1025. IJLMI Into: Narratives

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[00:00:58] Gutes für Alle. Gutes für Alle. At some point, no matter what your story is, you have to figure out how to not let it define the rest of your life. It already took up too much time. It already took up too much space. It already took your childhood. Don't let it take your adulthood. Don't let it take your children's childhood. Because of things you didn't work through from your childhood. You've got to work on a narrative, that works in your favor.

[00:01:28] So have a great day. What's up everybody? It's your girl, Lish Speaks. And welcome back to another episode of my podcast,

[00:01:51] I'll Just Let Myself In. This is the podcast so we don't wait for an imaginary permission slip or some seat at an imaginary table. We let ourselves into our God-given doors. Listen now, before we get started, a little commotion for the haircut. Okay? We have a new girl, a new character unlocked. Actually, she's not new. If you've known me for more than about 10 years, you've seen this look on me before. I was a short hair girl.

[00:02:17] I was a girlie for about a decade. And recently, I just told my husband, listen, I'm ready to get back to who I am. We are back in New York for the summer. This is my first New York summer in too long. And so I'm ready to have a good time. I'm with my very best friends. And I will be at their houses and at their pool. You know, the question is, your pool or mine? You know, we rolling this summer.

[00:02:38] And so I was like, you know, I'm really ready to get back to the New York me, to who I really am and decided to cut my hair. So I'm happy about it, having a good time. We're going to take the segment of what I'm stepping in out just so I can, you know, enjoy this view for a second. But let's get into the podcast. It has been so much fun over the last couple of weeks, just talking about different topics, having a few guests hearing there. Let me just say before I go any further, I'm so grateful for you all.

[00:03:08] So tuning in, the DMs that I get, the messages that I get, some of the comments that I get on social media really do propel me to keep going. So if you've ever had a positive thought about this podcast, if it's ever encouraged or impacted you in any way, please don't be too shy to tell me. Contrary to popular belief, I need to hear it, right? It helps me to keep going. And also tell a friend, go ahead and spread the message. Please send this. Don't be stingy. Send this to your people.

[00:03:36] Well, if you listen to us on Holy Culture Radio on Sirius XM, channel 140 at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Monday nights, we thank you so much for listening there. If you watch us on Holy Culture's YouTube, we thank you for watching there. And if you're watching this on my YouTube, thank you so much for watching here. Please go ahead and make sure that you are subscribed. I do all types of content and I would hate for you to miss any of it.

[00:03:59] I think it's all pretty encouraging and really in the same vein of this podcast, my heart is always to help us go after the things that God has put on our hearts. Some things we know from young, right? And some things come to us as we age. But if we don't take the steps to walk through the doors that God has for us, we'll never know what we could be.

[00:04:22] And so I'm excited about today's episode because one of the things that is so important to walking through your God-given doors, to becoming who God has for you to be, to realizing your dreams and realizing, you know, the things that you've always wanted is figuring out what could be holding you back. What could be holding you back is almost more important than what's motivating you.

[00:04:50] Because motivation kind of comes and goes, right? Motivation comes and goes. Sometimes you're in the thick of it, you're feeling it, and sometimes you're not. And a lot of times we don't even realize when we are not feeling it or what is causing us to not be locked into our goals, to not feel confident enough to walk through those doors. And so this weekend I had a chance to go to a workshop with my husband.

[00:05:19] And it was a marriage workshop that our church was giving. But some of the things that were talked about at the workshop I feel like can help everyone. And they certainly helped me as an entrepreneur and a creative. And the thing that stood out most to me was the concept of narratives. The narratives that we create, that we tell ourselves, and that we then live out.

[00:05:45] You know, if you are probably above the age of, I would say 13, you probably have some sort of self-narrative and some sort of narrative about the people closest to you. Narratives are stories that we tell ourselves. They are concepts that we believe are true. We can have narratives, obviously, about ourselves, about our parents, about our closest friends.

[00:06:14] If you're married about your spouse, you can even have a narrative about your future, right? And the beautiful thing about narratives is that if they are positive, if they are affirming, they can propel you towards greatness even when your current circumstance looks bleak. But on the other side, if your narratives are self-deprecating, if your narratives are negative,

[00:06:41] even if your current circumstance is excellent, you will not be able to see or take advantage of it. And so today I want to talk a little bit about the narratives that we may have, how you can recognize if something is becoming a narrative, and how you can begin to correct your negative narratives, dismantle them, and turn them into faithful, positive ones.

