Redeemed Conversations with A.R. Ledgister
Redeemed Conversations with A.R. Ledgister
Self-Talk Series P1: Navigating Inner Critique: Cultivating Self-Compassion Through Spirit-Filled Reflection
Have you ever caught yourself trapped in a whirlwind of self-criticism, wondering how to break free? Our series on self-talk strikes at the heart of these destructive patterns, offering insights and strategies to transform the way we communicate with ourselves. We venture into the significance of self-awareness as a cornerstone for personal growth, acknowledging how family interactions can sculpt our inner narratives, often laden with critique. As I share my own struggles and breakthroughs, we draw upon the wisdom of Galatians 5:22-23, letting the fruits of the Spirit be our compass toward a more nurturing self-dialogue. Exploring these themes, we consider the impact of familial legacies and embrace the potency of affirmative words rooted in virtue to forge a confident and growth-oriented mindset.
As we gather in reflection, we craft a space for gratitude and the power of hope. In a poignant crescendo of our discussion, we raise a collective prayer of thanks, recognizing the indispensable role of divine guidance in our journeys of self-discovery and improvement. Together, we celebrate the support of our listeners and the profound connection fostered through this shared exploration. It's a testament to the strength found in vulnerability and the promise that lies in authentically embracing one's self, illuminated by the unwavering light of faith. Join us as we affirm our commitment to this transformative voyage, fortified by the companionship of our listeners and the ever-present grace of God.
Follow us @redeemedconvos
so it's another awesome friday again. We're here doing what we asked some, uh, often love to do and call redeemed conversations. Hey guys, listen, we are locked and loaded tonight. Tonight is our second month as we celebrate redeeming conversations that we believe, our conversations where we're putting God back in conversations that maybe we didn't really want to have him in in the first place.
Speaker 1:So tonight's a little different, a little different, a little different and, to be quite honest with you guys, I'm excited about tonight, right, because one of the things that I have been dedicated to for the past few years of my life is self-awareness. Dedicated to for the past few years of my life is self-awareness, and with self-awareness, there's a wonderful part of life that you're connected to that puts you towards a life of self-improvement. You get to hear about yourself, you talk to yourself, you get to understand yourself, see yourself and just go down the road of really trying to see what this person that you're getting to live with gets to go through and experience life, and this person I am referring to is yourself. So see, tonight, tonight we're talking about the self-talk. Tonight, we're talking about the self-talk. Tonight, we're talking about what it means to have a good, healthy relationship, talking to yourself. Now what does that necessarily mean? You know a lot of us go down the road of having self-doubt and having self-esteem things, having self-esteem things and you kind of try to figure out what is the actual theme behind your self-talk with yourself. You know some people have the self-talk that says love, you know, versus ridicule, or positive versus negative.
Speaker 1:And sometimes you know your self-talk is going to be determined by your family dynamics and you know, just to think about family dynamics, you know just kind of even talking about how your family, even just how your family, greets each other. You know that is, alone, a way that you can determine how you're going to talk to yourself. You know I come from a family no love lost, but I come from a family that sometimes the first thing we'll do is critique. You know you'll look at each other and we'll say, well, you know what you do to your hair, or how's this going on, or what's this, and sometimes it's cute, but sometime on the wrong day it's the thing that you just need to need to hear, you know. So you go down the road of really trying to understand what it is you are trying to say to yourself and what you say to yourself. So now you know, I love finding scripture that kind of gives me context to the things that we like to talk about here, because we like to be scripture-based, and even the more we love to have a good foundation for some of our deep, honest conversations.
Speaker 1:And one thing that came to mind tonight for me was scripture that says in Galatians 5 and 22 to 23 says there's love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now, when you think about the word law, you think that there is a limitation, that there is some type of stopping point, there's some type of place that says do not go past this point stopping point, there's some type of place that says do not go past this point. But then when you think about that, you say, okay, well, the fruits of the Spirit allow me to operate in love, joy, peace, forbearance and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. And then you think about that and you say, ok, well, what does it mean for me to express all those things to myself? Now, I'm not going to lie, you know, I think it is a ongoing struggle. It's an ongoing struggle for me that says I might not always say the right things to myself, especially at the right time. You're going to go down the road where you feel that you may have messed up on something and said something to yourself, that or done something, and you say something to yourself that doesn't allow you to have the best outcome emotionally. You know, and as I think through, what life means and how you're able to go through life and say you know, adam, you probably could have did a little bit better and you probably should have done things like you know this guy or that guy.
