Color Your World With Light
The pain of being traumatized especially by someone who was supposed to care for you as a child can color your whole world....in dark gray monotones.
I hate to say this, but for most of my life I have seen Giants instead of Milk and Honey, especially in regards to people. I always imagined people were saying or thinking bad things about me, a lot of times before I even met them! And many times, especially afterward. Talk about dark, negative thoughts...
But lately, God has been re-writing my story. He is turning the river of pain into a river of forgiveness. He is turning self-focus into Himself and Others' focus. Let me be clear, this takes A LOT of work on my part. God does the miracle in my heart, but I am the one working to CHOOSE forgiveness, to CHOOSE to let go of inflated (or deflated, but anyhow, anyway WAY TOO MUCH FOCUS ON MYSELF)! I pray and ask him to remind me anytime I have a negative thought about what others are thinking or about my own performance, or any other specific outcome. He Does Do IT. It is very eye-opening about this driver of anxiety.
Back to the nuts and bolts of it. So anytime I have a thought like that or even sometimes just for practice, I imagine situations GOING WELL! I imagine my desired outcome. I imagine connections and good relationships with others. I actually picture it and 'see' it within my mind.
This is basically using faith, like Caleb and Joshua did in the promised land. The Israelites sent them and 10 others to spy out the land they were going to take over. Everyone except Caleb and Joshua saw GIANTS. Caleb and Joshua said "Ah shucks! They aint nothin'! With God on our side we can overtake them! It is a GOOD land, flowing with milk and honey. Sadly the people listened to the negative voices and allowed them to overtake the good ones. You can read about it in the Bible in the book of Numbers 13 and 14.
I feel I need to warn you as well, not to turn away from this 'simple' answer to defeating anxiety. It WILL work with patience, much hard work changing your thoughts and God's help! I turned away from faith once because I thought it was 'too simple' of an answer for my issues. I sufferent greatly because of it and caused suffering and grief within my family.
But thanks be to God, who is faithful and true, slow to anger, quick to forgive! He has seen me through all trials and will continue until the Day
