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Copyright © 1980,1981, 2000, 2011 by William Backus and Marie Chapian

Published by Bethany House Publishers

11400 Hampshire Avenue South

Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of

Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Ebook created 2011

The material in this ebook is adapted from the book Telling Yourself the Truth by William Backus and Marie Chapian.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-7067-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

1. What Is Misbelief?

2. Do We Really Want To Be Happy?

3. Misbelief in Self-Talk

4. Misbelief in Depression

5. Misbelief in Anxiety

Notes

About the Authors

Back Cover

Introduction

This book has been written to help you live with the one person you must live with for life—you. The precepts set forth here are not new; in fact, they’ve been around since the time of King Solomon and before. People become happy and contented by learning how to practice the habits this book describes.

The current writings of the cognitive therapists such as Albert Ellis, A. T. Beck, M. J. Mahoney, D. Meichenbaum and Arnold Lazarus and their scientific points of view, the writings of philosophers such as Titus and Marcus Aurelius, the findings of psychological researchers as well as the probings of the greatest minds of history bring us to the truths set forth in the Holy Scriptures and the principles we share here with you. These principles are so practical and time-tested—in fact, God’s own method for destroying the strongholds of evil in the minds of men and women—that it is amazing the average reader has never heard of such things!

Most of us want to be honest-to-goodness happy human beings who can handle life well and manage to feel good in spite of ever-increasing odds against us. Ironically, we use methods of achieving happiness that make us unhappy. We work at and strive for something that we can’t quite catch hold of.

What does it mean to be happy? We could define it as a continuing sense of well-being, a state of feeling good about life, others, and self. We could also define happiness as the absence of mental and emotional discomfort and pain. The Bible calls happy “blessed.”

Blessed—happy, fortunate, prosperous and enviable—is the man who walks and lives not in the counsel of the ungodly. . . . But his delight and desire are in the law of the Lord, and on His law—the precepts, the instructions, the teachings of God—.[1]

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus names those who are blessed, or happy. They are people who are “spiritually prosperous [that is, with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions].”[2]

What is your definition of happiness? After you answer that question, we want you to know that it’s possible to be happy, really happy in the deepest corners of your being, and to stay that way. You don’t have to be a victim of circumstances, events, relationships. You don’t have to be trapped by persistent painful emotions.

This book is written to help you possess the happiness you desire and to be the person you’d like to be. You can live happily ever after with the person you are and make a profound affect on those around you because of it.

“Misbelief Therapy,” as we have called our modus operandi, involves putting the truth into our value systems, philosophies, demands, expectations, moralistic and emotional assumptions, as well as into the words we tell ourselves. The Bible says it is the truth that sets man free. Jesus Christ is the living Truth. When we inject the truth into our every thought, taking a therapeutic broom and sweeping away the lies and misbeliefs which have enslaved us, we find our lives radically changed for the better.

It is our hope that other professionals will join us in the exciting discovery that truth as it is in Jesus is a teachable way of life which leads to wholeness, restored functioning, and freedom from neurosis.

We ask the indulgence of our professionally trained readers who will find little scientific terminology in this book. We have purposely eschewed “psychologese” in order that all of our readers will feel comfortable with us.

Recently we completed a research project which involved follow-up calls to every client seen at the Center for Christian Psychological Services in a six-month period. The purpose was to ascertain how well Misbelief Therapy, as we call it, had actually worked in the lives of the clients. The results were gratifying. Ninety-five percent of the clients that had been treated at the Center had improved. Not only that, but these people were able to cite specific behaviors which had changed for the better. They were enthusiastic over the treatment they had received and the results that had been obtained in their lives. That is why we feel confident in recommending that you not only read this book, but that you also put into practice the procedures it offers you for bringing about real change in your life. You will be learning skills which you will want to keep forever.

Chapter One

What Is Misbelief?

“Why do I feel the way I do?” cries the troubled person. Typically, he or she wants to put the blame on something or someone else. “It’s my wife. She’s the one who makes me feel this way.” Or, “It’s all my husband’s fault.” “My job isn’t satisfying me,” or “My friends are disappointing,” or “My children are a disappointment.” Some people blame their problems on their church. They find fault with their pastor, complain that the people aren’t friendly enough or that everybody else in the world is a hypocrite.

There’s something in all of our lives we’d like to change. Nobody’s life circumstances are perfect. But what are we telling ourselves about these circumstances?

A few years ago a man we’ll call Jerry was a wreck of a man. He was a Christian and had believed in God most of his life. Now, however, after 15 years of marriage, he was forced to live alone, separated from his family and facing a divorce he didn’t want. He thought it was the end of the world. He was really miserable. He spent many evenings trying to anesthetize his painful feelings with liquor. He was so unhappy he wanted to die because he just couldn’t see any other way out of such sad circumstances.

Finally, he decided to see a Christian psychotherapist for help. Once in therapy, he gradually began to see that his life didn’t have to be over. He stopped thinking about taking his own life, and his faith in God began to stretch. He started thinking of God as a giver of good. He came to know Him in a new dimension, and little by little, his life changed.

He explained it this way. “One day while I sat groveling in my sorrows, I listened to the words I had been telling myself, things like, ‘Oh, what’s the use? I’m all alone. Nobody loves me or cares about me. Nobody wants to be with me. I’m rejected and useless . . . ’ Suddenly I was shocked. I thought, ‘What am I telling myself anyhow?’ ”

Jerry questioned his self-talk. He recognized something radically wrong with what he had been telling himself and realized his depression was not due to his impending divorce, but what he was telling himself about it.

As a result he began to change the sentences he said to himself. This took some hard work and determination on his part. It wasn’t easy at first, but because he refused to be a “chump” to a pack of self-destroying lies, he taught himself to confess the truth.

INSTEAD OF:

HE SAID:

I’m a failure and no good.

The marriage failed, but I am deeply loved by God. Therefore I am important.

I’m so lonely and miserable.

I’m alone, but I am not lonely.

I’m separated from my family and there’s no joy anymore for me.

I’m separated from my family and that hurts. I can function even though I hurt.

He also stopped drinking completely. He argued with the destructive sentences he had been telling himself. “Just because I’m alone doesn’t mean I have to be lonely!” he said. He told himself the truth and used his situation as an opportunity to celebrate, enjoy and revel in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in his life.

His circumstances hadn’t changed, but what he told himself about the circumstances changed! He discovered that he had been telling himself a lot of lies, straight from the devil.

Three steps to becoming the happy person you were meant to be are:

1. Locate your misbeliefs. (Jerry realized that he was telling himself lies.)

2. Remove them. (He argued against them. “I am not lonely!”)

3. Replace misbeliefs with the truth. (“It’s nonsense to say I’m unlovable and useless. I’m loved with an everlasting love by the God of the universe. In Him, I have countless talents and uses and I am infinitely valuable to Him.)

Jerry learned that being alone could actually be an exciting experience with the Lord. If he had hung on to his ridiculous misbeliefs, he might have gone to his grave in gloom and misery long ago. Happily, he recovered completely and now leads a wonderfully fulfilled life. He will never again suffer the self-destructive anguish he was duped by once. When he learned to see the truth about himself, he also learned to argue and get rid of the lies that would have destroyed him.

TRUTH: WHAT IS IT?

Many philosophers and thinkers through the ages have been fascinated by the idea of truth, what it is and what it means in our lives.

One of these people was a man named Rene Descartes. He was a devout Roman Catholic who lived at the beginning of the seventeenth century. He made a name for himself by trying to discover clear and indubitable truth.

Descartes was fed up with the never-ending arguments among philosophers and decided to put an end to their disagreements forever.

In order to find some truth which would be so unquestionable that no one could doubt it, Descartes decided to start at the point of his own doubt of things. He systematically doubted all that he could possibly doubt. In doubting everything imaginable, he told himself he was thinking. Then he reasoned, since he was thinking, he had to be.

Thus emerged his famous words, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes had finally discovered what he considered an indubitable truth: He believed the most important thing about truth was to arrive at it. The trouble with his proposition is that it doesn’t tell us much about how to live or be happy with that truth.

Marcus Aurelius was another thinking man. He was emperor of Rome about 150 years after Christ, and he too was concerned with the truth. Marcus Aurelius was a stoic ruler and noted as one of the most high-minded and conscientious of all the Roman emperors. He had many failings, one of them his dislike for Christians; but in spite of this sorrowful indiscretion, he pursued a quest for truth. In his book Meditations, he shares an earth-shaking discovery, one that can make a difference in the way we live today.

Marcus Aurelius saw that human emotion is not just a product of chance circumstances, but is determined by the way people think.

Where Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am,” Marcus Aurelius might have said, “I think in order to determine the way I am.”

Precisely.

In the book of Proverbs in the Bible, it reads, As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.[3] In exploring this and other scriptural references pertaining to the importance of right thinking, we discover the Bible solidly teaches that man’s feelings, passions, and behavior are subject to and conditioned by the way he thinks.

Marcus Aurelius had unearthed a truth whose fullness he could not wholly appreciate because he did not know the Lord Jesus Christ who said, “I am the Truth.” [4]

As human beings we are not doomed to a cold, emotionless, machine-like existence. We are creatures throbbing with mental, emotional, and physical energy. Once we yank out the irrationalities and lies from our thoughts and replace them with the truth, we can lead satisfying, rich, and fulfilling emotional lives.

These irrationalities are not always easy to label. Most of what we tell ourselves is not in word form. Our thoughts are often images or attitudes without words attached to them. You may feel uncomfortable and isolated in crowded places but never actually put these feelings into words. You may be fearful of a thing and avoid it without really knowing what’s going on in your belief system at all.