Speaker 1:You go into the comparison trap and you really do a bad job of fortifying your confidence, and in the midst of you, of me even you know, I try to talk for myself first In the midst of me, talking from the comparison trap and from the struggles, and you're messing with your confidence. You put these humongous expectations on yourself and I did that. I put these expectations on yourself and I did that. You know I put these expectations on myself that you know, because of the poor conversations I was having with myself. I then would set these super impossible bars on myself and then make myself true to say you see, you couldn't have done that, you see, you know that high of a bar is a bar that you maybe shouldn't have ever tried to do. So you go down these roads of self-doubt and self, just self. I don't know if you can call it self-destruction, but to a certain degree it can be self-destruction.
Speaker 1:And I think all of us really we do all hope, you know, for better for ourselves. And in the midst of trying to get better for yourself, you go down the road and we get to the place of really trying to say, okay, well, what can I do? What is it that I want to do? What are the things that I am trying to get right in my life and what are the things that I want to get better in my life? And we often begin to set these expectations that sometimes encourage us or sometimes discourage us, and I've learned that it really begins with how we talk to ourselves about those conversations.
Speaker 1:You know, I think one of the things that I have grown to understand about life and understand about God is often you'll read that God inspires you to inspire yourself and others. God pushes you to inspire yourself and inspire others, and if you really could think through the thought process of God, god inspires us to have faith. God inspires us to have confidence. God inspires us to have faith. God inspires us to have confidence. God inspires us to have hope. And truth be told, it's not an either or it's a both. And you know, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
Speaker 1:We say that in church, it's a churchy colloquialism that we say all the time. And then you think about it and you're like, okay, well, I have faith. And then you think about it. You know I got faith in God but I not really have faith in myself. And then you have these confidence issues. And then, if you have these confidence issues, you're like, okay, well, what does that mean for me to really hope at this time? And God, I got to put all three of those together faith, confidence and hope. And then you're wondering am I able to do all those things? And you know, that's the part for me that I realize for most of us, most of us get to the place where we may not have the best relationship or we may not have been brought up in a way that gives us the best relationship with positivity.
Speaker 1:Now there's a beautiful book by Vincent Peale where it is called the Power of Positive Thinking. Positive thought in your mind, along with a high faith in God, that gives you a thought process that guides you towards the trajectory of being able to have a positive train of thought. That then puts you towards a place of being able to not only think positive but to see the fruits and the fruit of positive thinking in your life. Now you have to realize again we talked about in the scripture that one of the fruits that we talked to talk again, we said love, peace, joy, and we can see really just even stop there. But if you look through it, you have to have a train of thought that gives you an opportunity to go down the road of love we talked earlier about. You know what is the theme that we often talk to ourselves with?
Speaker 1:And again, you know I always come from a place of self-thought, which is I never thought about applying the theme of love to myself. You know I can do it for others, I can tell others I love you, I can encourage others, but there was always an issue that I had doing that for myself. I would not say kind things to myself. I would say the very opposite and then want better things out of myself. Well, how does that work? How does it work for you to say one thing and then do another?
Speaker 1:I was listening to a podcast from a friend of mine, a shout out to Bernard Williams, and he brought up a point in a scripture that it talked about. You know, a bad tree does not produce good fruit, you know. And then it kind of got me thinking about where does the label come from? Because if you label yourself as a bad tree, then if you say I'm a bad tree and then expect good fruit, how does that happen? If I label myself as a good tree, how do I expect bad fruit? And it's a quandary that I think a lot of us are in because we have a hard time labeling ourselves.
Speaker 1:Now, the thing about tonight is I am hoping to help you guys go down the road of labeling yourselves as a good tree, to label yourself as a loved person, to label yourself as a strong, confident, growing person, because, if you really think about it, we have robbed ourselves of opportunity after opportunity and we have robbed ourselves time after time of being able to say you know what, adam, if you just remembered that you are phenomenally gifted, you are phenomenally made. You know, we talked last week in regards to the creative creator and how God knitted all of us individually to be phenomenal and beautiful and had our greatness on display. And, honestly, when you think about what it really means to be as strong and as great as we are saying, it's all in how you speak about yourself and it's all in how you speak to yourself. You speak to yourself. You know.
