The Fight For My Mind

A few months ago, my life officially was uprooted, torn apart and I was stripped of everything that I had worked so hard to build. It wasn't much but I was on my way to doing some big things, so I thought.  Anyway, a few years back, God revealed to me that I was an employer and not an employee and that I need to trust Him in building businesses that create opportunities for other people. I felt like Moses or a deer in headlights and immediately thought to myself, "Me?" I had no business experience and had no clue how to run one. I'd gone to school for Architecture, not for business so obviously, my first reaction was fear and doubt. However, over the years, God would place me in positions within companies and allow me to build relationships with high-ranking people in those companies that would force me to exercise my business muscles that I didn't know I had. My little business muscles would start flexing and I would start speaking and executing things successfully that I didn't even know that I knew how to do. Eventually, those opportunities ended and God told me that I was ready to step out on my own. I was so scared but I had taken a leap of faith and did what God had told me to do. Although it was scary and uncomfortable for me, in 2021 I began putting myself in situations where I was around successful people that were doing what I was trying to do. I started building my business website, I signed up for business mentoring and I attended several business conferences where I would network in order to build a support community. I felt like I was on my way! Then suddenly, seriously immediately things began to dry up starting with my finances, then business opportunities, business relationships, then my health, and ultimately my housing was all taken away. My daughter and I were abruptly relocated a few days before Christmas 2021, with all that we could fit in a car and I am now starting all over from scratch. I felt betrayed by God because I had been obedient and done what He'd told me to do, only for everything to be taken away from me once again. My mind interpreted my outcome as my punishment for obedience.

"How dare you step out and try to change the trajectory of your life? You knew that you were not qualified to do this. Now look at you, you screwed everything up because you thought you were special enough and had what it took to do and become something different than what you always were." The voices in my mind immediately started to reprimand and scold me into a deep dark depression. I've dealt with depression my whole life but the level of depression that I was now facing was so bad that not only did it manifest emotionally and spiritually, it took over my health both mentally and physically. I was in a silent fight for my life that no one around me could ever begin to comprehend! A fight for my sanity and my person. I had allowed the opinion of my thoughts as well as the assumed thoughts of others to win and become true, and not the thoughts and opinions of God. 

This may not be a literal reference to running, but discouragement and depression can manifest anywhere in your life and keep you from ever getting started. It will make you run away from everything that matters to you instead of running towards your calling. Running in a sense of taking control of your life in a way that you have never done before and letting God change it into something that you never dreamed it could be. Running as your power, running as your sense of freedom, running as your sense of control and stability, running as your weapon and the catalyst that changes the rest of your life! Japanese writer and runner, Haruki Murakami said, "Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest...Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life." 

During this dark period, I felt the most freest and at my strongest when I ran. Because I paired it with my time with God, it became my sanity and my strength. When I don't run, I feel incomplete and not prepared to face my day if I miss this time with God. It quiets those voices in my mind that try to tell me what I can't do, what I shouldn't do, and how it all should be done. It is a daily battle, and the run equips me with weapons that allow me to be in control of my thought life for that day. The amazing Bishop TD Jakes said, "When the enemy tries to fight you with words, you have to fight him back with THE WORD." Combat the enemy with declarations and scriptures such as, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength (Phillipians 4:13)," or "No weapon formed against me shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17)." Declare these things over your life daily with power and conviction and the enemy has no choice but to flee your mind and your circumstances.   

There is a saying about money, "if you don't tell your money where to go, it will tell you where to go." That can also be said about your mind. If YOU don't tell your mind what to do and what to focus on, your mind will tell YOU what to do and what to focus on. Those voices stop you from believing in yourself and keep you from buying into the future God has planned for you. Bishop TD Jakes says when speaking about his book, The Crushing, "You are what you eat and the voices are what will feed your faith or fear. If you change your diet, you can change your outcome. If you continue to talk to yourself the way that you do, you will always be where you have always been." It is what you say to yourself that validates you, empowers you, and ultimately delivers you! 

I am still a work in progress, my success story is still in the process of being written. You are the spectators to this great revelation that I believe will soon come to pass. I write these things to you not because I have it all together. I write these things to motivate you and encourage you because, in the process, I am encouraging and motivating myself. I know everything happens for a reason and because of that, I am starting to live intentionally on the brighter side of my circumstances. The bible says, in Romans 8:28 NLT, "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."  I am trusting and believing in that every day, and even if it seems like it never will, I know that I have the power to make it so. “

"Remember, you become what you think. Think discouraging thoughts, and you'll get discouraged." - Joyce Meyer

What battles have you faced in your mind that have had negative effects on your life? What steps will you take to be more intentional in your thought life? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

It All Starts in the Mind

When I first started running, to motivate myself, I would try to prepare my mind the day before to avoid procrastination. In my mind, I would plan the time that I would wake up, what I would wear, my jogging route, and even what I would listen to all before the day came. When the morning would come, I would allow my motivated and excited mind to be subdued with doubt and negativity until I ultimately would go back to bed. Why not? It was better in the bed, way more comfortable and I didn’t have to do any work. I could just lay there in the arms of my bed and feel bad about it tomorrow and let the cycle continue. Because I was focused on how terrible and uncomfortable the run was going to be, I would easily get discouraged before I even got started. I had already concluded in my mind the end result of a situation that I didn’t give a chance to exist by allowing myself to be sweet-talked by Mr. Self Sabotage and his faithful acquaintance, The Procrastinator. 

