3 steps for exposing lies that diminish our worthiness

By Shelley Martinkus
Redemptive Living for Women

Re-posted by permission from Redemptive Living for Women

I believe that the antithesis of worthiness is insecurity.

And for any of you that have followed my blog, you know insecurity has been a battle for me. It wasn’t that long ago that I said enough is enough and I hired a life coach to help me dig into this insecurity stuff to see if I could get to the bottom of it. I have the feeling I’m at the beginning of this insecurity-to-worthiness journey. It’s complicated for sure and it’s going to be a process.

Here are a couple of things that I’m learning –

Repeating to myself that I’m worthy isn’t enough. I’m finding I need to identify the lies I’m repeating to myself and then work forward and backward from there.

By backward, I mean where did those lies come from? What happened in my past that solidified those lies (in other words, what are the wounds I’ve endured that embedded those lies in my head)?

By forward, I mean how am I isolating myself and not showing the real me based on the lies I believe about myself? How can I replace those negative beliefs (or lies) with empowering beliefs in order to change the script in my head?

Clearly, this is a process. It isn’t something I’m going to work through quickly.

What I started doing was simply reserving space in my journal to start writing down the lies that I hear in my head about myself. It’s been sobering to see them in black and white.

For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I had just finished with a group call and I felt hungry. And probably more than physical hunger, I also felt emotionally drained. I was searching for something to replenish me.

I grabbed a box of crackers from the kitchen and stood at the bar and started eating them. As I was putting one cracker in my mouth after another, I heard myself say, “I’m a pig.” How many times have I heard that voice – that I’m a pig? Probably hundreds. And guess what – I haven’t even been aware of it!

That day in the kitchen, everything changed. Because I heard the voice loud and I ran to my journal and wrote it down. “I’m a pig.” As I looked at my (at that time) short list of words, I was overcome with how I’ve treated myself. No wonder I am struggling so much with insecurity!

I then started to wonder – where did that lie come from? At what point in my life did I start to hear that lie? How long have I been carrying it around, allowing it to weigh me down?

The first memory that came to mind was of me and one of my brothers playing ping-pong in our garage when I was a youngster. I was a pretty darn good ping-pong player (thank you very much!) and I remember he was becoming frustrated with my apparent expertise in the game (I’m being sarcastic, ladies). He was keeping score of our game on the wall of the garage and at one point, he walked over to my name scribbled on the garage wall and wrote next to my name “fatty”.

Other memories came to mind as well – insinuations that I needed to lose a few here and there.

I’m learning it doesn’t have to be some excruciatingly painful memory. It could be, but it could also be a lot of little hurts through the years that develop these internal lies.

If you are interested in joining me on this journey of becoming a woman living life from a place of worthiness, I encourage you to do a couple of things:

Start keeping a running list of the lies you believe in your head (see mine above if you need a little inspiration… and yes, this turns my stomach to see my lies in black and white and then to share them here).
Start asking God to show you where these lies came from.

God loves us so much. He wants to expose these lies we believe and show us where they came. Ask His help.

This is deep, cleansing work. Let’s do this together!