But how do we change? How do we make contact with what’s really going on within us?

“Doctor,” a patient will weep, “I think the root of my problem goes back to my childhood!” How often we hear this statement!

Our culture, intinctured with Freudian philosophy, has nearly made it mandatory to believe that no one can be healed psychologically without exploring the past in detail and in depth.

It is not, however, events either past or present which make us feel the way we feel, but our interpretation of those events.

Our feelings are not caused by the circumstances of our long-lost childhood or the circumstances of the present. Our feelings are caused by what we tell ourselves about our circumstances, whether in words or in attitudes.

What we tell ourselves can be either (1) truth or (2) lie.

If you tell yourself untruths or lies, you will believe untruths and lies. If you tell yourself you’re a dumb jerk who can’t do anything right, you’ll believe it. If you believe something, you’ll act as though you believe it.

That’s why your beliefs and misbeliefs are the most important factors of your mental and emotional life.

MISBELIEFS

What are misbeliefs?

The word misbelief is an important word. In fact, it’s the most appropriate label we can think of for some of the ridiculous things we tell ourselves. The amount of suffering we experience due to sustained bouts of negative thinking and battered emotions is outrageous.

Misbeliefs are the direct cause of emotional turmoil, maladaptive behavior and most so-called “mental illness.” Misbeliefs are the cause of the destructive behavior people persist in engaging in even when they are fully aware that it is harmful to them (such as overeating, smoking, lying, drunkenness, stealing, or adultery).

Misbeliefs generally appear as truth to the person repeating them to himself. They might even seem to be true to an untrained counselor. That is partly because they often do contain some shred of truth, and partly because the sufferer has never examined or questioned these erroneous assumptions. But, please understand, the misbeliefs we tell ourselves are directly from the pit of hell. They are hand engraved and delivered by the devil himself. He is very clever in dishing out misbeliefs. He doesn’t want to risk being discovered so he always appears as if the lie he is telling us is true.

Words like, “Oh, I can’t do anything right. I’m always making mistakes” are good examples. You’ll believe these lies when you’ve just made a mistake.

“Oh, I can’t do anything right” is a misbelief statement. If you believe words like that, you are believing a lie.

Martin Luther, teaching the meaning of the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer (“Lead us not into temptation”) wrote: “We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us lest the devil, the world, and our flesh lead us into misbelief, despair, and other great shame and vice.” The consequences of misbelief do lead to despair and other “great shame and vice.”

Think for a moment about the things you tell yourself. If you tell yourself your mother-in-law hates you or the guy next door is a rotten neighbor and a no-good so-and-so, what will you be influenced by? You’ll believe what you tell yourself. Therefore, you’ll treat your mother-in-law as a personal enemy and you’ll treat your neighbor exactly like a no-good so-and-so.

More than likely your mother-in-law and neighbor gave you some reason to tell yourself those things about them, so you can feel justified with your self-talk. But you’re a victim of misbelief.

Why?

The Apostle James shows us where destructive self-talk comes from. “This [superficial] wisdom is not such as comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual [animal], even devilish.”[5] Negative and distorted statements which a person repeats to himself come from the devil. Your flesh accepts them without question and then, like spoiled, rotting food, these words of mental poison create painful emotional aches and pains.

This diet of deadly toxins will kill you, according to Saint Paul. He says to set “the mind on the flesh . . . is death.”[6] If you continue to tell yourself distorted statements, you’re going to have negative feelings and you’re going to engage in negative behavior.

Persistent painful feelings are contrary to God’s will.

God does not want His children to suffer depression, worry, and intractable anger.

Did you know God wants us to be able to control our feelings and actions?

We can do it when we get rid of our misbeliefs and start paying attention to our self-talk.

A client named Bob sits in the therapist’s office for his sixth therapy session. He fidgets with his hands as he talks. “It’s getting so I feel tense and knotted up most of the time,” he tells the therapist. “I’ve prayed about it, and I know the Bible says we aren’t supposed to be nervous about things, but I can’t seem to help myself. It’s getting worse.”

“You feel tense all the time?” asks the therapist.

Bob frowns. “All the time. Sometimes it’s worse than at other times. I go to church but that doesn’t help. Last Sunday morning in church I could hardly stand it. I wanted to run out.”

“Why didn’t you get up and leave?”

Bob is surprised at the question. “I couldn’t do that! Everybody would stare.”

“And suppose they did stare? Can stares hurt you?”

“They’d think I was crazy or backslidden. Oh, I could never just walk out of church.”

“But you said you could hardly stand it. Do you mean that because you were with people, you felt you had to stay there?”

“Well, of course. I mean, they’d think something was wrong with me if I just got up and walked out.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“Well, what if they knew what was going on inside me? What if they found out how tense and upset I am most of the time? I’m always afraid people will find out how uptight I am.”

“What if they did know some of your inner feelings?”

“They’d think I was a kook, maybe. Or maybe I’m not a good Christian. After all, Christians are supposed to be happy and calm.”

“Let me ask you something, Bob. If you had a friend who was having tense and nervous feelings, would you call him a kook or a terrible Christian?”

Bob shifts his weight, glances at the floor. “Of course not.”

“You seem to think that what others think of you is more important than your own feelings.”

Bob is quiet for a moment and then says, “I do want everyone to think well of me. I want to be liked, do what people admire—”

“Let’s examine what you’ve told me so far and see where the misbeliefs are.”

Bob shakes his head up and down. “I can see one for sure.”

“What is it?”

“The misbelief that everybody should like and appreciate me. If they don’t, it would be just awful.”

Bob made a huge discovery that day. He discovered how important the words are that he tells himself. These words, or our self-talk, are what we listen to in order to hear our misbeliefs.

One of Bob’s misbeliefs was that in order for him to be happy, he had to know he was acceptable to people and liked by them.

Misbelief: “I must please people. My actions must not cause others to disapprove of me in any way. If someone disapproved of me, it would be intolerable.”

This string of related misbeliefs causes anxiety and an endless source of pain.

Truth: The Christian doesn’t have to strive for the approval of everyone around him.

Bob needed to understand that the people he was worried about pleasing actually had no power to hurt him, even if they weren’t pleased with him. He learned that very rarely do people get as upset with us as we imagine them to be. He was able to make dramatic changes in his thinking when he at last realized that the actual consequences of disapproval could never cause as much despair and anguish as his misbelief caused him. He also realized that it was God’s approval that was most important.

Bob was one of the fortunate ones. He didn’t land in a hospital or become dependent upon various drugs. He was able to take control himself.

You are the controller of your happiness and your unhappiness.

You’ll be on the road to freedom when you take the first step and identify your misbeliefs for what they are. Learn how to recognize them and put them in their place as lies of the devil.

“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” [7]is a promise of Jesus. Let the truth expose your misbeliefs for what they are!

You can be free from such ugly feelings as bitterness, oppression, depression, anxiety, resentment, anger, over-suspiciousness, and hypersensitivity. You can learn self-control and have fun while you’re doing it.

In emotional and mental health, what you believe is all important. It makes a difference what you believe. Other people, circumstances, events, and material things are not what make you happy. What you believe about these things is what makes you happy or unhappy.

If you believe it would be horrible if nobody talks to you at a dinner party, your mental and emotional self will react accordingly. Getting ready for the party you feel tense; on the way to the party you’re feeling anxious. Once there you’re sweating and uncomfortable. Your every impulse is to find someone to talk to, to be a part of things, to be liked. You wonder why you’re so nervous. You may excuse your feelings by telling yourself, “Oh, those parties aren’t for me. I’m basically a shy person.”

Do you see how misbeliefs cause us to deny ourselves pleasure as well as the good blessings of life in Christ?

———

The misbeliefs in the above are:

1. It will be horrible if nobody talks to me at social gatherings (or if I don’t know the people).

2. It’s terrible to feel self-conscious and nervous.

———

The truth is:

1. I can enjoy myself wherever I go, and I do not need to have someone to talk to in order to have a good time.

2. Feelings of self-consciousness won’t kill me.

It’s all right to experience these feelings.

Discomfort never killed anyone, but our misbeliefs tell us that discomfort is terrible, awful, wretched, horrible, when in fact, although not a lot of fun, it can be endurable.

What you think and believe determines how you feel and what you do. It is our endeavor to change the fundamental negative misbeliefs in you to the point where you will energetically and actively set about to get rid of them—permanently.

If you are a counselor, you can help people by helping them discover their misbeliefs. You can watch lives change and blossom before your eyes as people shunt their misbeliefs and actively inject the truth into their lives.

The question now is, do we really want to be happy?

Chapter Two

Do We Really Want To Be Happy?

A very nice thing about changing your misbeliefs in order to be a happier person is that it will work for you now. You don’t have to wait for months and years for a grand breakthrough. You can begin to change negative and unwanted persistent feelings immediately.

You have an advantage in working with a book like this. A misbelief that is frequently encountered in psychotherapy is that it is the therapist’s job to make the client a well-adjusted and happy person.

Sometimes we expect a psychotherapist to treat us the same way a medical doctor does. You go to his office, present your body and your symptoms and he diagnoses your condition and prescribes proper treatment. Maybe you require medication or surgery. He puts you in the hospital. He operates. You take your medication, rest properly, and soon you’re much better.

Learning to be a happy, adjusted, productive and attractive person cannot be done for you in this way. Your therapist can’t do it for you. He or she can’t push a button and presto, you’re no longer depressed or anxious.

It takes work on your part to be happy.

With misbelief therapy the client is informed immediately that the plan of action involves his hard work at changing the lies and misbeliefs which have victimized him.