[00:07:08] You know, I grew up with a very positive view of Black women. I went to a school for gifted and talented children. The principal of that school was a PhD Black woman. My mom went to school while she was raising us. My grandmothers and aunts were very intelligent Black women with opinions, and they were funny.

[00:07:35] And, you know, there wasn't a whole lot of men around, so there wasn't anyone to really stifle the personality or the opinions of said women. And so my narrative about being and being in community with Black women was very positive my entire life. That same upbringing didn't necessarily give me the same narrative about Black men.

[00:08:02] And it didn't give me a negative narrative about Black men. It just didn't give me much of a narrative about Black men. I had my uncles, obviously. My dad was around. But in terms of my everyday who was influencing me and whose character I saw, it was Black women.

[00:08:23] And because of the lack of consistent example of Black men in my home and in my everyday life and interactions, I just developed a different kind of narrative about the need for a Black man in my life and in my home. And that was a narrative that, obviously, being married, I had to work really hard to correct and to rebuild. And so these are things that were happening unbeknownst to me.

[00:08:54] As these narratives were being built, I did not actually know I was building a narrative. I was just living my life. I was just listening to the elder women around me. I was just watching their examples. And I didn't even realize how much these things would come to affect me later. Narratives develop when your brain recognizes a pattern, usually a pattern.

[00:09:22] Sometimes it could be one intense interaction or behavior. But narratives happen when your brain recognizes something, recognizes how you feel about something, and then decides what story you're going to tell yourself, usually to protect yourself from that thing. I got a couple of notes I want to share with you guys about narratives. So according to my Googles, this is a succinct description of how narratives are formed.

[00:09:50] One, they're formed through internalized feedback. So from childhood, we absorb messages from parents, peers, from authority figures, and they can be consistent, positive, or negative feedback that shape our core beliefs, right? Kind of like what I was talking about earlier. Then you have social comparisons, right? We naturally evaluate our traits, successes, and behaviors against those around us.

[00:10:18] Upward comparisons, comparing ourselves to people who we think are doing bigger and better things, can foster negative narratives, while downward comparisons often build positive ones. So if you look at someone who maybe is doing worse than you, you might feel better about yourself. You look at someone who may be doing better than you, you might feel worse about yourself. The next one is memory bias. Our brains are wired to confirm existing beliefs.

[00:10:43] We subconsciously highlight and remember events that validate our current negative. For example, a shy person remembering an awkward moment over and over and over again, but forgetting the successful, joyful conversations that they've had. I've done that. The next one is a fundamental attribution error. When judging others, we tend to attribute their negative behaviors to their character. For example, they're mean, rather than their circumstance. For example, they're having a really hard time.

[00:11:13] While excusing our own negative behaviors based on our situations. We all have done that, right? We're having a really hard time. We're having a rough day and we kind of lose our temper. And we're like, man, I'm not usually that way, but I was having a rough day. And we excuse ourselves and we want other people to give us grace. But if someone else, one time, you know, speaks to us in a way we don't like, we can write that person off. Lastly, cultural and social influences.

[00:11:40] Social media, regular media, cultural norms and societal stereotypes provide templates for how we should view ourselves. And specific groups of people. We're heavily influenced by this. And it causes us to be judgmental. The beautiful thing, and this is something that was spoken about this weekend at our workshop, was that narratives are not permanent.

[00:12:04] Because they're constructed by the brain, they can be reshaped through conscious effort, through new experiences, and through cognitive reframing. And I really love this idea of narratives because, one, like I said just now, they can change, right? So there's a redemptive nature to them. But more importantly than that, I believe, is once you start to realize what you have created a narrative around,

[00:12:34] it's so easy to burst that bubble. Because a lot of times you realize, that's not even true. That's not even how I actually feel. That's not real. And then you can behave in a way that is productive to you coming out of the narrative. It kind of reminds me of, and the men, you won't understand this at all, but for my ladies, which is mostly y'all who watch this.

[00:12:58] You know, when I finally started realizing that around the first week or so of the month, you know, I started to go in a downward spiral emotionally. And there were things happening in my body and that me having a period or a cycle wasn't just for the couple of days that my body was bleeding. I know, men. You can fast forward past this part. Women, lock in with me.

