Messengers of Healing: Drowning Out Negativity

Words are thought descriptors. They project thoughts from anonymity. They transfer thoughts into messages. Messages move the world.
~ William E. Jefferson

June is the FLX/WordCount Blogathon!  Join us for 30 Days of blogging madness!

M

essages bombard us every day.

Buy this now – so you’re just like everyone else!  Even though you’re already in debt and the economy has stalled.

Try this pill – it cures everything!  Even though it may cause death.

Eat this burger– it’ll make you feel better!  Even though it doesn’t look anything like that in real life.

Don’t eat that butter – it’ll make you fat! Even though everyone agrees poor body image is too prevalent and eating disorders are on the rise.

And those are just the messages we hear from the outside.  The ones we tell ourselves are often even more damaging:

I’ll never get that promotion.
Why am I always so stupid?
I can never do anything right!
I am unlovable / undesirable /untouchable / unworthy.

What makes this more damaging is that while we repeat them over and over to ourselves, we sometime end up repeating them to others.

Changing the Messages We Hear
You can’t give what you don’t have.  So if we’re filled with self-loathing or feel unworthy of love, we aren’t able to love as freely or as warmly as someone who is confident in their worth.  And so the cycle of negative messages continues.

It’s been said that we can never fully erase the hateful messages we tell ourselves, and it certainly seems that way in my experience.  No matter what positive things I tell myself or that my therapist or close friends tell me, the negative ones come back ~ and hit the positive ones over the head with a big, heavy stick.

Image credit: alyssaandbrianna.blogspot.com

And yet, the only reason the ugly ones stay is because they’ve been repeated, over and over and over.  So in order to get rid of them, we have to repeat the positive ones over and over and over.   

Until they play over top the negative messages.

This process isn’t easy and it takes time.  Most of us have heard these negative messages for years, some of us since childhood.  

You can’t overcome 30, 40, or even 60 years of emotional brainwashing in just a few months or even a couple of years.

The upside to healing?  You then become a messenger of peace and positivity and stop the cycle of negativity.

As for taking that death pill with that fatty burger in that new car you can’t afford – turn off the idiot box and get outside, read a book, or spend some time with friends and family.  You can always stream a show later - minus the negative commercials.

Your awesome body and your bank account will thank you.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

What messages hold you back?  What are you doing to drown them out?

Five Minute Friday is an ever-growing group of bloggers who write for five minutes flat each Friday on the same prompt that Lisa Jo Baker posts each Thursday evening. It’s five minutes to see what comes out: not a perfect post, not a profound post, just five minutes of focused writing. Those without a blog can post their five minute piece as a comment on Lisa Jo Baker’s blog. For more details, visit Five Minute Friday.