Reading this book won’t make you a different person, but doing something about what you read here will. We hope you have decided that you can change your emotions, you can be an adjusted and happy human being, no matter what you have experienced in your life and no matter what your circumstances are.

BUT I CAN’T CHANGE THE WAY I BELIEVE!

Some patients have no trouble accepting the truth that what they tell themselves makes them feel and act the way they do. But they may argue, “That’s fine for you, a therapist, to say, but I can’t change the way I am!”

The misbelief is, others can be happy, others can have an experience with God, others can correct and change their misbeliefs, others can be free from anxiety, depression and anger, but I can’t!

Perhaps they have learned to believe these lies through critical and fault-finding parents, or maybe they have formed habits of comparing themselves to others and believing they come out on the short end. There may be many causes for such misbeliefs.

The chemical dependent believes he can’t quit using drugs. The obese patient believes he cannot lose weight. The depressive neurotic says, “I can’t help myself.”

“I can’t even if other people can” are crippling words. Changing your misbeliefs will change your feelings and actions. You can do it.

There may be some things in life you actually cannot do. Perhaps you cannot run a four-minute mile, hit a home run over the ball park fence, or kick a football sixty yards. But you can change your misbeliefs.

You may say to yourself, “Misbelief Therapy may work for others, but it won’t work for me. I’ve tried everything and I can’t make anything work in my life.” Are you saying something like that? Let’s change that misbelief right now.

As long as you’re convinced that you can’t change, you won’t try. There have been many people who have believed they could never change. And yet, these same people have dug in and changed their misbeliefs in spite of themselves, and the result has been transformed lives.

Misbelief Therapy will work for you. It will work for you even if nothing else has because its effectiveness depends upon very explicit psychological laws which are as universal as the law of gravity. The law of gravity is evident when you drop something, causing it to fall straight toward the center of the earth. So it is with the laws governing the relationship between belief and behavior. What you believe affects how you behave.

OUR EARLY YEARS

We talked earlier about the misbelief that all our problems stem from our childhood. This belief is widespread largely because of the influence of Freudian psychoanalytic theory, a magnificent but frequently erroneous personality theory which, a few decades ago, was generally accepted as the definitive word about human behavior. Now, however, psychoanalysis is not nearly as universally accepted among psychologists, and is losing ground among psychiatrists. Many excellent scientific investigations have demonstrated that it is entirely unnecessary to uncover the childhood antecedents of current behaviors in order to change them. Freudian psychoanalysis may actually provide an exercise to avoid working on changing behavior.

This is not to say that a problem is not better understood by looking into its history. Most therapists engage in exploration of the patient’s past because it’s important to a certain degree. We began thinking the way we now think at some time or another in our lives and often our thoughts and beliefs originate in childhood. Some of the primitive beliefs and behaviors that cause our unpleasant feelings and maladaptive behavior as adults were acquired in our early years. They may have been conveyed to us through the behavior and words of a significant person in our childhood. The impressions we learned in early years are important to us in order that we may change the misbeliefs we incurred then as well as the current misbeliefs we may have about our childhood.

Examining your early years may be important for the following reasons:

1. To discover your misbeliefs learned in childhood.

2. To discover your misbeliefs about events in your childhood.

3. To examine your self-talk:

What did you tell yourself then?

What do you tell yourself now?

When you were a child you may have thought it was terrible if you lost something or if someone was cruel to you, mistreated you, or treated you unjustly. Examining your early self-talk may reveal some of your current misbeliefs.

Once these are discovered, you can go to work changing your present thoughts and attitudes. By working on the lies you tell yourself now, you can successfully learn how to be a happy person in spite of anything that has happened to you in your life.

WHAT CAUSES US TO FEEL THE WAY WE FEEL?

The state of your biochemistry can affect the way you feel. There are ways to change your biochemistry; one of the ways is through drugs. Another way to change is to begin maintaining an adequate nutritional base and a properly-functioning body. Your thoughts, too, can change your biochemistry. That’s right; what you are thinking right now can actually change the chemical composition of your brain cells and the rest of your central nervous system.

Would you believe that the sentences in your self-talk can actually alter your glandular, muscular, and neural behavior? It’s true. That’s what we mean when we talk about emotions.

Some psychologists are uncovering the fact that the way you think influences the way you feel. They speak of it as a brand new discovery, a modern-day revelation. Actually, this truth has been around for thousands of years. The book of Proverbs says, “As he thinketh in his own heart, so is he,” and “The thoughts of the righteous are right . . .” [8]and the book of Psalms gives us many words regarding man’s thoughts and the material he puts into his mind: “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.” [9]

Our thoughts determine our behavior. When we speak of behavior, we mean not only our actions but also our emotions. Jesus kept telling people to believe, believe. Have faith, trust, believe. “According to your faith be it unto you,”[10] He said.

“Faith” is a noun that refers to the act of believing. Jesus’ statement clearly teaches that we can expect certain things in our lives to take place as a direct result of how we believe.

What if you believe your life is hopeless and that you’re nothing but a failure? “According to your faith, so be it done to you” is what Jesus said.

What if you believe that in spite of the ups and downs of life, you are not a failure, you’ll never be a failure; it’s impossible for you to be a failure! What if you believe that life is challenging and good and with Christ as the strength of your life, you’re a winner through thick and thin?

“According to your faith be it unto you.”

Don’t let anybody tell you that what you think or tell yourself isn’t important. It was the main core of Jesus’ teachings.

During the 1970s many experiments in psychology were done to demonstrate that changing misbeliefs resulted in changing feelings like fear and depression. Psychologists have spoken of “cognitive restructuring” or rational emotive psychotherapy or alteration of personal constructs. No matter which term the psychologists prefer, they are all excited about one major discovery, a fact which has long been known to wise men, including the authors of the Scriptures: Change a man’s beliefs and you will change his feelings and behavior.

In order to accomplish our goals in this book and in life, we must systematically discover, analyze, argue against, and replace with truth the misbeliefs in our lives.

Before starting, however, you will have to answer the question, do you really want to be happy?

If the answer is yes, then move on to the next chapter of this book, and the next chapter of your life!

Chapter Three

Misbelief in Self-Talk

Yes! We want to be happy. The business of making yourself a happier and more fulfilled person can be a lot of fun if you let it be. Sometimes it may be a bit painful, as you become more and more aware of yourself and what you have accepted as you; but foremost, it promises to be an exciting time of discovery and renewal for you. Listen carefully, follow the scriptural course outlined, and trust the Lord to bring you through with flying colors.

Please get a notebook and pen now as we are learning new life skills and getting rid of the old destructive ways. You will be able to watch your own progress and learn much from the entries you make in your notebook. This chapter begins with an investigation of self-talk.

THE WORDS WE SAY TO OURSELVES

Self-talk means the words we tell ourselves in our thoughts. It means the words we tell ourselves about people, self, experiences, life in general, God, the future, the past, the present; it is specifically, all of the words you say to yourself all of the time.

What are the lies and half-truths you repeat to yourself? Which misbeliefs keep you unhappy and upset? First you must learn how to identify the misbeliefs in your life.

Where do the lies and misbeliefs start?

The answer to that is in your self-talk.

Angie is a 31-year-old housewife who has been repeating negative things about herself most of her life. As an adult her negative self-talk has increased. “They’re harmless words,” she says: words like “Oh, dumb me. There I go again, being my old stupid self. That’s just like me. What a dumb thing to do.” “Boy, if I didn’t have my head screwed on, I’d lose it for sure.” “I can’t do anything right,” and “I have no interests.” Finally, she says, “I’m really a nothing person. I don’t see how anyone can stand me.”

After many years’ experience with such self-talk, she finds herself with a marriage of eight years hanging in shreds, her children disturbed and maladjusted, her friends few and her family helpless to assist. No amount of love and attention from anyone can convince Angie that she is a worthwhile and lovable person, although she says her biggest pursuit in life is happiness.

The words we tell ourselves are more important than we realize. If you tell yourself something enough times and in the right circumstances, you will believe those words whether true or not. Angie’s jokes about herself were not really jokes at all. “Dumb me” said often enough is not funny.

“I can’t do anything right” said enough times will find you not doing anything right, at least in your own eyes. Then, with a few negative remarks from those around you, such as, “You did wrong again,” your belief in self-failure is reinforced.

If you tell yourself, like Angie, “I have no interests,” you will find yourself behaving as if you had no interests. (That’s impossible, by the way. Everyone is interested in something, no matter how trivial or unimportant it may seem.)

Psychiatrist Willard Gaylin said, “A denigrated self-image is a tar baby. The more we play with it, embrace it, the more bound we are to it.” With each self-destructive sentence uttered, we ply another wad of tar on a developing tar baby which could eventually hold us desperately bound.

Listen to the words you tell yourself. Are you building a tar baby?

Angie believed she was basically an inept person with no skills or assets of any kind. She didn’t see herself as personally attractive or interesting and believed she was not worthy of being loved or wanted by anyone.

Angie, by the way, is a Christian.

Rarely, if ever, did she tell herself that she was loved and cherished by the Lord of love. Rarely, if ever, did she count personal blessings. Rarely, if ever, did she thank God for her own special gifts and talents because she had been telling herself she had none for so many years she believed it. She had never told herself the truth, that she was unique and beautiful in the eyes of the Lord.

WHAT SENTENCES ARE YOU TELLING YOURSELF?

In the following, check the words you tell yourself in the appropriate column. Be honest.