Speaker 1:One thing that I think we often really miss is what does it really mean to listen to yourself and adjust what you say about yourself? So, in the redeeming of the conversation, I thought about a few different things, right, and one of the things that came to mind was when you make a mistake it is not often you give yourself grace or forgiveness Nine times out of 10, you are continually thinking about the mistake and, depending on the culture in which that you are, you may chastise yourself, you may beat yourself up, which is the same thing. You also may begin to ignore one's self because of the amount of disappointment that you see in yourself. Now hear me out. Now hear me out.
Speaker 1:I am not on the path of only talking about negativity and trying to discard your negativity because, honestly, when you think about how negative or positive you think, you have to look at the fact that says, as a man thinks in his heart, therefore he is also. So how much positivity is in your life, how much positivity is around you, how much positivity is encouraging you to remain positive? What are the things in your life that are encouraging you to remain positive? And I think about it and I say, all right, if I had to do an audit on how many positive things I've said to myself versus the negative things I've said to myself, where do you think I've ended up? I ain't going to lie to you. You know, taking today alone, how many times have I actually said to myself you know, you're pretty dope, or you did a great job, or don't worry about that, greatness is ahead of you. Often, people aren't doing that for themselves. Greatness is ahead of you. Often people aren't doing that for themselves. So now we're at the point that says, hey, what does it mean to shift the conversation with myself? Now we all know ourselves.
Speaker 1:One of the first people that taught me the term inner me, inner me, enemy, bishop Bloomer. And it is an amazing way to kind of think of it, because one of the first enemies that you're going to have to conquer in life is your inner me. Now think about it. Your inner me is going to control how fast you grow, the direction you grow, who you grow with. So you have to find a way to first define Self, define your inner person. My inner person is fun, loving, but impulsive and impatient. So when I know that about myself, I say okay, when it comes in areas that are emotional to me, I'm going to want to be impulsive and I'm going to need to know why I am impulsive about this situation and you know, that's the part of tonight that I want to make sure that we're walking towards is because you have to know what self sounds like.
Speaker 1:And when I say what self sounds like, you have to know what you sound like, because one of the first things that you have to do when it comes to the words, or just defining the word self, is getting everybody else out the way, because one of the things that you realize is that as you walk through life, you will pick up different things from different people. You will begin to Frankenstein your expectations of yourself, and in Frankensteining the expectations of yourself, you won't know where others' expectations of you start and yours begin, or where theirs ends and yours begins. And that's one of the hard parts about this conversation and we're going to walk through this for a little while because you got to realize it is first how you define a problem. Well defined, is a problem half solved. So now we say, if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty of improving self-conversation, you have to first define self. You got to define yourself.
Speaker 1:What does yourself sound like? Who is this self person? You know and I think that's the part that often we miss and we forget is that when it comes to going down the road of saying, all right, what does it sound like when you're happy? What does it sound like when you're happy? What does it sound like when you're sad? What does it sound like when you're scared? What does it sound like when you are absolutely feeling yourself and loving yourself and defining those things and seeing what those things mean? Because those are one of the things that you'll realize in life is when you have well-defined yourself.
Speaker 1:Not and listen, I'm not talking about what you hope you are, I'm talking about what you really are. If you are an impulsive shopper who doesn't like to work, then you say I'm an impulsive shopper who doesn't like to work. Then we can start breaking that down. And if you really think about it right, if you really think about it you will always have an opportunity to improve something. The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. And you look at it and you say I can always be working on myself, I can always be doing something for myself. Now, understand, this is not a beat up conversation. This is a conversation that says if you try, you just might like who you find out, like who you find out.
Speaker 1:If you think about saying I am going to look at myself again through love, through joy, through peace, through forbearance. If we understand what forbearance means, it is periods of grace. If you look through, you look at yourself through kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. If you think about it, if you apply all these things to yourself, there is no law to stop you from doing that abundantly. So what does that mean? All right? So what does that mean All right? So, adam, you saying think about yourself from a place of having a? A an abundance Of joy and love and peace that you can speak over yourself.
