of psychosocial development.

There are social and emotional consequences for mistrust.
For many survivors of abuse and trauma, mistrust becomes a way of life. We rely only on ourselves, because others have wounded us so deeply. We develop the mistaken belief that trusting only ourselves will keep us safe. In reality, this belief system merely serves to isolate us from others so that we never reach our full potential.

Before you decide that you are never going to trust others, I want to make it very clear how a lack of trust can deeply hurt us. Based on Erikson's studies, if we decide that we will never take a chance at trusting someone, we may anticipate:

1) expecting negative outcomes from most of our experiences;
2) living in an emotional prison where we take hasty actions without feeling or thinking;
3) never achieving satisfaction in serving others through the use of our God-given talents;
4) failing at most tasks that we attempt;
5) lying to our spouse, employer, children, and God;
6) never knowing what it means to love other people or God;
7) going throughout life unable to feel compassion for others in need; and
8) dying without wisdom.

I don’t know how you feel when reading this list that results from mistrust, but it sounds like living hell to me. It seems like a sure-fire way to remain depressed, anxious, fearful, and lonely for the rest of our lives.

There are spiritual consequences for mistrust.
When the Israelites were dying of thirst in the desert, God commanded Moses to speak to a rock to make it produce water for them. Instead, Moses struck the rock with his rod to make the water pour forth. He did not trust God to cause water to come out of the rock by simply speaking the words to it. (See Numbers 20:1-13) The consequences were severe.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”(Num 20:12)

Blessings await those who know how to trust.
If, on the other hand, we can learn how to trust, we may find opportunities to develop the following abilities:

1) to persevere in the belief that positive outcomes are possible for us;
2) to make well-thought-out decisions after considering our own feelings;
3) to discover our purpose in life, based on our God-given talents;
4) to perform tasks competently;
5) to maintain a faithful relationship with a spouse, an employer, or God;
6) to feel love for a spouse, children, acquaintances, or God;
7) to care for children, the sick, elderly, handicapped, or poor; and
8) to gain wisdom through our life experiences.

There is freedom in learning to trust.
If we can learn to trust God first for all of our needs, we can set ourselves completely free to trust anyone...including ourselves. Tomorrow, we will discover how to trust again--or perhaps for the first time--so that we can fully experience all that the world has to offer. Remember, learning to trust helps us to remove one more roadblock on our journey toward forgiving.

Today's Challenge
In your journal, write down the names of people whom you don't trust. Beside each name, write the incident that caused you to mistrust them. Note your age at the time. Then, look back at Erikson's chart above and see if you can pinpoint which stage of development was disturbed by mistrust.

How Can I Overcome My Fears?

We learned last week that we develop fears following traumatic events. Our brains can actually become programmed to respond to conflict with either anger or fear.

Are your fears warranted or are they just excuses?
Some fears are warranted, and we can use them to keep ourselves safe from harm. Other fears become roadblocks to forgiveness, because they give us excuses to avoid taking action.

Before we learn how to eradicate our fears, I want to address perfectionism and worry. They are both cover-up behaviors for fears that can hinder our development as a person.

Perfectionism and worry begin with irrational fears.
When we start telling ourselves that something should happen, we are often setting ourselves up for failure. Shoulds are red flags for perfectionism, which is really a fancy word for the fear of failing. Perfectionistic thinking looks like this: "If I do this perfectly, I can prevent others (abusers, criminals, etc) or situations (similar to our traumatic event) from hurting me."

When we become fearful about certain situations, we also become expert worriers. Worried thinking goes something like this, “If I worry long enough about ____________, I can prevent it from happening.”

I have learned that no amount of perfectionism or worrying on my part will ever control the events that take place in this world. Only God can control what goes on. Worrying is a complete waste of energy. Jesus asked, "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Matt 6:27 NIV)

Life goes on, in spite of the losses--both big and small--that we feel. If we become terribly consumed by past hurts or traumas and worry about further pain or become perfectionistic to control outcomes, we lose out on everything that the rest of the world is enjoying. God blesses us every day with lovely things to see, do, hear, taste, smell, and touch. If we want to become fully alive and enjoy the world, we must overcome the roadblocks of fear that masquerade as avoidance behaviors, worry, and perfectionism.

Cognitive restructuring can help us eliminate fears.
We can use a form of self-talk known as cognitive restructuring to overcome our fears. With this method, we replace faulty thinking with something healthier.

For example, I developed an unusually strong fear of riding in cars following a major accident when I was nine years old. I had not been physically injured, but my parents' conversation following the event caused me to believe that our odds of surviving a car ride were slim.

My fear of riding in cars grew as I worried more about the danger. The more I worried, the bigger my fear became. Over a period of months, I became so terrified of getting into a car that I avoided it at all costs. I rode my bike everywhere that the family went. If we took a long trip, my parents had to medicate me first.

It took me nearly forty years before I realized that I had to replace this faulty wiring in my head with more rational thinking. A counselor taught me to tell myself, “Most car rides end successfully. I have taken all the safety measures I can (seat belt fastened, air bag turned on, mirrors adjusted, car maintained). I will trust God to get me safely to my destination in the car.”