___ I am dumb.

OR:

___ Thank you, Lord, for giving me intelligence.

___ I am unattractive.

___ Thank you, Lord, for making me attractive.

___ People don’t like me.

___ Thank you, Lord, for making me likable.

___ I have no talent.

___ Thank you, Lord, for the talents you’ve given me.

___ I’m miserable.

___ I’m content.

___ I’m lonely.

___ Thank you, Lord, for my friends.

___ I’m poor.

___ Thank you, Lord, for prospering me.

___ I’m nervous.

___ Thank you, Lord, for peace.

___ I’m uninteresting.

___ Thank you, Lord, for making me unique.

___ I’m no good.

___ Thank you, Lord, for your righteousness in me.

___ I’m sick.

___ Thank you, Lord, for perfect health and healing.

If you checked more sentences on the left than on the right, you need to change the sentences you are saying to yourself. Ask what you are measuring yourself against. Are you comparing yourself and your life with someone else who seems better in some way, or are you looking at yourself in the light of God’s Word? D. L. Moody once said that the best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it.

The straight stick in the lives of Christians is the lovely and indestructible love of Christ! When our eyes lose sight of this dazzling truth, there remains only shadows to stare at. Shadows such as envy, jealousy, or comparing ourselves with others. Unhappiness or a state of discontent often is the result of longing to be different or to be in different circumstances, especially someone else’s.

Not long ago, a poll was taken of 5,000 middle-class single and married men and women of average and above-average intelligence. The poll revealed that the single people were no more or less happy than the married people and the married people no more or less happy than the single. Common, however, was the finding that single people envied married people. Married people, on the other hand, reported envying single people. Many married people revealed they were happy because they were “supposed to be happy,” not because they actually had feelings of happiness in their lives.

A single woman said, “I envy my friend, Jane. She’s really happy. She has a husband, kids, and a home. She has everything.”

A married woman said, “I envy Connie. She has it made. She’s free to come and go when and where she wants. Her time is her own; her money is her own. She’s out in the world doing things. She’s single and she’s the really happy one.”

What do you recognize in the words these two people are saying? Envy isn’t usually realistic—it doesn’t have all the facts. The words “I’m miserable and someone else is the happy one” are basically untrue. Everyone has some unhappiness in his life somewhere and sometime. Everyone has difficulties to face and problems to solve. Both Connie and Jane may have good lives, but they also have trials to overcome.

Picture a little boy jumping with delight as he tightly clutches a nickel in his fist. His mother gave him the nickel and told him to go outside and play. The little boy feels light and happy. But then he meets a playmate who has a quarter. His nickel suddenly loses its luster. He’s not feeling so light anymore. He goes home and asks his mother for a quarter, and his mother gives him one. Now the little boy jumps happily once again until he meets another playmate, and this time the playmate has fifty cents in his hand. The little boy is crestfallen. His quarter looks pitiful next to two quarters. So back home he goes to get fifty cents from his mother. When he does, he runs into a playmate with a dollar bill . . . and on it goes.

If we do not find worth in what we are and what we have now, we will tell ourselves we are less important than others or we have less than others. When we tell ourselves these things, we create unrest within ourselves and in striving to be or have what we think others have, we are always seeking after an invisible unattainable state of happiness which is always out of our grasp. Somebody somewhere will always be or have more than we.

Carol is a soft-spoken grandmother who lives in a modest home which is usually in need of repair. Her sons are successful businessmen and own homes twice the value of hers. Their wives are smartly dressed and have every convenience at their disposal. Carol cannot afford expensive clothes. She drives a second-hand car and takes her laundry to the laundromat. She is happy, out-going, and content with her life. “Grandma is my bestest person!” her small grandchildren exclaim. Carol is not only adored by her family, but by her friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. There is a peaceful, loving, and unselfish quality about her which draws people to her. Her son marvels at how his mother avoids complaining. Carol knows the value of the words of the Apostle Paul, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content,” [11]and she lives them. Envy has no place in her life.

A young man who lost a limb in Viet Nam is able to praise God for blessings in his life and to lead a vital and productive life in spite of his loss. He tells himself, “I can do it. I have much to offer.”

A middle-aged woman who lost her husband and three small children in a private plane crash finds courage and strength in Christ to go on and live a full life helping others and being a blessing to those in need. She tells herself, “I shall always miss my family, but I do not want to prolong grief and sorrow beyond the limits of God’s will. It is His will that I be happy and useful—and I am!”

A soothing tongue is a tree of life, but perversion in it crushes the spirit.[12]

Choose to say truthful things about yourself to yourself. When you hear yourself saying something false about yourself, stop. You can do it. Just say aloud, “No. I don’t want to say that. It is not true.”

Lorraine, a single woman of twenty-six, told us about the following event in her life: “I had moved back home to my father’s house after quitting college. I had been gone from home for a couple of years and I didn’t know anybody in the neighborhood anymore. It was all very strange. My father was nagging me to get a job, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. In the back of my mind I thought it would be great to get married and get away from it all, but I wasn’t even dating anyone seriously. Anyhow, one night I was in my room and I wasn’t doing much of anything when I heard this little thought-voice coming from the back of my head somewhere. It said in a real high whiney voice, ‘I’m sooo lonely.’ I sat down on my bed and in a few minutes I heard myself sighing in a high, whiney voice, ‘I’m sooo lonely’—just like I had heard in my head. It really scared me. I jumped up and shouted, ‘I am not lonely. That’s ridiculous. I am not lonely. I didn’t mean that!’ ”

Lorraine was wise enough to recognize false thinking. She probably could have found enough evidence to support the thought of being lonely, but she chose to gather evidence to prove she was not lonely instead. She told herself out loud, “I am not lonely,” resisting the temptation to verbalize the lying thought. She didn’t start forming the tar baby which could have given her a lot of unnecessary sadness later on.

We can all tell ourselves we are lonely, inept, or incapable at some time or another in our lives. A glamorous Hollywood actress, the envy of many women, was found dead in her bed with a suicide note beside her, “I am without hope.” A magnificent poetess of considerable literary success believed she was a failure in spite of the awards her work had won and the acclaim she had achieved. At the height of her career, in utter despair, she committed suicide.

These illustrations prove the need for something more in life, some meaning and fulfillment beyond the external layers. They show a need for a spiritual relationship with the God who created us and His Son, Jesus Christ, who redeemed us. Release from self-denigration and hopelessness is available through faith in Him. The Christian finds within his grasp the dynamic results in such practices as:

. . . whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.[13]

as well as:

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.[14]

It is not pleasing to the Lord when we speak evil of anyone, or for that matter, when we speak evil period. To speak of yourself in a belittling or destructive way is, in His sight, evil.

Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile[15] (against yourself as well as against anyone else!). Depart from evil (saying evil words and believing evil thoughts about yourself as well as about anyone else!), and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.[16]

Pursuing peace means to choose it. You will never have peace if you are putting yourself down. The peaceful person is the one who is at peace with himself. Dag Hammerskjold said, “A man who is at war with himself will be at war with others.” When you like yourself, you will be free to like and appreciate others. When you are hard on yourself, you will be hard on others.

Write in your notebook the things you tell yourself about yourself every day. Listen to your thoughts and your words. Remember, any thoughts that reflect hopelessness, desperation, hate, fear, bitterness, jealousy or envy are the words and thoughts generated by demonic falsehood. These are the words and thoughts you will be changing and eliminating from your life.

Now, are you ready to go to work?

Chapter Four

Misbelief in Depression

One of the most familiar causes of psychological suffering is depression. Patients seeing psychologists and psychiatrists all across the world have such diagnoses as “depressive neurosis,” “psychotic depression,” “involutional psychosis,” “manic-depressive,” “psychotic: depressed,” or ‘’depressed,” as well as other diagnoses with depressive symptoms. Worse, however, are the millions of people who, for various reasons, do not have the advantage of psychological or pastoral help, struggling through long miserable days in depression and believing there is no end in sight.

The Bible speaks of depression as the “soul cast down,” and in Psalm 42 we can sense the agony in the words, “My soul is cast down within me” and “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” Then triumphantly in 2 Corinthians 7:6 are the wonderful words, “God comforts those who are cast down.”

The ancient church fathers had another word for depression. They called it “sloth.” It was considered one of the seven deadly sins, on the same list with greed, anger, and lust. Sloth was described as sadness of heart and reluctance to engage in any activity requiring effort.

Today we don’t define depression in quite the same way. What exactly is depression? It can be described from various perspectives. If you looked at your biochemistry when you’re depressed, your metabolism, the behavior of your smooth muscles and glands, you would see that it is not only your verbal and motor behavior that has depressive symptoms.

Depression usually occurs with some provocation. Most depression-causing misbeliefs enter the stream of self-talk after some loss has occurred.

Many times a patient will be unable to explain why he is depressed. “I don’t know why I feel this way,” he may say. “I just don’t feel I can do anything at all. I just don’t want to do anything. I cry a lot. I don’t sleep well, and I don’t have any energy or interest in anything . . . I don’t know why . . .” His voice may trail off inaudibly or he may sigh, slump in the chair, or just stare at the floor.

In spite of the inability of the depressed person to explain how he got that way, it is extremely rare for depression to occur without some special provocation. The misbeliefs that cause depression can become activated by a single event. This event represents a loss of some kind. Someone special or dear leaves or dies. Or it could be financial reverses and a loss of money. It could be physical illness, aging, an accident, stroke or loss of physical strength. Separation and divorce are frequent occasions of loss in depression, and situations where rejection, fear, and low self-esteem are triggered.

Any of these events can be an opportunity for the devil to slip a few suggestions into a person’s self-talk. A college student may tell himself, “Boy, you sure are dumb. You failed your math exam. What are you doing in college anyhow? Look at all the money you’re wasting. You’ll never make it!”

