020: Put Your Thoughts on Trial to Distinguish What’s True
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Show Notes
Struggle with negative thoughts, making assumptions or self-criticism? In this episode, Lauren provides a 3-step process for extinguishing the negative voices in your head and distinguishing what's true. Catch your lies and negative thoughts before they lead you down a rabbit hole that affects your mood, your words, your actions and your emotions.
Key points:
3 Steps to Know and Live by the Truth
STEP 1: Take captive the negative
Catch the lies and negative thoughts before they start affecting your mood, your actions or your words.
2 Corinthians 10:5 — “Take captive every thought and make them obedient to Christ.”
Types of thoughts we entertain:
If-Then
• If my friend cancels on our girl’s night… then it must mean she doesn’t care about me
• If my house is a mess… then my life must be a mess.
• If I ask someone for help… then I must be weak
If Only…
• If only I was more like...
• If only I was better at...
• If only I hadn’t done...
• If only I had more...
Because
• I’m not worthy of God’s blessings because I’m not consistent in my walk with Him
• I’m not qualified for a leadership role because I’ve made mistakes in this area before
• I am a failure of a wife because I snapped at my husband tonight
What if...
• What if someone were to break into our house while I’m home alone with the kids?
• What if something happens to my husband or my kids?
• What if I get sick and can’t take care of my family?
• What if the economy crashes and we lose our jobs and our house?
STEP 2: Put your thoughts on trial
Need to distinguish between what’s true and what’s false
There are three key ingredients to a trial:
1. The defendant is innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.
2. All witnesses vow to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is critical, since just pieces of the truth can skew your perception.
3. There must be enough evidence for all jurors to come to a unified conclusion.
These thoughts are innocent until proven guilty… or false until proven as truth.
Here are 10 ways to investigate your thoughts and discover the truth:
1. Do a fact check
2. Assume the best
3. Look for the positive
4. Turn to the Bible
5. Pray
6. Turn to the other person
7. Turn to wise counsel
8. Do a background check
9. Look at the big picture
10. Check your perspective
Romans 12:2 says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
STEP 3: You need a fact to act
If your investigation was inconclusive, you have to let it go.
If you found the truth, live in that (even if it means fessing up to your mistakes)
Play the “what if” for the future. What if I reach out to my friend to see if she’s OK? What if I make an effort to view things through other’s perspectives from the start? What if I assume the best?
Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.”
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Transcript
Hello, everybody. I am hoping that today's episode sounds okay because I have no floors in my office. It's just cement. And we took most of the furniture out. So it might be a little echoey in here today. (Prepping for our new floor install)
But today's episode I am a repurposing a talk that I gave to my MOPS group — that's mothers of preschoolers — several years ago. And the content and it just went so well with the content from last week's episode of taking every thought captive and making sure that your thoughts and your feelings aren't leading you astray.
My talk was on extinguishing the negative voices in your head. I also have a handout to go along with this, which you can find at anchoreddecisions.com/20 with the show notes from today's episode. So go download that freebie, that handout to help just kind of keep you on track with keeping your thoughts aligned with what's truth and what's right and what's godly. And that handout will just give you some resources, help you to keep it top of mind as you conquer these mental battles.
I know last week's episode was impactful for people. The audio itself was a little off, with the interview was a little choppy, but I'm so glad that I aired it anyway, because right away, as soon as the episode aired, I had a friend who I haven't seen her talk to and maybe over a year, but she texted me that, "Hey, this episode was really helpful." So for those of you who listen, and if you hear something impactful, let me know, because A, it gives me motivation to keep pressing on with the podcast, because it can seem like I'm just talking to myself sometimes, because I technically am when I'm recording this, it's just me in the room. So, give me some feedback. Let me know when you listen to an episode that you like, how it's helped you. And that also helps me know how to shape my content so that I'm finding guests and picking topics that relate and that help and encourage you in your faith, in your purpose, in your decision-making. So, with that said, let's jump into this week's episode.