[00:13:26] Your cycle, your period, it is the entire month almost. We always like to joke, we get one good week, right? You get one good week and then the rest of the month, your body is either preparing for or recovering from your cycle. But once you understand that, when you freak out in the grocery store because they don't have your favorite ice cream or whatever you want to get, or when someone says something and you take it so personally that you're sitting in the car crying,

[00:13:56] you can say, oh, wait a minute. This is not real. My period is coming. You can realize, you can check yourself out of that moment a little bit more quickly. And it doesn't mean that the feelings don't come. It just means that you understand why they are there and you can correct them more quickly. That's how I feel about narratives. I feel like once I realized that I had certain narratives about myself,

[00:14:21] when those thoughts and feelings came that supported that narrative rather than supported the truth of who, one, God says I am, but two, who I have proven time and time again that I am, I can check myself very quickly. If you're a person of faith, of course you should examine things through a faith lens, right? You should examine your narratives and how you feel about yourself and others through the lens of the truth of the word.

[00:14:47] But I want to encourage you specifically, my church going folks, not to over spiritualize and then by proxy oversimplify what you are creating with these narratives. You might be living in a narrative and sitting in a narrative that is going to take more than just a good sermon to fix. It's going to take more than just a good time with your spiritual mentor to fix. Some of these narratives, specifically self ones and ones about parents or childhood,

[00:15:17] they have been with you for so long that you cannot tell where the narrative begins and you end. It's all blended into one big thing. And so it's a journey. And it's something that you're going to have to walk out and walk through. Perhaps it's something you might need to take to your therapist. You may need to take it to a mental health professional, someone who can really help you over time walk through what these narratives are,

[00:15:45] where they came from, how they are affecting how you show up currently and how you can begin to correct them. I think about one of my narratives for myself and it has been showing up in my life in such a crazy way. So much so that I didn't even realize it.

[00:16:06] You know, one of the things that I loved about this workshop that my husband and I did this weekend was that it really allowed a lot of time for the couples to speak with each other. It wasn't heavy, you know, you sitting and watching somebody talk, which is what I thought it was going to be. I was like, baby, we about to spend our whole weekend in church. We're going to be there Friday night, Saturday, and then we get to go back Sunday. But it was so good because we spent most of the time answering questions, talking to each other.

[00:16:34] I felt like there was a level of vulnerability that we had with each other that was really, really nice. And, you know, my husband and I are newlyweds. We don't have a whole lot of issues. So we really got to ask deeper questions just about the things that we are learning about each other. And I was so appreciative.

[00:16:52] But what I realized in one of the exercises is that I have a narrative about what I bring to our marriage and a narrative about who I am as a person that doesn't necessarily support who I'm becoming. And it was funny because in those exercises, you know, we were asked about our self-narrative and then pretty much asked what our spouse sees. And mine and my husband's aligned very much.

[00:17:20] You know, I have a narrative about myself that I self-sabotage, that I have a hard time finishing things, that there's something about me that maybe is afraid of success or doesn't truly believe I deserve success or doesn't truly believe I deserve good things. We've talked about this before on the podcast. If you are, you know, if you've been with us for the entire time, I've talked about this before, a worthiness issue.

[00:17:50] And I got to be honest, it has started to show itself right here on this podcast. My husband and I had a very real and vulnerable conversation about the way that I've shown up on social media lately, the way that I've shown up with the podcast and, you know, his concern about me giving up on myself because I'm not necessarily where I felt like I would be by now or where I thought I would be by now.

[00:18:19] And when I tell you this narrative that I have about myself, that if something doesn't happen quickly, it's not going to happen at all, is so prevalent in so many areas of my life. And it's the reason why I give up sometimes on things probably right before they actually work. Because I've told myself that something is wrong with me if I'm not successful quickly.

[00:18:46] You know, it's shown up in my journey to lose weight. I've been trying to lose weight for several years. And, you know, when something is not working quick enough, I often give up on it. Or if the scale is not moving fast enough, I get discouraged. And I've been fighting and fighting and fighting. And listen, right now in this season, things are going well. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Saints, we are happy. We are grateful.

[00:19:10] But every day I have to decide, doesn't matter what the scale says, doesn't matter how you feel, you're going to be a person that finishes this. And I don't know what it is for you. I don't know what your self-narrative is. But I think it's so important that you recognize it so that when it shows up, you and somebody close to you, may not be a husband, might be a best friend, might be a mentor, might be a coach, can say, hey, you're doing it again.

[00:19:40] You're doing it again. Maybe you tell yourself that you're not good enough, not talented enough, don't have enough money. No one likes you. You can't keep friends. Whatever you might be telling yourself about yourself is going to start to play out. And I want you to ask yourself, where did this narrative come from? Where did the narrative come from?