The above example shows the three misbeliefs known as the depressive triad. Here they are:

Activating events followed by negative self-talk founded on misbelief:

1.

Person devalues self:

“Boy, you sure are dumb.”

2.

Person devalues situation:

“Lately life has been a drag; nothing is worth doing; I don’t know why I get out of bed!”

3.

Person devalues his prospects for future:

“You’ll never make it!” And you’ll never be anything! Life is hopeless!”

If you repeat these things to yourself enough times, you will find yourself behaving accordingly. When time rolls around for another math exam, the student may panic, sinking to new depths of depression and worthless feelings. He may even quit school before the quarter is up because of his misbeliefs—not because of anything real or true at all.

A 37-year-old woman named Jennifer makes an appointment with a Christian counselor because she is suffering severe depression. Two months earlier her fiancé called off their wedding and broke up with her. She can hardly go on, she says. Nothing seems worth living for.

At the first interview she appears attractive, intelligent, and charming, although she insists her life is over and it’s futile to go on.

She tells how she’s lost interest in her job, how she has lost her appetite and doesn’t want to do much of anything except sleep. “Life is a pain,” she says listlessly.

Her friends had tried to console her with words such as, “You ought to be thankful you found out your boyfriend’s true colors before it was too late and you were married to him. Then you’d be in a fine mess!” Or, “If that’s the kind of person he is, you’re better off without him!” and “You’re better off staying single than married to a guy who is fickle and unfaithful.” All of these words made sense to Jennifer, but they didn’t help her.

Her belief system was already so jam-packed with misbeliefs she couldn’t respond favorably to her friends’ homespun common-sense advice. For several years she had been afraid of becoming an old maid. She had believed maybe there was something wrong with her, harbored fears and worries that maybe she wasn’t attractive and desirable to men; otherwise, why was she getting older by the minute and still a single person? This engagement was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her, she told herself. This was really her last opportunity for happiness and wedded bliss.

Her self-talk had included, “If I blow it this time, I’ll end up an old maid. That would be terrible. Awful! That would be so dreadful, I could never stand it.” She worked hard at pleasing her fiancé and doing everything “right.” She was determined to be the greatest thing that ever happened to him, to be his “Miss Perfection,” his Dream Bride.

Because she worked so hard at being what she hoped he wanted her to be, it made her feel all the more miserable when he rejected her. She told herself, “Even my very best stinks. I couldn’t go through this again. It’s all over for me. Nobody will ever love me. Even when I do everything I can to make a man love me, he leaves me. I’m the worst. The lowest.”

You can see the familiar triad here:

1.

Devalues self:

“Even my very best stinks. Even when I do everything I can to make a man love me, he leaves me. I’m the worst. The lowest.”

2.

Devalues situation:

“It’s all over for me.” (Meaning that since she is such a dud and since no one can love her, life is utterly unrewarding and negative—a pain.)

3.

Devalues prospects for future:

“I’ll never be happy. I have no hope. It’s all over for me. Nobody will ever love me.”

Jennifer’s misbeliefs are: she is a failure or worthless; she is guilty and inadequate; her situation is intolerable and lacking in everything containing hope; her future is hopeless and she might as well roll over and drop dead.

She has convinced herself through years of self-talk that to be unmarried is awful and to be rejected is the worst thing on earth, especially if it is by someone she worked so hard to please. (“How could he do that to me? And after I tried so hard? My best isn’t good enough for anybody!”)

Jennifer’s awful fears and dreads have now come true. She tells herself she is the rejected castaway, useless, unlovable, ugly, and hopeless. “To be me is the most awful thing I can think of.”

Actually the only awful thing in Jennifer’s life is the crock of lies in her belief system, her misbeliefs. They are awful, not Jennifer.

Her positive attributes are many, including an ability to teach handicapped children. She has many friends and is highly respected at the school where she has taught seventh grade for several years. But Jennifer is a Christian and Christians don’t have to base their worth on achievements or attributes. Even without any achievements and without any special merit or attractiveness, the Christian can know for certain he/she is important and loved. Our lives have been bought and paid for with the blood of Jesus Christ and that means we’re free from the pressure to be something, do something, own something, achieve something or prove something in order to be important and loved. We can do all these things or not do them and still be loved and important.

Jesus loved Jennifer so much that He was willing to die on the cross so she could have eternal life with Him one day, as well as a fulfilled life here and now. If Jennifer is as worthless as she says she is, then none of the things God says of His love for people can be true.

But His words are true and Jennifer needs to come to grips with them. According to God, Jennifer has worth and value and so does every other human being. The worth of a person is not based on success or accomplishment. It is not based on performance, achievement, or even on how many people love and respect us. Our worth is based totally and solely on the declaration of God: “For God so loved the world.” God loves people. No circumstance, no matter how bad it looks, can change this fact. The treachery and suffering of man is not from the hand of God, but from his own hand.

It is a misbelief to tell yourself that you are a failure. It is rare indeed that a person cannot do anything at all. Jennifer told herself that she was a failure because she had failed to hold on to her fiancé. But that does not mean she is a failure in everything in life. She over-generalized.

The depressed person says that his/her situation is hopeless. “He left me and so I am nothing,” Jennifer says. “My life has no meaning or value.” Once the enemy, the devil, has a person deeply convinced of the lie that something or someone other than Jesus Christ is the foundation of life, he is open prey for the crippling pain of misbelief.

Our lives hold meaning because God loves us and because we are His. Our lives do not depend upon someone else loving us, staying with us, respecting us, noticing us, or pledging their eternal devotion to us. It’s nice to have friends and loved ones, but having them is not what makes us important. If you believe you cannot live without a certain person or that your entire existence depends on somebody else, you are setting yourself up to be hurt by that misbelief. If that person leaves you or because of circumstances you find yourself without them, you will tell yourself things like, “My life has no value or meaning.” “Since I lost X, my world has no significance. I’m nothing now that X is gone.”

That’s not true at all. You are not reacting to X’s leaving; you are reacting to your misbelief. We hear the popular songs with lyrics to the effect, You’re-my-very-existence, without-you-I-wouldn’t-know-how-to-take-air-in-and-out, I’d-be-an-empty-shell-and-a-worm-if-it-weren’t-for-you. The romances on our screens and printed page teach us that love means to tell ourselves that all happiness and breath depend on someone else, on their reciprocal affection and acceptance.

SELF-CENTERED RETALIATION

One way some people have of combating depression is to tell themselves: “I’m me, I’m somebody. Nobody’s gonna get in the way with what I want and need. After all, I’m a human being. I’m me. I’m running the great show of my life. Yessir, I’m the star of this number. I’m me—Numero Uno, kiddo. You live only once and I’m gonna get all I can because I only pass this way but once and if I don’t look out for myself, who will? If you love me, fine.”

This philosophy is costly because there is no way to love others as long as the star of the great show is you—only you and you to the tenth power.

Jesus Christ is the foundation of our lives, not ourselves alone and not another person or persons. When we become God’s children the great I dies and there’s a change, sweet as morning, that takes place, and we trade banners: the old used I for a shiny impenetrable His. Self-talk that degrades others degrades ourselves. We cannot undermine other people’s importance and overestimate our own importance without trouble.

BURNED AND STAYING THAT WAY!

Many times when a person has been hurt by another person resulting from misbeliefs such as, “People should be nice to me and love me,” he or she will react in still another way. Instead of admitting to anger or hurt, he or she will tell himself, “I’ll never be so dumb as to let somebody do this to me again!”

You may be saying things to yourself you are not even aware of until you start consciously listening to yourself. The person who has been rejected by another person may believe that rejection is the worst thing in the world. To be rejected certainly is unpleasant, but it’s not the worst thing in the world.

Listen to your self-talk and then engage in some honest and daring truth-telling.

Truth-telling such as, “This feels bad. I don’t like it. It isn’t what I wanted and it certainly isn’t something that gives me pleasure.” Notice we aren’t lying about the situation—not saying, “Oh, this doesn’t hurt a bit. Who cares if he/she rejects me?”

We’re speaking the truth, not making stupid remarks about not having the emotions we were born with. When you cut your finger you say, “Ouch,” right? When your heart hurts, it’s truthful to say, “I hurt.”

But you don’t end the self-talk at that. Here’s where so many counselors lock up shop. They advise, “Admit the hurt,” then wave good-bye. But what do you do next?

You continue the truth-telling about the hurt. Here is some more truth to replace the lies that create anguish and leave it raw:

- It’s true I’m feeling bad. It’s only unpleasant, however; it’s not doomsville.

- It’s not doomsville because I’m not letting it be. I will allow some good healthy pain, but I won’t allow anguish, misery, woe, and disaster.

- I’m in control here. God has created me as an emotional being and so I can expect to have emotions. But God has also given me the fruit of the Spirit: self-control. So I will control my feelings and they can’t control me.

- I am angry. I can, however, handle anger in a biblical, healthy manner. I do not lie to myself about this emotion and I do not try to squelch it or hold it in. I am also not a person of temper tantrums. I choose self-control.

When we lose someone or something important to us, we will feel hurt, yes; but if the hurt deepens to despondency and depression and remains that way for weeks or months, the cause is not the loss but misbelief. Two misbeliefs undergird this kind of despair:

———

1. God is not the source of life. Man is.

When we are despondent over loss, we are telling ourselves that the person or thing we lost is crucial to our lives and happiness.

The untruth lies in the fact that nothing and nobody but God is crucial to anyone. This truth is revealed in the first commandment: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thou shalt have no other gods before Him.