Intro: Welcome to the Anchored Decision Show. I'm your host, Lauren Black, the world's biggest overthinker turned decision coach, all by the grace of God. Now I'm on a mission to help you make easier decisions, discover God's will, and live with purpose. Tune in weekly to hear real life decision stories, expert insights, and faith based strategies to help you navigate your decisions with confidence. So ditch your pros and cons list and learn to make better decisions without asking your mom or losing another night of sleep. Let's go.
When I first launched my first business, which is graphic design — my business is called Legacy Loft — I flew off to Arizona for a conference that had about 75 women that were my competitors, potential clients, and most of them were a lot more established and very much more well-known than me since I had just broken into the online space.
Now I knew that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I wanted to dress to impress. So I headed to the outlet mall. And I found this adorable outfit for the opening party. It was this sparkly sequined skirt from the sale rack at the Express Outlet. Um, I found a cute tank top to match and a trendy necklace from Francescas, a little more boutique style store. And I thought that I looked pretty awesome.
Now throughout the night, people kept asking, oh, is your skirt from Express? So obviously a lot of people had seen it before, but one comment in particular took my confidence level and completely plummeted it. So a woman walked up to me and asked if my skirt was from Express last year. And I immediately thought, "no, my skirt isn't from last year, I just bought it." And then I realized, wait, it was from the outlets on the sale rack. So in my head, it was a total Mean Girls moment, all these people who had been commenting on my skirt, they probably all knew it was from last season. And I could just see the scene playing out. "Oh my gosh. I love your skirt. Where did you get it?" "That's the ugliest skirt I've ever seen. So last season."
So my strategy of trying to dress to impress had the opposite effect and I felt I was ruined. That one comment caused my self-confidence to drop. And instead of focusing on getting to know people that night, which was the purpose of me going to this conference, I was suddenly living in fear that everyone was judging me for my last season clothes.
But the actual problem here wasn't the comment. It was what I believed about the comment. I believed I was being judged. I believed it would negatively impact my business. I believed people would view me as a fraud. And your beliefs affect your actions and your actions determine your results. So after this girl's comment, I tried my best to avoid her the rest of the conference only to find out she was one of the speakers and she was a big deal.
And she had purposely come up to me, knew who I was and wanted to chat, but I forget what happened. And we, we got distracted. Um, I think she went to get a drink or something. And then I avoided her. So, avoiding her not only impacted my relationship with her, but anyone else she could have introduced me to and who knows how these people could have impacted my business. So I went from putting myself out there to sticking to my comfort zone with the few people I already knew. I lived in embarrassment that night instead of being confident. I concentrated on myself instead of those around me.
Then later I dwelled in all the what ifs and the, if only's. So what if I hadn't tried to avoid her? What kind of impact could she have had on my business? What other relationships did I miss out on because I was feeling embarrassed, judged. We often confuse our beliefs as truth, and it radiates out to those around us. So one, Debbie Downer can kill the mood of an entire room. One snap at your kids or your husband can turn on their defenses. One comment spoken out of spite and often misunderstanding can break a friendship.
These voices in our head, these lies that we render is truth, keep us trapped in guilt, bitterness, anxiety, stress, fear. They lead us down rabbit holes of negativity. It's like when you Google symptoms and 12 clicks later, you're convinced that you have an incurable disease and only three months left to live. Dwelling on your negative thoughts is just as destructive. You need to learn how to break free from them. So, how do you do this? You need to know and live by the truth. Jesus said in John 8:31 and 32, "if you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." So say that last part with me, whether you're driving in the car or walking down the street, doing some dishes, the truth will set you free. I'm going to say that one more time, just to make sure it sinks in: the truth will set you free.
So how do we know and live by the truth? I have three steps for you that can make this easier. Now as I go through these steps, these suggestions for things you can do to break free from the lies. I want you to take these and try them. Put it into practice. There's no point listening to a podcast. If you're not going to take action. So the lies you struggle with are probably very different than mine and different from those around you. Our brains all work different, so the solution will be different for all of us. Some of, you may need to just tell yourself "this is a lie" and you're able to move on. But more often than not, it's a bigger battle than that. So see what works for you and cling to that.