[00:20:00] I know for me, when it comes to success, the narrative I think started when my music career didn't take off the way that I thought it would. I think actually, I can go a little bit further back than that. I think when I was in full-time ministry, and that didn't go the way that I thought it would the first time. I got redeemed and I was in full-time ministry again and it was excellent. But it stung something in me.

[00:20:29] And I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. You guys have heard me talk about this in the early first season of our podcast. But even when I met my husband, you know, I was just kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like, okay. Because all my relationships before him obviously didn't work. And so there's always something in me that's preparing for things to not work out.

[00:20:55] And I've started to see that in the way that I show up here sometimes, in the way that I show up in my endeavors on social media sometimes. You know, you start to look for evidence of what you believe is true. So if you don't believe you're going to be successful, if you don't believe you can do the thing deeply in your heart, if you are struggling, right? And I'm being super real with y'all.

[00:21:16] I am struggling day to day to believe that not only this podcast, but my brand as a public speaker, as a person who gives motivation, can be more than what it is. Because I've seen a slowdown in it that I didn't expect when we moved from Atlanta to New Jersey. And so I've had to really fight.

[00:21:40] I am fighting currently with that negative narrative because if I sit and think about it, my life and my career has given me way more evidence. Even, yes, the music career gave me way more evidence that I have what it takes, more than me having what it takes. That God has placed gifts and talents inside of me to use for his glory in the earth in a way that is beyond me.

[00:22:11] God has shown me that way more than the narrative that I won't be successful. There's so much more evidence that I can and will be successful than evidence that I won't be. And I have to ask myself, why am I focusing on that? Now, we know the brain has a negative bias, right? We know that. So we have to fight really hard against it.

[00:22:36] Asking myself where it came from, where it's showing up most right now and how I can combat it has been super helpful. I want you to ask yourself the same thing. When it comes to your narrative about you, we're going to get to narratives about other people. But when it comes to your narrative about you, your negative self-talk, the things you say when you look in the mirror. I ain't even going to get on negative self-talk about that I struggle with, with my appearance and how I look.

[00:23:04] And it's so funny because, you know, I'm very confident and I believe I'm beautiful and all the things. But like any other person on earth, you have your days where you don't feel pretty, where you don't feel confident. You know, when you wonder how people view you. And it is really a struggle sometimes. I want you to fight through that.

[00:23:24] And I want to encourage you to investigate, look into, talk to somebody about whatever story you may be telling yourself. Because it might be holding you back way more than you think. You might be ruminating on something, overthinking something, thinking about a situation over and over again. Something that you did, something that hurt you. And you don't even realize how much is holding you back from going after new opportunities with new people.

[00:23:52] From going after the things that you really want because you're so afraid. Working on the narratives may not erase the fear, but it'll help you to call it out and deal with it more quickly. I'm telling you, check yourself narratives and see how much you can change the trajectory of where you're going. The second type of narrative you got to check if you want to be healed, if you want to grow, if you want to be an entrepreneur or a creator, if you want to fly. Right?

[00:24:22] What Toni Morrison said, if you want to fly, you got to give up the stuff that's holding you down. This is the second narrative that you have to check. What stories are you telling yourself about others and about people, particularly who you have issues with or who have hurt you?

[00:24:39] You know, this one is tough because it is very difficult to have a positive narrative about someone who may be the reason that you have a negative narrative about yourself. It's so hard. And, you know, I'm a millennial, maybe an elder millennial, depending on who you ask. I'm 38.

[00:25:08] And I talk to so many of my peers, so many people in my age group, that 35 to 45 age group. And when I tell you the amount of negative narratives that we can have about our childhoods and about our parents, it is astronomical. And the hard part about it is we ain't lying.

[00:25:36] You know, like we just ain't lying. You know, some of the stuff that was said and done or not said and not done is real. And you can't change it. You can't go back and change it. You know, if you're blessed and you're lucky, you have parents who are still alive. And if they're humble, you've been able to talk to them and maybe get some apologies and have some reconciliation. But that doesn't erase what happened.

[00:26:02] Maybe you felt like the person who was supposed to provide for and protect you was neglectful. You know, maybe you felt like responsibilities were put on you that you had no business having. Maybe you felt like, you know, you played on a sports team or you did something and your parents never came to a game or never really made it to things that were important to you. These are real things. You know, maybe you were spoken to harshly, yelled at in front of people, embarrassed and disrespected.

[00:26:30] And, you know, these are things that affect how we see ourselves and obviously how we see the people who did or allowed these things. You know, we're not even getting to the dark stuff. You know, maybe you were violated or or mishandled, mistreated, you know, by by by an adult that should have loved and protected you or, you know, by a parent who should have been able to protect you from these things.