Those of you who know me well may be wondering what happened last summer when I took all the safety measures I could and still got hit and injured by a drunk driver. I experienced all the same fears that I had as a child following the accident with my parents. The difference, though, was that I used cognitive restructuring to talk myself back into driving. It took less than a month to tell myself, "Most car rides end successfully. I have taken all the safety measures I can. I will trust God to get me safely to my destination."

We can use cognitive restructuring with any fear that we may have. As survivors of trauma or abuse, we can use it to overcome our fear of the people who hurt us or the situations where the trauma occurred.

Our self-talk to eliminate worry simply needs to state simple facts based on truth, just as I did in the example above. And it needs to be repeated a lot before our brains begins to believe it. Every time we find ourselves becoming worried, we can stop, repeat our new self-talk, and then step out in faith.

Cognitive restructuring works to eliminate perfectionism, too. A replacement thought for perfectionistic beliefs might sound like this: “I will do my best, but if I make a mistake, I will be okay. I can keep a good sense of humor about my mistakes and perhaps learn to laugh at myself, instead of expecting so much.”

Memorizing Scripture helps us put our fears into perspective.
When we are struggling to overcome avoidance behaviors, worry, and perfectionism, we can turn to Scripture for many references that will reassure us. Deuteronomy 31:6 reads, So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.

Isn’t it ridiculous to be afraid of something if the God of the universe is personally walking in front of us? No one is bigger or stronger than God, so what are we worrying about? As far as I'm concerned, a lack of trust in God may be the number one source of all fear. The best remedy for a shortage of trust is to read the Bible. God’s Word can help us to grow in our faith and to learn to trust Him more.

Is it time to ask for help?
If fears are becoming so overwhelming for you that you can't function in a normal way, please find a psychologist or psychiatrist to help you. I lived for nearly forty years with my fear of riding in cars. What a waste of some wonderful experiences involving spectacular trips through the Swiss Alps, our Pacific Coast, and many breath-taking vistas!

In a later lesson, we will work on the skills necessary to confront the people that we need to forgive the most. For now, we just need to become aware of our fears so that they will not prevent us from finding spiritual and emotional freedom along the way.

Today's Challenge
Choose your smallest fear and write out a statement of truth about it. For example, if you're afraid of riding in elevators, you might write: "Most elevator rides end successfully. I can step in, allow the doors to close, ride up, and get off without incident on my designated floor." Repeat this affirmation and visualize yourself fearlessly performing the action. Ask God to help you. In time, you will find the courage to step out in faith and overcome this minor fear. Later, we'll work on the bigger ones.

What Does Fear Have to Do With Forgiveness?

We live in a world consumed by fears.
Today’s headlines shout at us to be fearful. A terrorist leader eludes authorities, who fear he may resurface stronger than ever. A suicide bomber kills countless innocent people in a public place, and nearby residents fear that more attacks are imminent. A kidnapper snatches a journalist, and his relatives fear that their loved one is dead. Terrorists know that they can control many people, because fear has the power to immobilize not only individuals, but entire nations.

God spoke to the Israelites through the prophet, Isaiah: I, yes I, am the one who comforts you. So why are you afraid of mere humans, who wither like the grass and disappear? (Isaiah 51:12) Today, we will focus on why we are so paralyzed by fear.

Why are we so fearful?
As I mentioned in a previous blog, when we experience childhood sexual abuse or traumatic events, our brains get re-programmed. We begin to respond to many challenging issues with either fear or anger. They become automatic responses, and we may not even be aware of them.

What is fear?
Fear is the opposite of faith. With great faith, we trust in God to provide everything we need. We do not fear anything when we are faith-filled, because even in death, God provides for us.

Satan knows how powerful our faith is. That is why he uses fear so often to weaken our faith. If he can get us to believe a lie to make us afraid and lose faith in God, he will capitalize on it.

I have found it helpful to think of fear as a weed that Satan has planted in the garden of my life. If we have ever grown anything, we know that once we let weeds get started, they will choke the life out of our vegetables and flowers. So, if we get rid of our fears as soon as they sprout up, like the weeds in the garden, our life blossoms. Like weeds, we cannot just nip our fears off at the tips. We have to dig deep and get rid of the entire weed of fear.

Some of us who have survived abuse tend to fertilize, water, and make room for the weeds of fear in our lives. We make excuses for tending our fears, but we don’t realize that by doing so, we are choking out our own life energy.

Why should we work to eliminate fear?
One of the biggest roadblocks to forgiveness is the fear of confronting people who have wronged us. Fear may have paralyzed us to the point where we are no longer able to assert ourselves when we need to. We may be afraid that if we do confront someone, they will deny any wrong-doing on their part. We are also afraid that confrontation may turn the tables on us so that our perpetrators accuse us of being at fault. Eliminating our fears is essential if we ever want to get to the point of total forgiveness.