So step one, take captive the negative thought. Have you ever bottled up your frustrations without telling the other person you were frustrated? But then you kept thinking about it and thinking about it and coming up with exactly what you were going to say the next time the situation comes up or the next time you see that person. And what usually happens when the situation arises again? Do you gently sit that person down, talk things out. Uh, not usually. Most people let the pressure build up inside until they just have an explosion of word vomit all over the other person.
And you usually say things that are over-exaggerated or you bring up situations that happened like five years ago, just to prove your point. And then the other person's bewildered like "wow. Did not see that coming. All I asked is if you unloaded the dishwasher, I just needed a clean cup".
Okay. Maybe that's just me that like bottles up the anger and then explodes. That's my anagram nine personality in the anger triad that I just don't express when I'm angry until it's like boom an explosion, usually in the middle of my cycle. But anyway, so you need to learn to catch the lies and negative thoughts before they can lead you down these rabbit holes before they start affecting your mood, your actions, or your words before they can negatively impact your life and those around you. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says to "take captive every thought and make them obedient to Christ."
This goes back to last week's episode, where we dove into this more of how to actually take those thoughts captive. But my take on it is to take captive means to trap it, keep it locked up, even against its will. But you must know what you're looking for in order to trap it. So one of our problems is we let these thoughts snowball and by the time we recognize that our thoughts are in trouble, it's too late to stop it. So I've realized after talking with some people around me, that all of our rabbit holes are just so different. All of the lies we believe are so different. So perhaps you've never gone down the fear of judgment rabbit hole like I was in, in my opening story.
Maybe your thoughts look like one of these: maybe it's an "if then". If my friend cancels on our girls' night, then it must mean she doesn't care about me. If my house is a mess, then it must mean that my life is a mess. If I ask someone for help, then I must be weak.
Maybe you struggle with the, "if onlys." If only I was more like so-and-so. If only I was better at this. If only I hadn't done that. If only I had more of this.
Or there's "because." I'm not worthy of God's blessings because I'm not consistent in my walk with him. I'm not qualified for a leadership role because I've made mistakes in this area before. I'm a failure of a wife because I snapped at my husband tonight.
And then there's "what ifs." What if someone were to break in our house while I'm home alone with the kids? What if something happens to my husband or kids? What if I get sick and can't take care of my family? What if the economy crashes and we lose our jobs and our house? And usually these, what if scenarios lead from worse to worse, to worse until it's complete dooms day? And so many times we make these elaborate scenes in our head as if they've actually happened, when they haven't. So I want you to take a moment, if you're listening to this somewhere where you can pause. And you've got a journal with you, then write down some of these thoughts that have been living in your head recently. And don't write down things you've already worked through, but try to take captive or call out the negative thoughts, anything that might not be fully true.
So now step two in this process. Is to put your thoughts on trial. The problem about lies is that they're disguised as truth. We're often so far buried in our thoughts that we literally can't distinguish between what's true and what's false. We believe things are true, even though they're often not.
Throughout my first pregnancy, I really struggled with feeling like a failure in many areas of my life. I didn't feel like a good enough wife, friend, sister, aunt, daughter, business owner. I felt guilty about spending so much time on my business, trying to get it in a good position before having a baby. And I had these horrible feelings of inadequacy. And honestly, couldn't tell if they were justified or if I was just being too hard on myself. A friend of mine told me to cling to what God had to say about me. So I looked at Proverbs 31, which, if you know that proverb, it's all this perfect wife, mom, business woman. And I knew I didn't live up to those standards.
So what do you do in this situation? If you want to extinguish the lies, you have to distinguish what's true. You have to distinguish to extinguish. Say that one out loud, you have to distinguish to extinguish. So for thousands of years, people have used the court system and judges to determine what the truth is. So here are some key ingredients to a trial.
One: the defendant is innocent until proven guilty. It's not the other way round, at least not in our courts.
Two: all witnesses vow to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And this is critical since just pieces of the truth can skew your perception.
And three: there must be enough evidence for all jurors to come to a unified conclusion.
So without enough evidence and the whole truth, trials either come to false conclusions and they lock up the wrong person or give an unfair sentence to someone, or they don't have enough evidence to convict.
