What is Your Default?

Last week my friend Hannah posted on her blog some great thoughts about the power of words.  She over heard someone else's negative words and was musing about the effect of our words when we speak to others. Yesterday I sat in church and heard a similar message. I was challenged about the whether or not I choose to listen to the negative default voices within me.  We all have "stuff" that happens to us in life, it is inevitable. The same thing might happen to a group of people and they can all react differently because they are all wired differently and therefore their reactions/responses will be different to circumstances and events. 

Our reactions to life events create pathways for us to follow in the future (if we choose), they become our default mindsets and sometimes it is difficult to see that those pathways may be created through negative circumstances, lack of understanding, or an inability to question the relevance or truth of the issue. The challenge is to search for the truth about your circumstances and your responses to those circumstances.  Is the default you choose actually the best response to your circumstance or is it what you have learned over time and have never questioned or held up for inspection in the light of truth?  The process might be easy or it might be hard.  It might not be pretty and possibly its messy but being able to make a true statement when in the past you have believed a lie is liberating. 

Here's a simple exercise; write down a few statements about yourself and check whether they are actually true of not. you might be surprised to see that even some of the fundamentals you believe are actually not true.  Start building some positive statements about your negative situations, write them down, say them out loud in the shower, believe them!

I was really sad this week to hear about the death of Robyn Williams.  The funny man and brilliant actor is no more.  We only saw the beautiful, wonderful bits of him and we loved them but in his private world he must having been facing some huge anguish. It has made me wonder what lies he believed about himself in order to choose the finality of death. I hope it makes me more careful about what I will believe in and the words I choose to speak into others' lives.