[00:26:59] And it just didn't happen. And it colors how you see yourself and how you see them. And, you know, I don't think that we need to oversimplify, as I said earlier, what the narratives can be in this situation. If someone did something to you, they did it. And you have every right to express and to heal in the way that you need to.

[00:27:24] Well, one of the things that I'm committed to when it comes to the mistakes that my parents made, when it comes to things in my childhood that I wish were different or that I experienced one way that they don't remember or that they didn't mean. I am committed to choosing the narrative that helps me best. I'm committed to that. I have moments where I struggle.

[00:27:49] I have moments where I need to maybe need to put somebody on ice because I'm like, I can't handle that right now. And I need to figure out how I feel so that I can so that I can be in the type of relationship with you that I want to be. Right. But for the most part, I really do fight to choose the narrative that serves me. It does not serve me to be angry at my dad or mom for something that happened 30 years ago.

[00:28:15] Doesn't mean that I can't feel hurt about it, express that hurt, whether it's to them or to a therapist. It doesn't mean that something can't trigger it. You know, sometimes something will happen and I will tell my husband, you know, the interaction that I just had with so-and-so or whatever. It triggered the 12-year-old in me. And it made me remember how I felt when this thing happened or how I felt when these things didn't happen.

[00:28:39] There are things that I remember when it comes to my childhood just about the dynamic of my home. Right. We had a dynamic. I was a middle child. My sister's older than me. My brother's younger than me. And we all played a role in how our household operated. The narrative that I had for myself was that I needed to be okay. Because if my sister was having an issue and my brother was having an issue, my parents needed somebody to not worry about.

[00:29:09] And that was going to be me. Nobody ever told me that. I don't even know exactly where that came from. You know, I know that when you grow up in a home where you may have a sibling who is, you know, sickly or goes through things. You may have a sibling who, you know, may have some emotional things going on. And, you know, you just kind of can develop the attitude that, all right, well, I'm just going to be neutral.

[00:29:35] I'm not going to need much from y'all because it don't look like y'all have that much to give. That's what, that's the narrative that developed in my mind. So guess where else that narrative showed up in? Friendships. Where I was always going to be the one meeting the need and okay if my needs didn't get met. You know, if I had married a smaller man, a simpler man, it would show up in my marriage. God knew what I needed so I showed, he blessed me with a man that will not let my needs go unmet.

[00:30:04] You know, but I am that kind of person because of the narrative I told myself about how I needed to be for my parents. And there are times where I want to blame my parents for that. You know, where I want to blame my parents for, well, why didn't anyone check on me emotionally? You know, or why were certain things allowed? But then I have to remind myself that, one, we've talked about these things. They've been apologized for.

[00:30:33] They understood me to the best of their ability at that time, which I do really believe. And it was a different time in general. The social, emotional learning and things that parent, the tools parents have now were not a thing, you know, when we were growing up. If you grew up in the 90s. And so I think my parents did particularly well, you know, compared to some of the stories other people I know tell. You know, but there were still things that were left on the table.

[00:31:02] And the truth is, if God blesses me to have children, there will be things I leave on the table. So that's the narrative that I like to use to help me be forgiving, gracious, and forward-moving with my parents. This does not always work every single day. I have moments. Not just with parents, with friends, with myself, with my spouse. But the overall desire of my heart is to have the narrative that helps me the most.

[00:31:30] What narrative are you carrying about other people? About people who have hurt you? About people that you've been through hard things with? What narrative are you living in, replaying, carrying around with you that is not serving you? Check in and see how you can start to repair that. And listen, repairing a narrative doesn't necessarily mean repairing a relationship.

[00:31:52] It means when this thing comes to your mind and your brain, it does not debilitate you from being who God has called you to be. That's my biggest conviction when it comes to narratives about my childhood, about my parents, about myself. How can I get myself to a place where this narrative does not debilitate me, does not take me out? It doesn't mean I have to think it's all flowers, daisies, and roses.

[00:32:19] I can have an honest narrative of what I've experienced while still not allowing it to be so negative that it debilitates and cripples me from becoming who I'm supposed to become. That takes work. It is not something that just can happen from listening to this podcast. You know, you have to really dig deep, get help, be honest. I've had very honest, tear-filled conversations with both my parents about things.