So take a look at the thoughts that you had written down. And we are going to put them on trial. These thoughts are innocent until proven guilty or false until proven as truth. So, if you believe your friend is angry at you, you're now going to deem her as not angry at you until you have solid evidence. So how do we get evidence? Well, take some investigation.
So here are some 10 ways to investigate. And I suggest cross-referencing more than one of these, so you can get the whole truth.
Investigation number one: fact check. If you're afraid you're going to just drop dead at your house out of the blue. I think about the reality around that. And you might think that that's an over-exaggeration, but I knew someone who had a set of twin babies at home and she was so scared to leave her house because she thought she might just like, have an aneurysm and die somewhere while she's got these babies in the car with her or something. So she didn't want to leave her house out of that fear. And that was a legit fear that she had. But, it's not a justifiable fear. Cause what are the chances of that actually happening? Super super low. So don't Google these things when you have these thoughts, since we know where that leads, but think about people you know. How many healthy young people just drop dead out of nowhere? In my 36 years of life, I've heard of one friend of a friend who had a brain aneurysm and dropped dead. That's one in hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. The probability is so low that you can't conclude it'll happen to you. You can't live in that fear. If you came close to a head-on collision, but you didn't actually get in the car accident, you might keep running that scene through your head as if you did crash or as if your loved one didn't make it.
But what are the facts? The facts are that you are safe. And if you had gotten into the accident, you do not know for a fact how the cars would have ended up hitting and if there would have been any injuries. If you don't have hard evidence, you have to release it as unproven, untrue.
Number two: assume the best, not the worst. I mean, why do we always jump to the worst conclusions and make it all about us? If someone's friend canceled on their girls' night, they don't start thinking, "wow. I bet she had a hard day today." No, we jump to, "oh, she doesn't like me anymore." Don't take it personal or assume it has anything to do with you. Perhaps she's PMSing and is an emotional wreck right now and doesn't want to ruin your mood with hers. Perhaps she's just plain old exhausted because she hasn't slept in a week. Perhaps, she just found out bad news about a family member and isn't in the mood to talk. Perhaps she had an awesome business opportunity this week and is so excited to work on it that she's canceling all plans to get started. You really just never know what's going on, so give the benefit of the doubt. I actually have a side note, true story on this. My sister walks the bridge every week with a friend. And one week her friend texted "can't walk" and that's all she said. And my sister said, she started thinking of all these scenarios of like, did I say something wrong and she doesn't want to walk with me? She was playing through all these things in her head. And then it ends out that the girl booked a last minute trip and they had an hour to pack and get out the door for their whole family and she just didn't have time to give any other explanation rather than "can't walk". And so, yeah, that was a completely nothing to do with my sister, no hurt feelings. She couldn't give a longer explanation and that's all it was. So always assume the best, not the worst.
All right. Number three: similarly to the last one is look for the positives. So, if you are feeling inadequate or down on yourself, make a list of what your strengths are. What do you have knowledge of? What are you good at? Start filling your head with positive self-talk rather than negative. And I promise this will make an impact.
Number four: turn to the Bible. What does God's word have to say about this topic about you or about your situation? Now not everything will be in here directly, but seek it out anyway. If you're struggling with feeling unworthy, unloved, undeserving, remember that God loves you more than you can even fathom and that as a Christian, you're deserving and deemed worthy, not by anything you have done or that you haven't done, but because Christ is within you.
Number five: turn to prayer. Ask the holy spirit to reveal to you the truth. The closer you are to God, so the more time you're reading your Bible, attending church and fellowship with other believers, spending time in prayer, the easier it will be to distinguish God's truth from the lies. And we go back to that Romans 12:2 verse that I love so much, "do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is his good pleasing and perfect will." So test and approve it. That's like a trial. That's what we're doing. We're putting our thoughts on trial. He doesn't say, then God will tell you what his will is, but you. But you need to be following him closely in order to hear from him.
