Transforming the Roommate Inside Your Head

Investing in yourself is one of the most rewarding things you can do for yourself, but it isn’t
always easy and some often make the mistake of giving up when they don’t see quick results.
Change takes time and if we truly understood that our brain needs time to acclimate to
changes, so we don’t overwhelm it, I think more of us would be on board with it.

I know all too well how frustrating it is to wait for results after making changes in my life, but
when I finally learned what the roommate inside my head needed from me and that taking time
to create and plan for changes, was going to actually be easier than harder, I was able to settle
in and get to work. And when I say, “get to work”, this also included a lot of rest and self-care.
All I knew was that I had decided I was in for the long haul and that meant trusting in the lag
time.

This is a bit of my story of how I changed my life by transforming how I showed up in this world
and how I became more deeply connected to our beautiful Creator. Our God, Father, Savior
and Friend.

I was once faced with a great challenge that I didn’t know how to navigate on my own, even
though I was a believer in Jesus at the time. Within 18 months, I went through a life altering
injury, an illness, surgery, and the loss of a long-term marriage that had conditioned me to
believe that I wasn’t loved or wanted and that the struggles of others was somehow my
responsibility.

Then, living on my own, waiting for God to heal my body, my mind and my heart without any
effort on my part, only proved disappointing. At that time, not understanding what a healthy
relationship with God meant, I felt abandoned by Him as well. So, I tried to do it all on my own,
which only caused me to become even more discouraged, when I wasn’t getting positive
results. I think disastrous results is more accurate.

I finally realized I could not do it on my own, and I could not just sit and pray. I had to partner
with God, learn about myself and then take action. Researching how science of the brain,
combined with faith and action could change what I had been conditioned to think and feel
about myself, created a fire in me and I wanted to know what it was like to believe I was more.
And so, my transformation began. I wish I could tell you it was easy, but this was very new
territory for me and at first, I tried to rebel because some days it felt too hard. And then I
learned why.

I learned that the brain, to which I often refer to as the roommate inside your head, needs to be
trained how to work for us, instead of against us. But, to do this, we need to become aware of
what’s not working, because everything our brain thinks, tells us to say and how to act, stems
from our belief system. And if our belief system isn’t healthy, neither can our thoughts about
ourselves, our body, our relationships and even about God, can be healthy. That all adds up to
how we show up in this world. And it isn’t always pretty, especially when we are walking
wounded.

But, because of our brain’s neuroplasticity, which refers to it’s ability to learn, includes
changing our beliefs, and therefore we can grow into a healthier and more beautiful person who
lives a better life. And I wanted and needed this for myself desperately. I had become the
common denominator of why my life was not going well. For me, this meant that because I was
not valuing myself, no one else was either. And I was ready for something better.

Like a garden, I needed to find the weeds in my mind and root them out, so that my thoughts
about myself became beautiful and my behaviors reflected the same. It doesn’t matter where
the negative thoughts about ourselves come from, or who caused them, we are daughters of a
King and He wants us to know how much we are loved and wanted. Because we were not
created to just survive. We were designed to thrive! And God wants to work in us, through us
and for us, on behalf of his eternal kingdom.

And it starts within us. And the key to begin is to start today by accepting responsibility for how
you show up in this world. Let the past go and start new each day because your brain is
conditioned to repeat thoughts, actions and behaviors until the new training becomes muscle
memory. So, this means, you will make mistakes and you will fail, but the good news is that it’s
the getting back up again to try another day where the muscle memory begins to take root. If
you give up, your brain will learn that giving up is what it is supposed to do. But, when you get
back up again, your brain will realize that there is something important it’s supposed to learn
and it will stay on the task until it figures it out. So let it learn! Have grace for yourself and
understand the process! Even if it goes something like this: Try, fail, fall, feel discouraged, rest,
get back up, try again...repeat, repeat and repeat, until this gets easier. And it will! Just don’t
try to do too many changes at once. This will only cause burnout. Choose one thing you would
like to change and work on that until you feel comfortable adding something else. You will grow
stronger and more capable and you will love yourself for it!

For me, I wish I knew all I know now, I think I would have figured it all out sooner, but I am so
incredibly grateful for the lessons learned and the time it took because the longer it took, the
more deeply I believed the changes were here to stay. I am now a true believer that quick fixes
leave us with no lesson learned. And we are more vulnerable to repeating mistakes when
change occurs to quickly, because our brain hasn’t had enough time to create muscle memory
with the new behaviors, so it gets lazy and pulls us back into habits it already feels comfortable
with. Even if those habits are not good for us. Read that sentence again!

So, it is my greatest hope that you give yourself grace for anything you have been living with
that you want to let go of and allow this to be a season of gardening so that Jesus can lovingly
bring you into his full light. I want you to be able to show up as a warrior in this world, but you
have to keep getting back up every time you fall, in order to build your strength and maturity in
Christ.

And I firmly believe that if I can do it, so can you. And I hope that I just might be able to help
make your journey a little lovelier. Because you are lovely. And I hope one day you say that with
confidence and help someone else believe they are lovely, too.

We are never alone and we are greatly loved and treasured. But, it’s our responsibility to learn
how to believe so that we can feel it. This is what it takes to build our trust and faith in God.
The one who will never abandon us. We only allow ourselves to think it.

Stay faithful, you are so worth it.