To ascribe the all-sufficiency of God to any person is idolatry, and the basis for idolatry is deception and misbelief. James, the apostle, wrote, “Do not be deceived . . . every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights” (James 1:16, 17); those truly good and perfect gifts do not come from someone or something other than God. God is the giver of all good and all love. He gives us our relationships and our blessings. Now the second misbelief:

———

2. Since I lost X, my world has nothing of any significance in it.

Experience bears out the deception here. Many of us have told ourselves we “cannot live without” some person, object, scheme, or notion. Then this adored “whatever” is removed from our lives and wonder of wonders, we recover. Some people without the skills we are learning in this book prolong their sufferings. They go on muttering destructive, irreligious, “without X I’m nothing” self-talk.

But many who have suffered loss in their lives recover and find satisfying and exciting alternatives. “I used to consider my health indispensable,” an ex-football star says. “When I lost what I considered absolutely essential to living, I thought there was nothing for me to do but die.” The handsome ex-athlete was in a car accident and lost both legs. He went on, however, to discover he had many interests in other areas. He graduated from college with honors and became a skilled musician. He is now married and working as a biologist. Although he encounters many problems as a handicapped person, these problems don’t render him hopeless or helpless.

A famous artist was thrown into a Nazi prison during World War II. When it was discovered he was an artist, his torturers had his right hand chopped off. It could have been the end of his world, but he taught himself to use and draw with his left hand. He went on to a prolific career as a productive and skilled artist.

A person can lose his/her health, reputation, vision, hearing, legs, hands, even family members, money, homes, physical attractiveness, life goals and plans—and yet recover and go on living a wonderfully rewarding and meaningful life.

When you suffer a loss of any kind in your life, you are going to feel the sting of that loss; but the key to recovery is not to repeat that someone or something is of such importance that you cannot go on after losing it. You can go on. You are important. Martin Luther’s great hymn counters this misbelief with the truth which stands the test of experience.

Take they our life,

Goods, fame, child and wife—

Let these all be gone.

They yet have nothing won,

The Kingdom ours remaineth.

Part of the self-talk of nearly all depressives includes the statement, “The future is hopeless.” Having lost her fiancé, Jennifer was telling herself that she would doubtless have to live and die without marriage and family, that there would never be anyone that could replace him, and that even if she should meet other good men, she was such a loser she’d never be able to hold their interest.

The depressed person believes he or she can never be happy without the thing they now do not possess. Jennifer tells herself that she will never know true happiness if she doesn’t get married. Many single people suffer with this misbelief. “Only through marriage can I experience life fully.” If that sentence follows with, “I’ll never get married. Nobody will ever love me,” there’s trouble. “All I can expect from life is frustration and unfulfillment” will be the words in the person’s self-talk.

Examine those words and you will expose the misbeliefs. To begin with, no one can predict the future with certainty, least of all a person whose prediction is determined by the pain and hurt of depression. We cannot predict that all of the events in our lives are going to be happy and enriching, nor can we predict that all ahead is gloom and despair.

Life at any given moment offers a mixture of pleasant and unpleasant, desirables and undesirables, fulfillment and disappointment. Some experiences are more gratifying than expected, but then some are worse than expected. Anyone predicting that life will be horrendous forever is as wrong as if he were predicting a nickel thrown through the air one hundred times will turn up tails one hundred times.

In actual fact, while nearly all depressed people tell themselves they will always feel devastated and down, virtually all recover. It is helpful to predict recovery if you are suffering from depression or if you are counseling a depressed person. That is because recovery from depression is in fact the most likely outcome! Speak the truth and say, “Even though I feel I have no hope, my recovery is assured. Thank God, these feelings of depression won’t last.”

Pray this prayer with us:

Dear Lord, thank you for giving me emotions. I’m thankful I can feel pain as well as joy. Thank you for setting me free from being a victim of my own emotions.

Thank you for caring deeply about me even though I’m sometimes unaware of it.

I choose now, in the mighty name of Jesus, to speak the truth to myself instead of misbeliefs. I am yours and so are my emotions.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Chapter Five

Misbelief in Anxiety

Suzie is stacking dishes in the dishwasher for her mother when she accidentally drops a glass and breaks it. Her heart pounds. She knows this means punishment. When she broke things in the past, her mother usually did three things: yell, call Suzie names, and spank. Suzie shudders in fear, thinking of what is to come. Then Mother enters the kitchen. When she sees the broken glass, she seizes Suzie by the arm, raves about the glass being fine crystal, calls her clumsy, careless, and useless, and then wallops her.

The next day Mother again tells Suzie to stack dishes in the dishwasher. Suzie isn’t very eager to do it. She tries to come up with an excuse to get out of the task. She says she has to go to the toilet or she has a stomachache and has to go to bed. Suzie feels anxious because she has been conditioned to feel that way. If she stacks the dishes, there’s the danger of breaking something; and if she breaks something, she will surely get yelled at, called names, and spanked, and that would be painful. In time, if Suzie has enough of these painful experiences—that is, breaks enough glasses and receives enough insults and spankings—she will develop anxiety that spreads into her very feelings of self-worth.

Pair these events with Suzie’s social contacts. She goes roller skating and has trouble staying upright on the skates. The other children ridicule and tease her. In school and at home her brother calls her names in front of other people. Her father often calls her lazy and her mother yells when she doesn’t perform according to her expectations.

Suzie teaches herself how to be anxious. When her playmates ridicule her, she feels pain; therefore, she feels anxious when she sees them playing on the ice skating rink or playground, as well as when she thinks about them. Her family’s demands, which she cannot always meet, present additional anxious feelings.

So Suzie does something typical of anxiety neurotics. She begins to avoid the things that make her feel anxious. She begins to avoid contacts with her playmates. She avoids her family, stays by herself. She teaches herself that when she withdraws from situations that make her feel anxious, the anxiety level drops. This is reinforcing to her.

Carol is a 22-year-old. She has spent several years of her life piling up anxiety responses, just as Suzie is doing now. She is riddled with fears and can’t force herself to go out and get a job. She says she wants to get a job but she just can’t get one. She has her own apartment near her parents’ home which she rarely leaves. “If you could get out and get a job, you’d pull yourself out of the dumps you’re in,” her mother tells her over the telephone.

“I can’t get a job,” she protests. “I’ve tried and I just can’t.” In desperation, her parents insist she see a psychologist.

“I hate job interviews,” she tells her therapist. “They scare me.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, they’re awful, that’s why. The job market is tight and there are so few openings.”

By her eighth session she is able to identify her thoughts and beliefs. She identifies her feared objects as other people. Her inability to land a job is not due to the job market but due to the anxiety she suffers at the thought of going out and being with people. She fears what the people could do to her.

“Carol, you said you hated being in crowds.”

“That’s right. I really hate it.”

“What could a crowd do to you?”

“Well, they might make fun of me or laugh at me.”

“Would that be terrible?”

“Yes, it would be terrible. It would be horrible. I’d hate that.”

“Would it really be the end of the world for you if someone laughed or made fun of you?”

“Well—I’d hate it, but—I guess it actually wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

Carol didn’t realize it, but she had just made a big and important step of progress.

1. She listened to herself and heard what was really going on in her mind.

2. By listening she realized she had been telling herself that to be laughed at and made fun of would be terrible, horrible. (Misbelief.)

3. She then argued that misbelief with the truth by telling herself that although she wouldn’t like the situation, it would not be the end of the world.

People who suffer from anxiety tell themselves, “If the thing I worry about actually happened, it would wipe me out. It would be awful, horrible.” Dr. Albert Ellis, director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Rational Psychotherapy, calls this “awfulizing.” Anxious people do a lot of it.

Little Suzie does it when she avoids her playmates. “It would be awful if they were mean to me.” Carol does it by avoiding job interviews. “It would be awful if I didn’t do well.”

Carol will realize that the idea of being in a crowd makes her anxious not because of the number of people or discomfort brought by the press of a lot of people, but because she fears they might make fun of her or laugh at her. She will overcome this lie as she de-“awfulizes” the thought in her mind and replaces it with the truth.

Some common lies are:

- He/she/they might not like me. That would be terrible.

- I might not meet people’s expectations of me. That would be terrible.

- I might be rejected. That would be terrible.

- I might fail. That would be terrible.

- I might say or do something dumb. That would be terrible.

- Once I’ve gained happiness, I might lose it. That would be terrible.

- Once I’ve gained love, I might lose it. That would be terrible.

- I might not look as good as other people. That would be terrible.

- He/she/they might not approve of me. That would be terrible.

- He/she/they might discover what a nothing I really am. That would be terrible.

- Nobody will ever love me. That would be terrible.

- I might be a terrible lover. That would be terrible.

- I might get hurt. That would be terrible.

- I might be asked to do something I don’t know how to do. That would be terrible.

- I might lose everything I’ve got. That would be terrible.

- I could die. That would be terrible.

There are many more. How many of them can you recognize?

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK OF ME

The central theme running through the misbeliefs in anxiety is that what other people think about me is of such crucial importance that I must anticipate it in advance of all my actions. I must do all I can in order to prevent others from thinking badly of me. If they think badly of me, it will be a mortal blow to me. It would be terrible.

Nearly all anxious people believe and tell themselves that they are in danger of other people’s reactions to them. These words, like all misbeliefs, are lies from the enemy. While we are certainly glad if others think well of us and love us, we can still live very well if we don’t have the affection and approval of other people. The Scriptures teach us to consider others in verses such as “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Beloved, let us love one another,” but that does not mean we are to strive and aim for the approval of everybody and drop dead if we don’t receive it.

