Yesterday my son's Taekwondo instructor was over to work with him. My daughter came outside and he said to her, "You are so pretty. Do you know that?" And I love her response, "Yes. My mom tells me everyday." Heck yes, I do. And I will. I will continue to tell her how beautiful she is until I have no more breath in my lungs. Why? Because I don't ever want my daughter to believe that she is not beautiful.
These words are so very important. If for a moment she believes she isn't beautiful, she is believing a lie. And it is only the beginning of lies that will find their way to her. One lie leads to another. There will be lies about her beauty, her smarts, her heart, and countless other things. I dread the days of teenage girls. One day she will have a best friend and the next day that friend will be spreading rumors or believing rumors. Life will be hard. Or maybe it will be a boy - I wish them harm already - that will try to ruin my daughter's idea of her self-worth. I speak from experience. I think we all know this experience. But then again, there are some of us that battle with depression. We have heard a few more lies than others. We have believed more lies than others. Those battling depression can hear a comment at the age of 12 and believe it at the age of 32. These things are spoken in our heads so many times for so long that it is hard wired into our brains. The sky is blue and you're ugly. The sun is yellow and nobody loves you. Over and over. How do we rewire our brains? How do we decide that those lies are just lies and not really the truth like the sky and the sun? I can't say for sure. I can't give a sure fire way to dismiss the words you've heard over and again for how every many decades you've heard them. I only know of a few helpful tools. One - you need to know your identity. For those of us that know Jesus, he has our identity. He tells us exactly who we are. Once we know who we are, we have to repeat it. Since the lies came to us in repetition to become hard wired, we need repetition to overcome the lies. This is where things go sideways. Repeating things to ourselves will only go so far. So part two is that you tell someone. You need to tell them what is going on. You need to tell them what lies you hear every day. They need to know the truth. They can then reinforce the truths that you need to hear over the lies. Well, things get tricky here again. After a while, they become unbelievable. "You're just saying that because you have to." That's the thing about depression and lies. When one seems to have been taken care of, another can pop up. And why should we believe someone who knows our struggles? Because isn't that their job? For those of you in the boat of depression I can hear the "mmhmm"s and "amen"s coming through. For those outside of the boat, maybe this helps to understand just a piece of what happens. But one thing in all of this is for sure. My daughter will hear that she is beautiful each and every day.
1 Comment
Nana
6/6/2019 02:22:19 pm
You are sending a powerful message to AJ, Jewel. Children need to hear that they have worth and goodness, beauty inside and out..... every single day. They should never have to beg for it or do things to seek it. The outside world can’t hurt you if your family is strong and all those within it hold all others in the highest esteem and let them know it every day.
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