[00:32:48] And I've had very honest and tearful conversations with my spouse about my parents, with my sister about my parents. You know what I mean? Like, with my friends about my childhood. You know, things that I have to figure out and reconcile. And it doesn't mean that you had the most horrific and negative experience. We're just human beings.

[00:33:12] You know, I remember telling my mom one time, we were talking about something, and she was hurt, you know, by something that I was saying. And she was just like, I just thought that I was a good mom. And I just thought, you know, I thought that I was a good mom. And I was like, you were. You were an excellent mom. You just weren't a perfect one. And I had to say to her, do you remember that you've told me this, this, and this about grandma? You know, and my family, I don't want to say the word worship because I don't want to be sacrilegious, but we don't play about my grandmother.

[00:33:41] My maternal grandmother, Lucy May, we don't play about her. She is the grand dame, okay? We revere her. The kids who were born after she passed know her. They know her story. We talk about, we love this woman. And I had to tell my mom, as much as you love grandma, you have told me plenty of things that she did that were not good, that were not helpful, that hurt you, that scarred you.

[00:34:10] And it didn't take away from how good of a mom she was. I said, it's the same with you. It's the same. You are excellent. I am the woman that I am because of my mother. I make no mistakes about it. I'm the wife that I am because of my mother. I'm as hospitable as I am because of my mother. There's so many amazing things about me because of my mom. Also, there were some things that weren't the best. My dad. So much of my personality comes from my dad.

[00:34:38] So much of what people love about me in terms of how I show up in the world comes from my dad. But also, there were some things that weren't right. And there were some things that should have been better. And because I can have these conversations with them, thank God. I know that that's a blessing. I know that's not everybody's story. But more importantly, with God and with professionals who can help me through the stories I've told myself, because not everything is on my parents.

[00:35:07] Some of the stuff I told myself. Some of the stuff I did to myself. And some of this stuff is 20 and 30 years old. And you have to decide if you're still going to keep living in the narrative of your teenage years or your adolescence. You know? And especially, I'm not speaking necessarily about abuse or anything. You know, I'm very blessed my parents were not abusive in any way.

[00:35:31] You know, there was no physical or emotional trauma that I can say from my parents. It's just life stuff, you know? So, again, I recognize that that's not everybody's story. But at some point, no matter what your story is, you have to figure out how to not let it define the rest of your life. It already took up too much time. It already took up too much space. It already took your childhood. Don't let it take your adulthood.

[00:35:59] Don't let it take your children's childhood. Because of things you didn't work through from your childhood. You got to work on a narrative that works in your favor. I'm not saying don't have any narrative. That's impossible. You lived it. It happened. But what can you do with the narrative to help it benefit you and who you are becoming?

[00:36:24] One of my favorite scriptures that I want to leave you with to encourage you to start this journey. Just start walking on the path. Again, this is a journey. But one of the scriptures that has been helping me so much is in 2 Corinthians 10 verse 5. And it says,

[00:36:50] There are some arguments in your mind. There are some pretensions. There are some things that are setting themselves up against what God has said is true about you. And I just want to encourage you to take every thought, every narrative, because narratives really do live in our mind, captive and make it obedient to Christ. What does that look like? Right?

[00:37:20] It doesn't necessarily mean you act like it's not there. But you make it obedient to what the Bible says. So if you're having negative self-talk and self-thoughts, you go look at what the Bible says about you. If you look in that mirror and you feel like you don't like what you see, you go to the word which says you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Right? These are things that the Bible says are true and are helpful for us every day.

[00:37:49] I want to encourage you in your journey to walk through your God-given doors, to explore and examine the stories you're telling yourself, to use God's word to correct those stories, and to use the people around you, be it friends, families, or professionals, to help you come to terms with how you can use your narratives to your benefit. Listen, you're going to have a narrative.

[00:38:19] It's the way our brains work. Something happens, we create a story about why it happened, and then we try to figure out how to either prevent it from happening again if it was negative or cause it to continue to happen if it was positive. This is the way we are wired. But if we are wise, we will learn how to use this cognitive function to our benefit. I hope that that helped and encouraged someone. Listen, this is deep stuff. This is neuroscience.

[00:38:47] I did not even scratch the surface of it. Please go do your own research. But I do hope that this will encourage you to start tiptoeing down this road and figure out your own narratives. If you've listened to us on Holy Culture, thank you so much for listening there. Again, that is SiriusXM Channel 148 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Monday nights. If you're watching on the YouTube, thanks for watching there. And if you're watching on my YouTube, thanks again. Please be sure to subscribe and meet us here next week. Same time, same place.

[00:39:17] Peace. Peace.