It’s great to be liked. It is, in fact, more desirable to be liked than disliked. There is nothing wrong with learning how to be liked and appreciated by others. There are skills of personal communication which are beneficial to learn. But it is silly and destructive to believe that you must succeed in making everyone endorse you and everything about you. There is no reason why you cannot learn techniques for pleasing, influencing, persuading, and changing the behavior of other people. But this is different from dwelling on such misbeliefs as, “I must be important to someone.” It’s nice to be important to someone, but it’s healthy to leave out the “must.”

The philosophy that says you should be liked and appreciated by one and all is not only silly, it’s non-biblical. If you are learning techniques to please, influence, persuade, and manipulate people, what are your motives? Are you saying to yourself, “I must be important to someone—I must be liked—I must be accepted—I must be . . .”?

Let’s assume your “musts” aren’t fulfilled after all. Suppose people still don’t particularly like you after you work diligently to gain their approval? Suppose someone actually hates the sight of you—outwardly rejects you? Suppose someone you respect and desire the approval of tells you to go fly a kite or jump in the lake or some similar brush-off? What do you tell yourself then? Because placed as paramount in your gallery of “musts” is the notion that everybody should approve of and like you, you’ll probably respond to rejection with such miseries as, “I’m really a loser,” or, “What a failure I am,” or, “I’m a real nothing,” or, “I’ll get them for this. I’ll show the world!” “I don’t need anybody!”

The Bible does not teach us to please everybody on earth. It does not tell us to work overtime trying to get people to love us. Jesus never told us to go out and take a course in how to get people to like us. He told us to love Him, trust Him, have faith in Him, glorify Him, and to genuinely care about others.

The price an anxious person pays to please people is too great. Jesus, above all others, demonstrated that if a person is really serious about pleasing God, there will be times when his behavior will be just the opposite of what others expect of him. Jesus himself wasn’t loved by everyone and still isn’t. Jesus wasn’t accepted by everyone when He lived, and He still isn’t. Many have found fault with Him. When He was alive on earth He made the leaders and molders of public opinion quite upset with His social behavior. He befriended prostitutes and thieves and sought the company of traitorous tax gatherers. This did not make Him Mr. Popular with the religious folk. In fact, many of the things He did didn’t win him friends. People found fault with the way He talked and worshipped; they didn’t like what He said, didn’t like His friends, didn’t like what He did—they even criticized the way He ate. But He wasn’t devastated by what others thought of Him because He kept His eye on the Father and doing His will.

In fact, He had joy through it all and says to us, “My joy I give to you.” Jesus didn’t live to please people. He lived to please His Father in heaven.

Nobody other than you has the power to make you miserable. That power is yours alone.

You make yourself miserable by the things you tell yourself. Sometimes, however, an anxious person cannot define what it is that is making him anxious. The term anxiety covers a large number of behaviors, including cognitive activity (such as worrying, fretting, obsessing) as well as physiological events appropriate under stress (dry mouth, perspiring, rapid heartbeat and respiration, dizziness, light-headedness, tremors, butterflies in the stomach, tense muscles). Anxiety is ordinarily defined as fear in the absence of actual danger. The event a person fears is highly unlikely to do to him what he fears.

Anxiety is:

1. Fear in the absence of real danger.

2. Overestimation of the probability of danger and exaggeration of its degree of terribleness.

3. Imagined negative results.

The acrophobic person has a fear of heights and is afraid he will fall from the highest floor of a tall building to his death even though he is indoors with the windows closed or standing on a heavily screened observation platform. He grossly overestimates the likelihood of falling. Granted, it certainly wouldn’t be a pleasant event if a person were to trip off the edge of a high building and plunge twenty floors to the pavement below, but the likelihood of its actually happening is extremely remote. In spite of that, the acrophobic person is horrified that such a thing might happen to him. His life can be made miserable because of his fear of heights. Driving along a mountain road may be a living nightmare to him. He may get hysterical if he has to climb a ladder or scale a catwalk. Just the thought of a high plane can bring a cold sweat to his brow. He is trapped by this fear in spite of the fact that he is actually in no danger at all.

The zoophobic is another person with exaggerated fear. His anxiety, due to imagery, is related to animals and he is deathly afraid of them. He may turn pale and tremble in the presence of a tiny kitten. What he is doing is exaggerating the degree of evil he would suffer if the kitten were to jump on him and bite or scratch. He may imagine being clawed to death, disemboweled, or being suffocated by it. In reality, he is in very little danger at all. The zoophobic realizes that most domestic pets are not dangerous, but he is tormented by images of danger.

The claustrophobic person is afraid of small places. Elevators, small rooms without windows, crowded narrow hallways and other enclosed areas will be an agonizing torture for this person. He is afraid that if the building were to catch fire or if some disaster were to occur, he couldn’t get out fast enough. He over-stresses the likelihood of these improbable events happening. He is tormented by this fear.

Another person who experiences agonizing anxiety is the agoraphobic person who is fearful of open places. He is afraid that if he goes to these places, he will have an anxiety attack at being there and be unable to escape. He tells himself he will become so anxious in such places that his heart will race, his breath will come in gulps, his limbs will tremble, his head will swirl, he’ll black out and lay squirming on the ground making a public spectacle of himself. Maybe he’ll die or maybe he’ll get carted away to some hospital where he’ll be pronounced hopelessly insane.

How probable is such an event?

Little Suzie at the beginning of this chapter has become an agoraphobic. She sits in the big leather chair of the consulting room, her eyes darting back and forth at the furnishings and out the window.

“Suzie, is it true you haven’t been to school for several days?”

“I guess so. I’m never going back.”

“Never?”

“Never. I hate it. It’s too big. My other school wasn’t so big.”

“Did you like your other school better?”

“No. I hated that school, too. I don’t want to be around so many people. They make me nervous.”

“What happens when you become nervous?”

“I don’t know. I just get sick, I guess. I feel sick.”

“Where do you feel sick?”

“Everywhere. I just feel sick. I feel like I’m going to faint or lose control. Like I’ll lose control.”

“What do you mean by that, Suzie?”

“I’ll just lose control, you know, like start screaming or crying or maybe I’ll fall down or something and lose control.”

Little Suzie, whose parents can’t understand how they could possibly have such a “disturbed child” wonder if she is brain damaged. There is nothing wrong with Suzie’s brain, however. She is a bright child who suffers anxiety at phobic proportions. At first she doesn’t want to receive psychological help, but after a few sessions she begins to respond and she likes her therapist.

“Suzie, what would happen if you actually did lose control, as you say, in the middle of a crowd?”

Her eyes widen and the pulse beat at her temples quickens. “Oh, I uh—I would lose control. I’d—I’d—I don’t know, maybe go crazy.”

“Do you really think you would go crazy?”

“Do you think I would?”

“No, I don’t.”

She is quiet for a moment. She is fumbling with her hands. “I uh—I don’t know. I’d lose control in front of all those people. In front of the other kids. It would be the worst. The worst.”

“Would it really? What would be so bad about that?”

She wants to laugh, but she just groans. “Oh, that would be so terrible.”

Several sessions later, she is able to honestly say to her therapist, “I suppose it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I lost control.”

“And do you really believe you will lose control?”

“Well, I don’t know. After all, we did go to school twice last week and I didn’t lose control. I went this morning—”

“Is it unpleasant to be around all those kids?”

“Yes, it’s unpleasant.”

“It’s endurable, though, isn’t it? I mean, a thing can be unpleasant and still endurable, can’t it, Suzie?”

Suzie smiles her brightest smile since she has been coming for therapy. She shrugs then and says, “I s’pose. I just never thought that something could be unpleasant and that I could still get through it.”

“Are you willing to go to school again tomorrow?”

“I think so.”

The “terrible” consequences Suzie imagined were based on nothing but anxiety. Some people’s lives are organized around the effort to avoid anxiety. The fear of fear consumes their waking hours and anxiety about anxiety brings such tension and stress that it becomes self-fulfilling. The agoraphobic cries like Job, “The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me.” [17]The misbelief is exaggeration of the badness of the anxiety attack. For even though it may be truly uncomfortable, it is not likely to do a person any harm.

We don’t want to make the answers to Suzie’s problem sound simplistic, and we don’t want you to get the idea that phobias are cured miraculously after a few little talks with a Christian psychotherapist. Suzie has come a long way, though, and is on her way to true recovery. She is beginning to understand and act on the truth. She is learning how to argue against her misbeliefs. Her parents’ unrealistic expectations of her, rejection from her brother and friends, as well as failure at sports and schoolwork all contribute to her anxiety responses. The wonderful fact is, however, she will not have to wait until she is an adult to learn the skills that make for a healed and normal life. She is learning them now with God’s help.

The love of God reaches into Suzie’s fears. This love surrounds, engulfs, and pierces into her soul where her emotions and thoughts live. She imagines the Lord accompanying her to school; she sees Him standing beside her in the school gym softly whispering, “I’m with you always, Suzie”; she chooses to replace some of the self-condemning lies she has believed with such truths as: The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in me.[18] Gradually and slowly, Suzie will take part in the youth group at church and she will be a sparkling star for the Lord whom she is finding to be very real.

Perhaps Suzie has suffered more than most little girls in the sixth grade, but she has learned something many adults are still groping to discover. Even though things may be unpleasant, I can live through it without falling apart and things are only as unpleasant as I tell myself they are.

Let’s look at the major misbeliefs in anxiety.

1. If the thing I worry about were to happen, it would be terrible.

2. Even though the likelihood of the terrible happening to me is utterly remote, I believe it’s actually inevitable.

Most of our anxieties do not reach phobic proportions. You may feel tense and anxious when you have to get up and give a speech or when you are in a new and unfamiliar situation that demands your best; but more than likely, your reactions won’t reach phobic proportions. You may think your legs are turning to putty and your stomach is popping with flying objects, but you do eventually recover.