Speaker 1:Now I think that's one of the hard things, though, right, one of the hard things that says I want to speak better to myself. I want to say better things to myself, oh God. But here's one of the things that I've realized Often we were not taught to speak those things, those positive things, over ourselves. So sometimes one of the first self things that you have to define is your history and your bloodline and their lineage, is your history and your bloodline and your lineage. You know, one of the things that are in my bloodline is a big heart and spirit of worry.
Speaker 1:You know it's almost to the point that worrying in my family has crippled people from being able to try great things. You know, and I won't be hesitant about it, you know, there was opportunities that may have come to people in my family and because of a worrying, a worrisome thought process, they didn't take advantage of it and I began to see those things in my life, you know so then I said to myself all right, so if I know I got a worrying spirit, when I see worry, come on, what do I do? You know, I start flooding my thought process with not just love and joy, but then I start flooding my thought process with peace, and the peace that says why worry, why be anxious? For if I believe in God and everything that God has promised me, I'm worrying for no reason. And these are the things that you say to yourself, because the foundation that I come from is a spiritual foundation. And I say, okay, well, worrying absolutely saves me no time, it doesn't do anything of that nature. So now you're thinking of worry and I said, okay, well, I have to give that up. So I got to replace it with something of worry. And I said, okay, well, I have to give that up. So I got to replace it with something.
Speaker 1:So what happened for you? What were the things that you were taught in your family? That has influenced what you say to yourself? You know, what are the family dynamics that often make you say things and then you say, dang, I sound just like my mama. Oh man, that's something my daddy would say. My brother always says that my sister is just like this. Why am I thinking like that? Why am I talking like this? Why am I thinking like this? Why am I talking like this?
Speaker 1:And when you go down the road of really thinking about it self is often developed again. That's one of the first places to start. You know how do you begin to pull back the layers and the onion of the self-talk that is rooted in generations. So now you're saying, okay, well, if a generation has thought negatively, has thought negatively, by God, if I turn my life around and just begin to look at things from a positive place, it allows me to have a thought process that goes against the status quo of what I was taught.
Speaker 1:And don't get me wrong, you got to walk in it. You got to walk in it. And if you really want to walk in it, we have to change the direction of ourselves. And if you want to change the direction of yourself, you got to first know why you're walking in the direction you're walking. Figure that out. And when you figure that out, you then say what better could life be if I just changed these certain things about me, bars? But then you say, ok, I'm going to speak love to myself. You're going to take the time and you're going to look at yourself and you're going to say you will speak love to yourself over the next 25 days. You'll speak hope to yourself over the next 25 days and you'll speak success to yourself over the next 25 days, and one of the hard ones will be you'll speak peace to yourself over the next 25 days. So that's the thing, right.
Speaker 1:So I wasn't going to be too long on here with you because we all got some homework. We have some homework that's going to put us down the road of really self-defining. I want to put us on the journey of self-definition. Self-definition allows you the opportunity to define oneself so that you can begin to improve oneself. So, beloved, as we're wrapping up tonight and as we're going down the road of really tackling this redemption of the conversation between ourselves, there's one thing that I want you to do tonight. There's one thing that I want you to do tonight If you're able to take the last five minutes of each night for the next 25 days, I'm going to talk about, before you go to bed and speak, a positive thing over your life. I'm not just talking about I'm a good person. What I mean is take the time to really go down the road of. You know I am. I'm a great writer. I'm a great writer. I've done some really great things, and I think that's the thing in life, right? The thing in life that says believe it or not believe it or not, this is going to be a difficult thing to do for some of us.
Speaker 1:How many of you have a consistent thought process of positivity towards yourself? I want to give that as a decree on tonight with many of you that says again, before I go to bed for the next 25 days how many days we have? Yep, next 25 days I want you to say something towards the level of love, towards the level of joy, towards the level of peace, the level of forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. I want you to limitlessly say something about yourself to yourself before you go to bed. Now, who don't like a nice I love you text message or something before you go to bed, give yourself one of those. And when you do that over the next 25 days, I want you to see how you wake up in the morning. If you have an opportunity to write it down, I want you to write it down. So here we are to write it down.
