Megan Byrd

Writer

enemy

Working Through Negative Feelings

I dislike feeling negative thoughts and emotions. I try to avoid them as much as possible. I usually distance myself from negative emotions instead of allowing myself to process and work through them to find healing and move forward.

The enemy is very successful in convincing me that avoiding difficult or uncomfortable situations, conversations or feelings is better than facing them head on and working through them to find resolution. As a result, when I struggle with something difficult, I often choose to pull away from possible support rather than invite others (including God) to sit with me, offer encouragement and support, and help me through the challenge. I now understand that this is the opposite of what I really need. Distancing myself increases my feelings of loneliness and hopelessness when what I really need is connection and encouragement.

The realization and acknowledgement of my ineffective self-preservation and coping strategies is the first step toward change. When I am feeling lonely or insufficient, then that is when I need to reach out to others, not pull away.

Prayer should always be my first plan of action. I need to bring everything I am thinking and feeling before God. He already knows my hurts, my insecurities, my less-than-perfect thoughts and feelings. Sharing it all with God helps me to really see what is going on in my mind. God helps me to see the lies that I am believing and reveals the truth I may have missed by being focused on the negative thoughts that feel so true at times. Once I achieve some objectivity, I can more clearly recognize truth and develop a more helpful plan of action. Sometimes I need to share my struggle with my husband or a friend, asking for prayer, encouragement, help or accountability. Other times all I really need is time with God to help give me proper perspective.

One evening before bed, I was hit with overwhelming feelings of loneliness and disconnect. I struggled a lot last year feeling disconnected from a strong community. I thought I had worked through everything and accepted our current situation, but that night everything flooded back as I was trying to go to sleep.

I allowed the buried feelings to resurface which spiraled quickly into a whirlwind of negative thoughts. The thoughts turned extreme as I considered getting off of all social media to avoid seeing the events and gatherings I was being left out of. I thought surely everyone else was texting and getting together with everyone else except me. Believing these things, I thought about completely cutting myself off from everything and everyone (because, as we all know, nothing helps loneliness more than isolation *rolls eyes*).

When I woke up the next morning I was still struggling with my feelings. Instead of replaying all of the negative thoughts from the night before, I made the choice to pray about it and asked God to speak truth to me about my situation. I knew that I was listening to lies and didn’t want to act on incorrect information.

God reminded me that he is loving, faithful and trustworthy. He assured me that he enjoys giving good gifts, so if I am not receiving a particular thing (such as a bunch of social invitations) then most likely it is not in my best interest or not the proper time for it. God helped me to see that if I had more social engagements than I currently have, I would not have the time I need to work on my goals. I have a number of things I want to do by certain deadlines – mostly writing related – and I only have a limited amount of time each week to work in a quiet house (which came to an end when school let out). Perhaps when my current projects are done there will be more invitations. Regardless of what my calendar looks like, I can trust that God is not holding out on me. He loves to lavish good gifts on his children. I should see the time I have been given to work as the gift from him that it is.

 

Do you ever get stuck in a negative thought or feeling cycle? How do you get yourself unstuck? What lies does the enemy try to get you to believe? What God truths do you know to help refute the lies when they begin to feel like truth?

****************************

This is the sixth and final post of a series exploring some of the ideas in Never Unfriended: The Secret to Finding and Keeping Lasting Friendships by Lisa-Jo Baker. If you’re interested in reading the other posts, please click on a title: The Fear of Missing Out, Finding Our Approval, Guilt-Free Friendship, Celebrating, Mourning and Other Aspects of Friendship and The Comparison Trap.

Finding Hope in the Struggle

God is continuing to help me work out this struggle with loneliness. I have felt that others do not fully understand what I have been trying to express about loneliness. I do not find it difficult gathering people together but am familiar with the truth that it is possible to be lonely in a crowd. My deeper desire is to belong and to feel known and that doesn’t result from a bunch of surface relationships. My other frustration has been in not receiving many invitations from others. But God has recently helped me to understand and admit that I have been focusing on the minor annoyances rather than on the many blessings he has provided for me.