An actor tells himself on opening night of his play that he will surely have a heart attack before the curtain goes up. He perspires, his hands are cold, his feet feel numb. He has difficulty breathing. “I’ll never live through it,” he tells the floor. “I don’t remember a word of the script. I’m sick all over.”

Two and a half hours later, when the curtain rings down, he feels great. Why? He got through it. He shows us one of the best cures for situational anxiety. Avoid it and you’ll increase the anxiety. Face it and go through the anxiety and you’ll remove it.

It may be unpleasant, but who ever told us all of life was supposed to be pleasant? The actor somehow pushed one foot in front of the other and got himself out on stage at his cue. From then on, he was okay. He got through it, and on top of it—got through it well. Whether or not the play was a critical success is not important. What is important here is that he plunged through his anxiety and didn’t turn back.

When you are feeling anxiety, stop and ask yourself:

1. What am I telling myself is terrible?

(The actor tells himself he’ll forget his lines, he’ll do a bad job in the play. He thinks that’s terrible.)

2. Will the results really be as terrible as I tell myself they’ll be?

(The actor says terrible things will happen if he forgets his lines or does a bad job.)

Now argue the case—like this:

1. It’s not terrible. It may be unpleasant, but that’s a long way from terrible.

(“Some of the things that I believe to be absolutely terrible really are only annoying.”)

2. Even if what I fear were to happen, it wouldn’t be terrible. It might be unpleasant, but it surely wouldn’t be the end of the world or me.

(“If the worst happened, the consequences wouldn’t really be as bad as I’ve been telling myself.”)

AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOR

The actor could have refused to go on stage the night his play opened. He could have chosen to run away from the unpleasant feelings he was experiencing. But he didn’t. He forged ahead, plowed through his anxieties—and afterward? He felt good.

Many situations in your life may be less than pleasant. In fact, oftentimes you’ll be faced with problems that seem to be insurmountable. Avoiding the problem or situation usually makes it more intense. Avoiding anxiety is not the way to get rid of it. Tell yourself:

1. Even though I’d like to avoid the circumstance or situation, I will not. Avoidance behavior will only increase my anxiety. I will go ahead, experience the unpleasant feelings, and I’ll get through it.

2. I do not have to be afraid of unpleasant feelings. They are a part of life and they won’t kill me. It’s acceptable to have unpleasant feelings at times.

Margaret is a beautiful woman of forty with the energy of a teenager. She busies herself caring for the needs of her family as well as working a fulltime job outside the home. She has several hobbies and is active in her church as a prayer group leader and Sunday school teacher. She is well-loved by those closest to her and has many friends and acquaintances. She has one problem: she is deathly afraid to drive a car and refuses to learn how.

This problem was magnified when her husband decided it was time to move to a larger home in the suburbs. Margaret would no longer have the convenience of the city buses to help hide her fear of driving. She would no longer have the familiar busy routine with which she felt safe and secure. She was faced with the threat she dreaded most: sitting behind the driver’s wheel and driving a car on dangerous streets and highways. The thought was horrible. It nearly cost her her marriage.

“I won’t move,” she told her husband flatly.

“But we’ll move into a bigger and better home,” he tried to reason. “We’ll have everything you could want.”

“I’m not going.”

“But why not? What’s wrong?”

“I hate the suburbs.”

Her husband could not understand her attitude. He attempted a rational discussion. “But you’ve always said how much nicer it would be to live in the suburbs. The children would have more outdoor freedom, we’d have a more modern home with more space, it would be more quiet than the city . . .”

“I don’t want to talk about it. If you want to move, go ahead. You move without me, though.”

“I don’t want to move without you. That’s a foolish thing to say.”

“If you really loved me, you wouldn’t do this to me.”

“Do what to you?”

Her husband was unaware of the proportions to which Margaret’s anxieties had grown. She had been able to develop her fears without revealing how painful they were. Her lies were, “If I drive a car, I’ll have an accident and that would be terrible. I could kill someone. Or I could be killed.”

Margaret and her husband sought professional marriage counseling and the truth emerged. Margaret’s fear of driving was deeper than they realized.

Very gradually and over a long period of time, Margaret was able to overcome this fear. Eventually she was able to take driving lessons and even own her own car. She was able to get through her unpleasant feelings; she could do the thing she dreaded.

But how does Margaret or anyone else experiencing intense anxiety get to the point where their fears pass? The answer is to listen to the words you tell yourself, argue against those words, and replace the misbelief with the truth.

In a very short time Margaret was able to see her misbeliefs clearly. They were: “Driving cars is the most dangerous thing a person can do. I might do something stupid or make a mistake, costing a life. That would be the most terrible thing I can think of.” She then taught herself to challenge such nonsense: “Driving cars is not the most dangerous thing a person can do. Living without Jesus is more dangerous. Furthermore, if I make a mistake, I will handle the consequences.”

She learned to speak the truth to herself, “Even though it is anxiety-arousing for me to get behind the wheel of a car, I can do it.” Gradually she progressed from sitting behind the wheel to starting the engine. (“I can do it. In Christ nothing is impossible!”)

Then, with someone sitting beside her in the front seat, she would put the car into drive, step gently on the gas and drive only to the end of the driveway; then she would brake, put the car in park, and turn off the engine. (“I did it! I drove the car! I got through it! Thank you, Lord.”)

The next day she repeated driving to the end of the driveway. She did this for three days. We asked her how she felt driving to the end of the driveway for the fourth time.

“I felt fine.”

“No anxiety?”

“No, not really. I felt fine about it.”

“Why do you think you felt fine about it?”

“Well, I knew I could do it. I had done it three times before and it didn’t do me in. I guess I just felt confident it wasn’t going to be that terrible.”

We were delighted and congratulated her. Then we asked, “Are you ready to drive to the corner?’’

Margaret made the drive to the corner. She did it several times with someone with her and then she soloed. “I did it!” she exclaimed. “I never dreamed it would be possible.”

Most anxieties are related to four things:

1. Dread of making public mistakes.

2. Fear of making someone else angry or upset.

3. Losing love.

4. Physical pain and death.

These fears are exaggerated and often needless. In reality, you create anxiety, not situations or events. Anxiety is brought about by your telling yourself something is terrible.

What does “terrible” mean? Usually it means something far worse than you think you can endure. You tell yourself the “terrible” is beyond human endurance, worse than anything on earth. Truly, nothing of this sort exists.

“Terrible” is something that you firmly believe ought not to be. It’s terrible; therefore it must not exist. This, too, is a misbelief.

Inconvenient, annoying, unfortunate, unpleasant stimuli will always exist. You, however, control your own feelings. Thinking creates feelings. You’ll never get rid of every unpleasantness around you, but you can gain the skills to handle them effectively. The mistaken belief that life should be sweet, nice, and without problems will make you quite miserable. With these ideas in your mind, you will seek to avoid or run from trouble rather than overcome it.

Jesus tells us quite clearly that we will encounter negatives in this world and that there will be problems, trials, and temptations of all sorts. He said, “In the world you shall have tribulation.” He warned us of a devil, the enemy of God who seeks to destroy man; but then He said triumphantly, “But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”[19] We can be free of crippling anxiety when we rest in this beautiful fact: In Christ we are safe, loved, protected, watched over, and one day bound for eternal glory.

Getting rid of your anxiety means to (1) minimize the danger you tell yourself you’re in (remember, your fears are exaggerated); (2) realize you create your anxiety (you create your own misbeliefs); (3) dispute these misbeliefs, challenge them (“is this really as terrible as I’m telling myself?”); (4) replace the misbeliefs with the truth. Don’t worry about how weak you think you are. Jesus said, “My strength is made perfect in weakness.”[20]

Here are some words of truth with which to argue those lies:

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. 4:17).

Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke 10:19).

And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you (Luke 11:9).

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7).

Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4).

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint (Isa. 40:31).

Let’s pray together, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” And now let’s expect great things as He answers our prayer. Anxiety will no longer have controlling power over you.

[1]. Psalm 1:1, 2, The Amplified Bible.

[2]. Matthew 5:3, The Amplified Bible.

[3]. Proverbs 23:7.

[4]. “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by (through) Me” (John 14:6).

[5]. James 3:15.

[6]. Romans 8:6.

[7]. John 8:32.

[8]. Proverbs 23:7, Proverbs 12:5.

[9]. Psalm 119:59.

[10]. Matthew 9:29.

[11]. Philippians 4:11.

[12]. Proverbs 15:4 (NAS).

[13]. Philippians 4:8.

[14]. 2 Corinthians 10:5.

[15]. Psalm 34:13.

[16]. Psalm 34:14.

[17]. Job 3:25.

[18]. Romans 8:11.

[19]. John 16:33.

[20]. 2 Corinthians 12:9.

WILLIAM BACKUS founded the Center for Christian Psychological Services, was a licensed consulting psychologist, and an ordained minister of the gospel. Dr. Backus did follow-up studies of his clients that showed a 95 percent improvement rate compared to a 67 percent success rate for other methods of therapy. He claimed that the difference was the truth of God as revealed in His Word. Dr. Backus died in June 2005.

MARIE CHAPIAN, Ph.D., is known around the world as an author and speaker. She also is a Christian counselor and a familiar personality to radio and TV audiences. She has written more than thirty books with translations in fifteen languages.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

1. What Is Misbelief?

2. Do We Really Want To Be Happy?

3. Misbelief in Self-Talk

4. Misbelief in Depression

5. Misbelief in Anxiety

Notes

About the Authors

Back Cover