Some fears are warranted.
In some cases, being afraid of someone or something is warranted, because we are not safe. For example, if we choose to take a short-cut through a dark alley downtown late at night, we may become afraid. There is good reason for that fear: we know either from past experience or from others’ experiences that our behavior could place us in harm’s way. We can use our warranted fear to help us choose to walk only on well-lighted streets. In a case like this, our fear is similar to our anger: it serves as a warning that something is wrong.

Some fears are excuses for action.
On the other hand, some fears are just avoidance mechanisms that we use to skirt difficult issues. We must never use our fear as an excuse when we know that something needs to be addressed. Confronting others when they have done something to hurt us calls for us to stand up for ourselves.

We must also stand up for people who are unable to speak up for themselves—children, the elderly, the handicapped, and the poor are included in this group. As survivors of abuse and trauma, I believe we have a duty to other victims, too. Joe has frequently told our kids, “All it takes for evil to grow is for good people to do nothing about it.”

In the quote from Isaiah at the beginning of today's post, God asks us why we are afraid of other humans. He tells us that they all eventually wither like the grass and disappear. So why is is so hard for us to stand up to people and tell them how we feel? Next time, we will explore many of the root causes of our deep fears and how we can overcome this second roadblock to forgiveness.

Today's Challenge
Take out your journal and write down your top ten fears. Start thinking about how they took root, and we'll learn how to remove them on Monday.

How Can I Manage Anger?

Yesterday, I gave you four points about anger:

1) unmanaged anger destroys relationships and our health;
2) everyone gets angry at times, just as God and Jesus did;
3) anger stems from unmet expectations or unfulfilled needs; and
4) trauma or abuse can cause our brains to become re-wired so that we respond to new challenges with inappropriate anger or fear.

Repressed anger leads to other problems.
When I was small, I was never allowed to express emotions. If I shouted and laughed, I was told to pipe down. If I got angry, I was punished for expressing myself. If I was sad, I was told to turn off the tears. If this sounds familiar, you may be stuffing your anger, just as I learned to do. This is just as unhealthy as displaced anger and can cause us to have physical ailments and broken relationships.

Some people try to cover up their anger. Do yourself a huge favor: don’t bury your anger under things such as comfort food, alcohol, prescription drugs, illegal drugs, pornography, excessive TV viewing, over-work, silence, or any other avoidance activity that only leaves you feeling worse.

Anger can be justified or displaced.
Justified anger, sometimes known as righteous anger, occurs when something happens to upset God's order. When we hear on the news that a child has been kidnapped, murdered, and left in a creek bed; righteous anger kicks in. It's a feeling that tells us someone has broken God's command to love one another.

Displaced anger, on the other hand, shows up unexpectedly to events that may not even warrant it. A man who goes to the hospital for a simple operation that turns into a heart attack gets angry at the doctors and nurses. When a snowstorm prevents hospital staff and his wife from driving to the hospital to care for him, he's angry at them.

Anger often masquerades as a cover-up feeling for fear. Perhaps this man is fearful of his own mortality, the loss of his wife's love, or the prospect of living as an invalid.

This anger he feels today may also be stemming from old hurts that he has not processed. If he was abused or neglected as a child, his basic needs for safety, nurturing, protection, and love were probably not fulfilled. His hospital experience may be churning up that repressed anger from decades ago, and now it is aimed at all the wrong people. Hence, we have the term displaced anger.

Follow The Three Rs to manage anger.
We must make a conscious decision to respond differently to things that anger us, otherwise we will just become known as perpetually angry people. Understanding that lashing out in anger is hurtful to us, we can follow three simple steps to make sure that we don't sin in our anger. I call this process The Three Rs: Remove, Review, and Reason.

Remove
Every single time we feel ourselves getting angry; we can remove ourselves from the situation before we do something we will regret later. We can take a walk, breathe deeply, or try some gentle stretching. Remember Proverbs 30:33 (NIV): As the beating of cream yields butter and striking the nose causes bleeding, so stirring up anger causes quarrels.

We must not turn our time-out into another avoidance tactic, though. When we are calm, we must continue onto the next step.

Review
We can memorize a Scripture passage, such as Proverbs 15:1 (NIV) and review it until our anger simmers down: A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Repeating the passage to ourselves until we feel more peaceful helps to dampen the fires of anger.

Reason
When we have calmed down, we can take out our journal and write down the real reasons why we are angry. We can look at the situation and consider what happened.

Was someone behaving badly because they were afraid, lonely, needy, out of control, or being pushed around by someone else? Is our anger telling us that something about our relationship with this person needs to change? Or are we dwelling on that old, displaced anger that continues to fester within our souls?

Get professional help.
If anger is the roadblock that is preventing us from forgiving someone, we can seek the help of a professional counselor, psychologist, or specialist to help us re-program the faulty wiring in our brains. With their guidance, we can learn how to avoid anger and fear as knee-jerk reactions to conflict.

Today's Challenge
Take out your notebook and review the list of events that have made you angry. Consider the ones that you circled because of unmet needs. Underline the ones that may have a deeper, underlying cause...the ones that are really displaced anger. Perhaps this exercise will jog your memory about an older hurt that you had overlooked. Add it to your list.