Speaker 1:So here we are, we're wrapping up tonight, and one of the things that I want many of you to realize is that there is such a great amount of greatness that is attached to your life. You know I am dedicated to reminding many of you what it really means to walk in your greatness, even if you can't see it yet. I think often people want to see their greatness and they want to wait till their greatness is visible by them before they begin making steps. And, honestly, you'll realize, sometimes people can see it before you do. So waiting till you can see it is not effective. However, let's talk through that Over the next few days and over this month.
Speaker 1:What I want to do with you is walk with you through the journey of self-definition, the journey of self-discovery, the journey of self-improvement and self-awareness. And as we walk through those things together, there's going to be some nakedness that we're going to feel. There's going to be some nakedness that we're going to do. And in the midst of doing all that, I promise you, you'll be able to see where you'll be able to change little things in your life. It gives you the opportunity to see exactly what it is you've always wanted to see from yourself.
Speaker 1:Again, beloved, we all want better. We all want better for ourselves, we all want better for our families. We all want better just for the things that we do. And that's the part we all want better and that's where we are for tonight, if you can take the opportunity to say you know I love myself tonight, say that I love myself, say I'm proud of myself. To be proud of oneself, I think is a goal for many people, and for you to be proud of yourself, I think it's a goal for many people. And for you to be proud of yourself, you have to give yourself an opportunity to work through the things that you know about yourself.
Speaker 1:So, as we wrap up tonight, I want us to do a special prayer with y'all, and the prayer tonight is not just any type of prayer. It's a prayer for us to be able to remove the veil that our past has put over our eyes. Remove the veil that our families has put over our eyes. Remove the veil that our families have put over our eyes. Remove the veil that we have put over our eyes that make it impossible for us to see past. Today about ourselves. Now understand the next few weeks is going to be all about this, so I'm looking forward to some more emails and comments and thoughts of that nature about what it really means to re-engage a positive conversation with oneself.
Speaker 1:I encourage many of you to pick up Dr Peel's book the Power of Positive Thinking, and it is a book that will give you story after story and show you that just a few minor, or some for some of us major changes changes and change the whole trajectory of your life. Now it is our responsibility to redeem what that means. What does God have you say to yourself about yourself? What does God want you to say about your past, your present, your future? What does God want you to say about that? I think a few words that the Lord would love for you to use is regardless. I love you Regardless. I love me, regardless. I'm proud of me, regardless. When it comes to me, I'll be more patient, because I am growing into something and I am becoming something.
Speaker 1:So, as we close out tonight, god, I thank you For, father, this is my favorite part, the part, god, that we get to lay our hearts down at your altar, that, god, we have the opportunity to give you every worry, to give you every worry, to give you every hindrance that so puts us in a place, god, that doesn't allow us to grow. So, god, we thank you for laying everything out to us about us. Thank you for showing us us about us. Thank you for showing us us and God, thank you for being patient with us as we learned ourselves and as we learn ourselves. And, father, I honor you for the miracle working hand, god, of you being able to remove the cobwebs and remove the stained glass. God, of you being able to remove the cobwebs and remove the stained glass, god, and remove the film that our past, our present, our expectations, our poor conversations have done to us and done to the things, god, that you have us do.
Speaker 1:So, father, I bless you For every single person watching this broadcast. I thank you for their hearts, I thank you for their minds and God, even the more, I thank you, god, for the willingness of them defining themselves. Father, I love you and, father, I thank you. I adore you, god, for so many things, god, but one of the main things I adore you for, god is the tenacious spirit to be okay with who you've created me to be, with who you've created me to be, and I thank you, father, I thank you, lord, that as we continue God to grow in ourselves, as we continue God to grow in your heart, that God, you will begin to show us even more about ourselves, for ourselves to do better while we are improving ourselves and God, we thank you, we honor you, we bless your name and Father.
Speaker 1:It is just with joy and excitement that we tell you that, god, as we figure this thing out, we'll give you the glory, we'll give you the honor, because, by default, we needed you to help us do it. We thank you, god, we bless your name, we adore you, father, we thank you God. We thank you, father, we honor you, god. It's in your son, jesus Christ, name we do pray and ask all these things. Thank you, father, amen, love you, beloved, and what can you do about it? And more great things to come. Thanks for watching. Have a great night you.