Number six: if the situation involves another person, turn to them. If you think someone's mad at you ask them. If you think you've offended someone, ask them. I can't guarantee that they'll respond or respond with the truth, but it often provides the clarity you need, or at least the peace of mind, knowing that you tried. Just don't turn to them when you're upset with that pressure built up inside. I once thought a friend didn't care to continue with our friendship, because she didn't respond to my text message only to find out she had responded to my texts and I had missed it. So now I was the one who hadn't responded for three weeks. So, it never hurts to just go ask.
I even had recently a situation where there was an issue that had come up with an old childhood friend of mine and this thing happened like 10 years ago. And I just needed some peace about it because I had been thinking about it recently and just thought like, was there something I had done? Was it this, was it that, and I just had this turmoil in my spirit that I lived with for 10 years with this person and kind of had been mad at them for a while. And then I've realized, I just need to clear the air on this and find out what actually happened. So we got together and I brought it up and I'm like, I know this is silly because it happened 10 years ago, but I just need to know. I just need to have peace and whether it was me in the wrong or whether it was them in the wrong, I needed to know. And it ended up, it was all in my head, me interpreting the situation completely incorrect. And so now I was able to let go of all the negative thoughts around that situation and that friendship, just because I asked. And I should have done that when it happened. And I think I'm a stronger person now. Back then, I was afraid to ask. Afraid to face the truth if it was something I had done. And afraid to really know. And honestly, if I had from the start asked, I would have found out that this person was really struggling with her job. And it was all time consuming. It was overwhelming. And I didn't realize the extent of that and thought she was just ignoring me and not wanting to hang out with me because of either something I had done or just not wanting to be friends. And I could've been there to help her and support her instead of judging her and being offended. So go talk to the person.
All right. Number seven: turn to someone wise that can give an unbiased opinion. Now, this is not an excuse or reason to go gossip about the situation, so be careful of who you choose to talk to and make sure that they get a full picture. Maybe it's someone who's even had experience in this situation before so that they can give good wisdom. But turning to a wise counselor can be a good route. I know at one point when I was struggling with something and I asked a friend her outside opinion, I made sure to ask for truth, first of all, because you don't want someone to just give you a rose colored answer, trying to make you feel better about yourself. But she really helped me work through whether or not I was actually in the wrong, or if I was just being hard on myself. So. Go to someone that you can trust to give you truth as well.
Number eight: do a background check. So if you are feeling like a failure or not good enough. Look at your background. Have you always been a failure? Have you never done something good enough? And think about whose standard are you living up to. Yours, God's, someone else's, the worlds? Surely there are situations where you've succeeded, where you've done good. So go back and stand firm in those and help you see clearly whether or not you are living in truth.
Number nine: what is the bigger picture? Look at the whole truth of the situation. So perhaps you're a business owner and someone asks for a refund. This means you're missing out on money, right? Your initial instinct says that if you have to hand money back, you're missing out on the sale. But what if that product or service was a wrong fit for that customer at this time, but because of your great customer service, it might lead them to spread the news about you to 10 friends who are a good fit. Now that refund led to more money. And maybe that person will come back when they're ready and buy your premium package or spend even more than they did the first time. So sure it's true that that business owner was missing out on money for that particular sale in that particular moment. And they might feel that their business is failing, that this customer hates them, that they're going to get bad reviews that will ruin their business, and they're never going to be successful. That's often where our brain leads us. But the whole truth is they don't know why that person was asking for a refund. Even if the person gave a reason they could have been lying just to not hurt your feelings. So you may never actually know the whole truth. And without evidence, it's hard to make a solid conclusion.
And finally, number 10: check your perspective. Everyone has a completely different perspective that shapes their reality. Your perspective is shaped by your upbringing, your surroundings, your beliefs, your way of thinking, sometimes even your friends or family.
