Identity

Who are you? Who am I? I can’t tell you who you are, only you can tell yourself that. I can only tell you who I am. I am saved by the grace of God. I am a warrior. I am a survivor. I am resilient. I am undefeated. I am fearless. I am bold. I am a daughter. I am a worker. I am a church goer. I have a blog. I care about my family a lot. I am an auntie. I care about my friends a lot. I have two cats. And I have a mental illness called Bipolar 1. There are a lot of other things that define me and the list can go on for days but that is just a synopsis. 


This is how I used to define myself: I am a walking contradiction, I wear my heart on my sleeve, I am wreckless, I am carefree, I love with all my heart, I am too nice, I am too giving.

Self-talk is important. It is super critical. How do you view yourself and how do you define yourself? What do you say to yourself and what do you say about yourself? Are you always talking bad about yourself? Are you always bringing yourself down and bringing shame to yourself? 

You are your biggest critic. It’s not other people. It starts with you. You need to start having a positive impact on yourself. You need to start looking in the mirror and loving on yourself. 

I went to the Luke Bryan concert on Sunday and I was so tired yesterday so I texted my mom and I said “mom I am so tired.” She said to me, “Mel you are not tired it is all in your mind.” I responded back “hahahaha” with a bunch of laughing emojis with tears running down its face. She responded “See at least you are laughing.” From that moment on I mustered up all the strength I had to make it through the day because I changed the way I talked to myself. I laughed about how tired I was instead of being miserable about how tired I was. 

What do you say to yourself when you talk to yourself? Do you speak life or do you speak death? It is so easy to fall into a negative mindset and speak down to yourself. It is so easy to discourage yourself about all the bad things that are happening in your life and all the mistakes you are making. 

Why not look at the mistakes as lessons and move forward from that point? Why not forgive yourself and give yourself grace and change your life around and let this be a turning point towards victory? 

Living with a mental illness is hard, and my good, harsh reality check friend reminded me yesterday of the deep dark place I had once been in. So I was there too. And if there is hope for me there is hope for you. And if you are struggling with thinking you’re not good enough or worthy enough because of your past then adapt a new identity and give your life to Christ and become a new person because he forgives you. 

The point of this is to start changing the way you think about yourself and it will start changing your life.