When I was in church on Sunday I felt that God was asking me to just let go of my frustrations, give him the whole situation, trust him to do what is best, and turn my focus toward the blessings and express gratitude for what I do have (rather than lament on what I feel I am lacking).

It is a blessing that so many people accept my invitations. Most of the time people are willing to get together with me or my family and I should not discount that. It is a blessing that there are a few people who do extend invitations to me and my family. I don’t know why I want more people to do that as I would then be overwhelmed and not be able to focus on growing deeper in a few special relationships. I do have several good friends who are dependable and invested and I am remorseful that I have not seemed more appreciative.
I also think I have been expecting too much from various situations, having unrealistic expectations as a matter of fact. I did enjoy the party I hosted recently but I went into it knowing I would not be able to have any really deep conversations with anyone because my focus would be on everyone feeling welcomed, comfortable and enjoying themselves. We went to a community gathering for church over the weekend and I knew it would be another evening of short, not-too-personal conversations and I was able to enjoy it for what it was. I cannot expect every gathering to fulfill my need to be known. 
I am continuing to learn that I can only be completely fulfilled and known in Jesus. I am working on being transparent with Jesus in meaningful time with him daily (because he already knows it all, why bother trying to cover anything up). I do believe that a large part of my struggle has been in trying to get people to meet a need only Jesus can fill.

I know the struggle is not over, but I have hope and confidence that I will be victorious in Jesus. I recognize the truth in Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” I have believed the enemy’s lies but have recently recognized them as being lies and have spoken truth to myself in these areas to refute the lies. The enemy is hard at work but I am becoming wise to his schemes and fighting back through prayer and God’s word. Sunday’s sermon at church had a quote from John Piper about being “more than a conqueror” (Romans 8:37) meaning that not only do we defeat our enemy (as conquerors do), but our enemy actually serves and helps us. So our weaknesses and mistakes can be redeemed and become beneficial. I know the truth in that and was appreciative of the reminder.

I have struggled throughout the past few years but am seeing some hope and purpose in it. I know I have not always been wise or grace-filled in how I have handled everything but I know that I am covered by grace and pray for forgiveness from anyone I have hurt during this process. I am as flawed and fumbling as the next person. I pray that others would see the hope and God’s faithfulness in my story. God has the power to redeem any and every circumstance and story.

Determining My Worth

  As a type A person, I am all about getting things done. I constantly have a to-do list I’m working toward crossing off. I feel like I’m being productive and wise with my time if I am doing something. However, I have been learning that the enemy likes to use busyness to keep us from being effective in loving and serving others. We think we’re doing good things, but I often find that if my focus is on my to-do list then I am not making time to connect or interact with others. At the end of the day I may have cleaned the house, but I didn’t have any meaningful relational interactions with friends and family.

  I have been trying to scale back on activities so that there is plenty of room for spontaneity or interruptions of my plans. I want to be able to answer a phone call or text from a friend or sit down and read a book or play Legos with my kids without it feeling like a disruption to my day. It’s certainly not a poor use of my time even though the enemy tries to make me think so.

  This morning while journaling during my quiet time with God, the following statement emerged:

Your worth is not determined by your performance.

It struck me and made me pause in my journaling time. This is a truth I struggle with often. I know in my mind that I am loved regardless of my behavior. I am loved just because I am a creation of God’s. But often times my behavior does not reflect this truth. I can get caught up in trying to do things to please God, or perhaps be worthy of his love and grace. I don’t need to. I cannot be loved more or less than I already am. I can stop trying to impress God or other people.

  I know some of my efforts are to prove to others that I am a good Christian, whatever that means. It feels like there’s an invisible bar I’m trying to reach in order to win the favor of others. This is impossible and yet another trap of the devil. He wants me to be endlessly striving, wearing myself out trying to achieve something that is unachievable. Nothing I do can every make every single person like me or approve of me. There will always be people who choose to judge me negatively. I cannot control others’ perceptions of me. What I can do is rest in the knowledge that I am already loved and approved by the one who made me and knows me most intimately.

Am I now seeking the approval of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.          

 ~Galatians 1:10 

Verified by MonsterInsights