Let me give you an example. So let's say there are two girls going out shopping for shoes. They need a new pair of sneakers. One girl grew up in a family where they didn't have much money. They always had to look for bargains or secondhand. They wore a lot of hand-me-downs. And so for this girl, she's looking at this pair of Nike shoes that are $100. And to her, that just seems ridiculous, over the top. She cannot picture herself buying a $100 pair of shoes. It seems bougie, and she's honestly judging those who do wear a pair of shoes that's a hundred dollars. Now on the other hand, there could be a girl who grew up with two hot shot lawyer parents. They have a ton of money. They could buy whatever they want. She's looking at this hundred dollar pair of shoes saying, wow, what a bargain. Most of my shoes are $150, $200 custom fit or whatever. And so for her that a hundred dollar pair of shoes is something she might even dismiss as like, "you know what, I don't think it's going to be as good as the pairs I normally wear."
And she might judge that as like, " Eh That's for just common people". So think about your perspective. So when you are looking at these situations where there's tension between you and another person. Or you're having these thoughts that are dominating your mind, start to think about where is this coming from? What's my perspective on this. Is it a tainted perspective or is it something you should actually be considering? And sometimes you'll find that your reality as a child could be different than your reality now. Might be the type of thing that's like, "okay, I've worked really hard, I have a lot of savings. This a hundred dollar pair of shoes that's going to help me to the gym and work out more comfortably and without hurting myself. That is an investment that is worth it. Do that reality check with your perspective.
So if we go back to my story of the, " last year's Express skirt", my perspective was that I wanted to look cute without spending hundreds of dollars on designer fashion. Now, if we go back to that person who had the hot shot lawyer parents that could afford anything, and maybe she's a fashionista who knows all the latest trends, styles, brands, and they could call out an authentic Louis Vuitton from a knockoff from across the room, she probably would have shown up to the conference wearing only the latest and greatest designer clothes.
So when I was called out for my last season outfit at my conference, I just assumed that the girl who called me out was in the category of the fashionista, rich girl, who knows every brand and what's last season and what's not, like Elle Woods style. I assumed she was judging me and looking down on me because she was fashion savvy and that she could afford to stay on trend. Though thinking back, someone who's that fashion savvy wouldn't be shopping at Express. But anyway, you have to think about what her perspective is.
Perhaps the only reason she knew my skirt was from Express last year was because she had maybe tried that skirt on last year desperately wanted it, but couldn't justify spending full price on a skirt she'd only wear once to some special event. And then seeing it on me, made her regret not buying it a year ago. So I will never know the facts. And without the facts, I cannot deem it as truth.
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So let's look at another situation and put it on trial. I want you to help be the judge.
I'm going to pick on my sister, Stephanie real quick to make up for all the years that she picked on me as a kid.
One night when my sister was a newer mom, she texted me that she was really upset and just wanted to go for a walk around our neighborhood. We live down the street from each other, so we met up and we started going for a walk, so she could just kind of vent. And she told me about how she just met this new mom who had a baby around her baby's age. They met up at the park and they had a really nice time. So she messaged the mom on Facebook to set up another time to get together again. And she saw that the other mom had read the message, but a few days had gone by and the mom didn't respond. So Stephanie's rabbit hole led her down a bunch of thoughts. "This girl must not like me. I thought we'd really connected, but I guess she thought otherwise, could it have been something I said, or I did. I picked up her crime baby while she was in the bathroom. Maybe that upset her. Stephanie shared with me a few of the things she had said to the other mom, and none of those sounded offensive to me. So we had to look at what are the facts. Facts are Stephanie sent her message and she hadn't responded in a few days, even though the message was marked as read. That's it. So number two, assume the best, not the worst. The girl just probably forgot. She's a busy new mom, perhaps she's waiting to hear from her husband of what their schedule is like the next week, or maybe she started to respond and got distracted by a crying baby. And to just forgot. Number three, look for the positives. Positives are, if this girl doesn't want to be friends, then look at all the friends that you do have. Number four, turn to the Bible. So think of some verses that would be uplifting in this situation, maybe verses about friendship or verses about Having God as our hope and not people. Number five, turn to prayer. So she could ask for clarity for the situation and to see the truth. She could pray for the other person because maybe the other person is so sleep deprived that she keeps forgetting to respond. Or maybe she's suffering from postpartum depression and isn't up for socializing. So you could pray that God would mend any wounds in that person's life. Number six turn to the other person. So perhaps this should have been the first step and this situation for Stephanie, but a simple text instead of a Facebook message or going back to that Facebook thread and just checking in, seeing if anything she had said may have triggered a negative response or just because it's a new friendship maybe she just needed a nudge because she forgot ,about the text. And if you text her and say, "Hey, just wanted to check in." She'd say, "oh, I'm so sorry. I forgot. I meant to respond. And then the baby started crying". Number seven turn to someone wise. So Stephanie actually did this, not like I'm the most wise person, but Stephanie came to me upset and spilled what was going on.
