Your Personal Fiction
Change your personal fiction to nonfiction, replacing the lies with the truth.
Introduction
Dixon was born to a couple that fought all the time. From the moment Dixon was first born, his mother decided she didn’t want him because he looked just like his father, same complexion and hair color. His mother knew from that moment that he would be nothing but trouble, just like his dad.
As he grew, Dad was the one who gave him love and care, so, obviously, he became more and more like his father and drew more and more scorn from his mother. He grew up knowing that his mother did not love or want him. She made it very obvious.
His programming told him that he would have to fight for everything he got, just like his father. In his earliest years, his dad was his protector and defender. He’d run to Sad when his mother’s scorn became too much for him to handle, which caused more arguments between his parents.
His dad eventually left the marriage. Dixon was left to contend with his mother and other siblings on his own. His beliefs that he was unloved, uncared for, scorned became even more cemented into his core beliefs. His core belief that he had to fight for everything grew. From the first day of Kindergarten, he was a scrapper, a fighter, an aggressive competitor. He was always ready and eager for a fight, argument, or contest.
As he got older his relationships became harder and harder to maintain, because of the internal need and belief that he had to fight for everything.
Negative Thoughts
I’ve been writing about how our negative thoughts affect our feelings and our actions.
But, where do these negative thoughts originate?
Our thoughts come from our core beliefs that develop during our early childhood. One theory states that we are born with a “blank slate” and everything about the individual is a result of nurturing from our caregivers and our life experiences.
More recent research has shown that a person may be more likely to develop negative core beliefs based on their genetic makeup than was thought. But the specific beliefs you develop are a result of your life experiences and your interpretation of those experiences.
It has also been proven that what the mother experiences while pregnant also affect the baby. When my first granddaughter was first born the minute she heard music her little shoulders would start to move to the rhythm. My daughter-in-law had placed speakers on her stomach and played music for the baby from the time she knew she was pregnant. As she grew she was fascinated by music. When my husband would play the guitar for her, she’d put her hand on the guitar body and look up into grandpa’s face like she was in seventh heaven.
Dixon’s mother was very harsh and critical. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t do anything right. She didn’t want him and showed it continually. As he grew, he developed negative core beliefs about himself and the world around him. He wasn’t wanted. His mother didn’t love him.
Dixon developed the belief that to get anything he had to fight for it, just like his dad. If someone didn’t comply with his wishes he’d fight, he’d threaten, he would win one way or another.
Belief Cycle
The core beliefs, positive or negative, become very difficult to change, yet not impossible. They are so deeply ingrained that they become the fabric of who you believe yourself to be.
The biggest obstacle is that beliefs are strongly self-perpetuating. That means when a person maintains a negative view of themselves they will often initiate negative interactions and then automatically interpret negative outcomes as evidence of their own shortcomings or failings. The negative thought and feelings are driven by their negative core belief.
The entire process whether negative or positive is circular, with core beliefs driving automatic thoughts which produce the feelings resulting in actions/behavior, and then justify the core belief.
Your core beliefs, positive or negative then become “Your Personal Fiction.” They are fiction because they aren’t necessarily true. They are what you believe about yourself and the world around you.
They can provide you with self-confidence or they can be self-limiting.
They can say you are loved and cared for or that you aren’t.
Either way, they are motivators of their actions. Dixon believed he was worthless and had to fight for everything, fight to survive. Yet, that wasn’t true. He was loved by his dad. He was very smart with a lot of ingenuity. His beliefs were not the truth about who he was and his worth.
Unfortunately, what you believe unconsciously will rule every time, unless you call these untruths into your conscious mind, question them, and replace them with the truth.
Spiritual Perspective
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 The Voice “The weapons of the war we’re fighting are not of this world but are powered by God and effective at tearing down the strongholds erected against His truth. We are demolishing arguments and ideas, every high-and-mighty philosophy that pits itself against the knowledge of the one true God. We are taking prisoners of every thought, every emotion, and subduing them into obedience to the Anointed One.”
Our enemy, Satan, can plant negative thoughts in our mind, like Eve in the garden, and he does attempt to defeat us with strategy and deceit, through well-laid plans and deliberate deception. In John 8:44, Jesus called Satan “the father of lies and of all that is false”. He lies to each of us. He tells us things about ourselves, about situations and events that aren’t true.
Joyce Meyer, Battlefield of the Minds, states that “He begins by bombarding our mind with a cleverly devised pattern of little nagging thoughts, suspicions, doubts, fears, wonderings, reasonings, and theories. He moves slowly and cautiously (after all, well-laid plans take time)… He knows what we like and what we don’t like. He knows our insecurities, our weaknesses, and our fears. He knows what bothers us the most. He is willing to invest any amount of time it takes to defeat us. One of the devil’s strong points is patience.”
Our enemy then assists in perpetuating the circular process of cementing our core beliefs in our mind by continuously bringing our negative core beliefs and thoughts into our mind getting us to focus on them instead of replacing our fiction with the truth.
Conclusion
The Bible and psychology teach us that the problem is in how and what we think. Romans 12:2 tells us to renew our minds.
The word “renew” means to restore, replenish, begin or take up again, as an acquaintance, a conversation, resume, to make effective.
Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
You can change your mind. You can replace the negative core beliefs and thoughts with positive ones about yourself.
Beliefs are circular, as mentioned above, so as you feed your mind positive thoughts and beliefs about yourself and your situation, it begins to develop positive automatic thoughts, which will produce positive feelings resulting in positive actions.
As Dixon feeds himself positive thoughts that he does have value and worth, that he does have something to offer to society, his automatic thoughts begin to change. He has times where he lapses back into the old “bullying” mentality to fight for what he wants. When he does, he has to stop and start over with positive thoughts again.
One way of changing your thoughts is to read God’s word about who you are to God. Joyce Meyer has a book, The Secret Power of Speaking God’s Word, which teaches you how to change your life by reading God’s blessings over yourself. It includes topics on patience, loneliness, wisdom, insecurity, fear, protection and many more topics.
When you read scriptures or other positive statements out loud so you can hear yourself speaking, in your voice, it begins to change your negative beliefs and thoughts, resulting in positive feelings and behavior.