As human beings, we are ALL very creative creatures. If you don’t think you are a creative person, think about how many times you’ve come up with a creative way to get out of something that you don’t want to do? Or created a brilliant detailed plan that took more work to create than it would have taken you if you actually just did the thing you were trying to avoid. More times than none, we end up just doing the thing we didn’t want to do anyway 🤷🏽‍♀️. I’ve done it multiple times, we all have done it in some shape, form, or fashion. In the beginning, to keep from doing the work and feeling bad about being overweight, I would try to make peace with it. I would say and think to myself, “Maybe God wants me bigger. If He wanted me to exercise, He wouldn’t make it so difficult. What is size anyway? What is weight, just gravity right? If I was in outer space I wouldn't even weigh that much plus thick and full-figure women are in these days so just embrace the curves! ” God wasn’t making things difficult, I was. I also wasn’t my best self with my habits and health either. My mind would go over the details about how long it would take to get in shape and lose the weight, and before long, I had a whole mental dissertation on my reasons NOT TO, when I could have just exercised and gotten it over with.

We can be our best cheerleader and our worst opponent all at the same time. Mentally, we jump between both the offensive and defensive team, with ultimately the strongest winning the top slot and making the decision. As our own opponent, if our focus isn’t strong enough, it becomes difficult to win the battle in our mind because we always want the easier and most comfortable outcome. We become the middle-man who stands in the way of our own greatness; the catalyst that creates the mental confusion that will never allow us to see the better versions of ourselves until we get out of our own heads. We talk ourselves out of a lot of things in life because we are either too afraid, too uncomfortable, or too discouraged to start. We allow our minds and how we feel to navigate our day and determine the outcome of our lives. In his book, Outwitting the Devil, Napoleon Hill states, "People are not born with wisdom but they are born with the capacity to think. And they may, through the lapse of time, think their way into wisdom." Just as we inherit fear and discouragement from our thoughts, can we also gain wisdom through our thinking as well? In 1 Peter 1:13 NLT, the bible says, “...prepare your mind for action and exercise self-control.” Notice the keyword is “mind,” once prepared and set, it is a weapon all on its own. There is nothing more dangerous than a made-up mind, because, from it, anything is possible.

The way we think can either destroy a dream or make a dream come true; depending on how we position it in our minds. In the bible, Romans 12:2 says to "...let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." James Allen writes in his book, As a Man Thinketh, “Every thought- seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind and to take root there, produces its own...and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance." Basically, good thoughts bear good fruit while bad thoughts bear bad fruit. He goes on to explain, “...when we realize that we are a creative power and that we can command the hidden soil and seeds of our being out of which circumstances grow, we become the rightful master of ourselves.” 

Did you know that you have the ability and the authority to not only master your mind but your whole self? Once you master your mind, your whole being is called to attention! Napoleon Hill goes on to say in his book titled Outwitting the Devil, “Whatever man believes to be true has a way of becoming true.” Because we allow discouraging and defeating beliefs to enter into our minds before we begin to do anything, we have already failed before we’ve even started. From those thoughts, we have created the outcome of our fate, our doomed reality of what will be. James Allen tells us, “We are anxious to improve our circumstances, but are unwilling to improve ourselves; we, therefore, remain bound.” I know many of you may have so many brilliant ideas that could change your life and financial situation, and it can be so exciting in the beginning to get started! Just remember, no matter what you do or where you decide to focus your attention, success is inevitable: either you will successfully fail or you will successfully succeed. It is what you do with that success that will matter. If you succeed, take that momentum and keep going, and if you fail, take what you have learned and begin again; either way, you were successful.

Don’t renege on your future when things get difficult and the real work begins. The worst thing than being a prisoner to the state is being a prisoner to the mind. It is so important to do the work initially on your mind so that you can withstand and maintain the momentum during difficult and discouraging times. Our minds are so powerful that God tells us in Romans 12:2 that we can only transform ourselves if we renew our minds; change the way we think. Our minds can be an anchor or a sail: an anchor to keep us stagnant or a sail to push us forward. Remember, “For as a man thinks within himself, so he is," Proverbs 23:7 NASV"



As far as running, once I actually got out of my own head and focused on the benefits and not the barriers, the action of running wasn’t as bad as I had made it appear. Every day, I became stronger both physically and mentally, knowing that if I could reach my goals in this area of my life, then the sky was only the beginning! 

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• What are some reasons why I need to create mind-renewing habits?

• What are some habits that I need to form that will help renew my mind?

• Who will I trust to hold me accountable to stick to my mind-renewing habits?

• What will my life look like 6 months from now because I successfully formed mind-renewing habits?

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.