And I was able to give an outside perspective. Stephanie had all these thoughts going down in her head, all these rabbit holes. And what I actually said to Stephanie first was "how old are you?" She said, "30." Yes, this was several years ago. I'm like, "you're acting like a 14 year old girl. Nothing you said or did sounds offensive to me."
And I know that what I just told her about acting like a 14 year old might be a little offensive to her, but it kind of opened her mind to like, "oh, right. Like I'm a grown adult. With a baby. I don't need to be acting like middle school drama of, 'oh, she didn't respond to me'". So. Number eight, do a background check. So in the past, have you ever had friends who took a few days to respond? Or have you ever forgotten to respond to someone yourself? It happens. So keep that in mind for this.
Number nine. What's the bigger picture? If this girl did take offense to one of these things, you'd probably be walking on eggshells every time you're with her. And that's not the type of friend you really want to hang out with. So you're better off finding someone else to be friends with.
And number 10, check your perspective.
You might like to respond to people as soon as they message you, but some people want to check their calendars first or talk to their husbands about their schedule. Some people don't have their phones on them a lot, or don't check social media. So you might be approaching the situation from a completely different standpoint.
So after going through the trial and based on what the evidence we have, what to you as the jury conclude. I'm sure most of you will think that this girl was likely not offended and you should probably just reach back out. So, if you ask Stephanie what happened in the end. It was exactly that. She had just forgotten. It's a new mom. She actually was suffering from a little bit of postpartum depression, so she probably needed someone to continue reaching out to her and checking in on her. And now these two are friends. They've been friends for this story happened like nine years ago. So they've been friends for nine years now, and no hurt feelings whatsoever on either party.
So that's why it's important to take these negative thoughts, put them on trial, look at the evidence. Is it enough to make a solid conclusion?
This leads us to the final step in extinguishing the negative voices. Step three is you need a fact to act. This part is tricky and could be a whole lesson on its own.
But if your investigation was inconclusive, you have to let it go. If you cross-referenced and found the truth, then live in that. Sometimes the truth hurts, but it's better to know the truth and let that affect your words and actions than to react out of an assumption. If you conclude that you were in the wrong, then fess up to it. Go apologize. Ask for forgiveness. Make amends. This way, you will clear your conscious and you can have some peace of mind.
So rather than playing the, "what if" game about the past: what if I'd never said that? What if I'd done things differently? What if I treated her better? Play the "what if" for the future: what if I reach out to my friend and see if she's okay. What if I make an effort to view things through others' perspectives from the start.
So to wrap things up, let's go back over the three steps for a minute. One take captive the negative. So learn to recognize the negative thoughts before they affect your actions. Number two distinguished to extinguish. Put your thoughts on trial and look for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And if there's not enough evidence, you cannot make a conclusion. Number three, you need a fact to act. Only take action when you know the full reality of the situation. If you don't have evidence, let it go or keep digging.
And finally, I'm going to end with one of my favorite verses, if you don't remember any of the steps above, remember this. It's Philippians 4:8 — finally brothers and sisters, whatever's true, whatever's noble, whatever's right, whatever's pure, whatever's lovely, whatever is admirable. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.
So, thank you so much for listening. I hope that you enjoy those. Don't forget that you can get my free download that goes along with this, so you could have some of these verses, that you can have these steps written out in front of you. If you need to put your thoughts on trial and you can find that at anchoreddecisions.com/20. Wow. Can't believe we're at 20 episodes in! I am just so thankful for everyone who is a loyal listener. So, yeah. Let me know what you think.
Send me a message on Facebook or Instagram or text me or send me an email. I don't care. I just want to be able to hear from you.
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