Honestly, I know something about losing my identity. At one point, I called a dear friend and asked, “Would you go to lunch with me and remind me who I am?” How sad!
But seriously, a lot of women get there. Of course, we serve our families so much, we forget who we are. Hiding and pretending can become our identity. But how can we foster confidence in our kids, if we’re struggling with our own identity?
Robin Melvin knows something about doing all the right things and still feeling at a loss about her purpose in life.
“Well, it is, I believe, a normal thing that we someday realize we have been married with children maybe and we have just done so much and poured so much into our families,” says Robin. “We wake up and think, Who am I?”
Identity and Divine Design
Unfortunately, we’re living in a time when many people feel displaced. So many folks question their identity to the very core of their being, even to the point of changing genders. It breaks my heart!
Maybe you know just what I mean because your family is struggling with identity issues.
People seem to have no idea about God’s divine design for them, for their bodies, their emotions, for their mind, their life, and their purpose.
I thought it was time to get an expert on the show to talk about true identity.
Fostering Confident Hearts
Married to her husband Jeff, for nearly four decades, Robin spent their early marriage as a military wife as he served in the army. When she got to be about fifty their last child graduated from high school. Like most women, she was excited about reimagining the next phase of life.
“I was really excited, but I couldn’t, literally could not, make a decision,” she reports. “I was really bound up by it (her confusion). In a negative way. ”
Fortunately for Robin, she had a dear friend who was also a clinical psychologist. Don’t you love how God often uses our friends at just the perfect moment!
“And so she started just asking me questions about my history. We realized there were other reasons besides just the normal approach to midlife where we find ourselves in a transition,” she says.
Most women have something to unpack; pain and grief, sexual assault, abortion, addictions, or the mental health of a parent, a spouse, or ourself, just to name a few.
We carry our baggage around for a long time, then the moment comes when we either unpack it or curl up and die. More resources for fostering confidence: Chris Legg, Lindsey Bell, Tamara Clymer, Deb Butterfield.
Backgrounds that Swamp Our Identity
I loved the way Robin succinctly told of her childhood, explaining a phenomenon many people experience in families where trauma has taken its toll.
“Born in the late 1920s, my parents were children during the Great Depression and the Second World War. They were from a tough generation and believed psychology is weird, counselors are quacks, and if you ignore pain, it will go away. It’s a ‘suck it up and soldier on’ mentality. Authoritarian parenting was common and ‘Children will be seen, not heard,’ was the mantra.” ~Robin Melvin, Uncover Your Divine Design: Who did God create you to be? (Chapter 2)
In our conversation, we talk a whole lot more about the way undiagnosed PTSD sufferers may parent and what that means for our culture, even in the modern church. Robin goes into much more detail about how past cultural ideas can steal our voice even in our own families.
She points to her own dad’s experience.
“I believe my dad absolutely did not mean for that to affect me the way it did. It’s probably how he was raised as well. Then, they did have to be tough. They endured so many things,” she says.
Since a generation ago mental health was basically a taboo topic, many parents did not get help because mental health challenges weren’t diagnosed.
“What a cycle of hurt and pain and not knowing how to do anything!” she says, adding, “It was not manly to get help.”
Flipping the Script
If you, too, have been told to be silent, you may find yourself struggling to hear your own inner voice. Then, there’s the negative self-talk. Honestly, what woman doesn’t struggle with negative self-talk?
How do we flip the script on negative self-talk?
First, Listen
“First of all we have to be able to recognize what’s going on in our heads,” she says. “We have to pay attention to it (our thoughts), right?”
For so many of us, our mental script just goes and goes, according to Robin. Even our conscious thoughts can zip past us without any evaluation.
“I mean, we don’t always stop and think about what we’re thinking about,” she laughs.
Second, Look for LIARS
“When we say things to our self, whether it’s out loud or not, we’ll say, I’m such an idiot. Or, I’m so stupid. Or self-deprecating all the time. Those are thing we really need to nip in the bud,” Robin says.
She calls those negative thoughts, L.I.A.R.S. “Loud. Imagining. Appearing. Real.”
“Because we have thought them (repetitive negative labels) or said them so many times that they become normal for us. They’re real for us.”
Third, Consider Your True Identity
When we step back and shine the light of truth, God’s truth, on what we’re saying, we get a whole new thought process, according to Robin. When negative thoughts pop into our heads we respond with vigor.
“No! No, no, no, no, this isn’t even close to who God says I am!” She points to Psalm 139 for more truth.
“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. ~Psalm 139:13-15
“What delicate care He took to create us! Then we talk to ourselves the way we talk to ourselves,” explains Robin, adding, “It’s not even near God’s mind to even think like that about us. But we do it to ourselves.”
She quotes one of her favorite verses, II Timothy 1:7.
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
“A lot of verses have helped me through similarly dark times and just with my daily self-talk or my doubts or discouragement.”
Every Thought Captive
As a young believer I was delighted to learn we are called to train our minds. What good news! My mind was so cluttered with anxiety and fear.
Yet, God gives us so much wisdom in the Bible. What a great place to get direction from His beautiful and gentle Holy Spirit! We’re supposed to discipline our mind to think on what is true, especially on Him. In other words, take every thought captive.
“We do have to take every thought captive. I like that terminology, captive. Because we’re in this battle with our mind. Take it captive. It needs to obey Christ. It needs to obey what God says about who we are and why we’re here.
So, no need to listen to those sneaky attitudes that come creeping into our thinking!
The Power of True Identity
It’s so much easier to ignore the snarky stuff we say to ourselves. Or, destructive things we hear in our heads. It’s so much easier to love others when we know who God created us to be!
Next week, Robin joins us again to expand on how true identity results from divine design. I’m so grateful to Robin for all she shared and to God for allowing our paths to cross.
We are living in an era when people don’t even know their own true identity. People actually believe they can choose or change identities. I never thought I’d see so much free-floating self-rejection.
Please pray as I invite guests who are offering positive messages in contrast to the noise out there built around self-rejection and self-condemnation.
Thank YOU!
What a joy to bring awesome people, like Robin and YOU, to each other! Thank you for sharing her with your friends, too.
We are in this together!
🙂
Cathy
May we pray together?
Dear good Father, You are the BEST! We love You so much. Even when we reject ourselves, You keep right on loving us. How could we possibly resist the beauty of Your Spirit who keeps calling each one of us by name! Thank You for making each of us the way You did, with exquisite love and detailed forethought. Fearfully and wonderfully did You make each one of us and we are Yours. We praise You. Teach us to love ourselves and trust You in Your goodness. Help us love others the same way, even when it’s hard to love. Bless us now because that is Your heart’s desire. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
We LOVE to hear from YOU!
What baggage kept you from moving forward? How did you unload the guilt and shame and take on truth? Which verses speak to you today?
Me and My Forgetfulness!
Okay, so in today’s podcast, I mentioned that I keep writing endorsements for Robin’s book accidentally. Nobody pays me to endorse, I just like passing on good stuff to people I love.
Of course, friends know I tend to forget things, so I thought you might enjoy the humor of my forgetfulness. But her book is seriously good. Here’s one of the many endorsements I wrote:
“Ever wondered if you’re good enough? Of course! Everybody has. Fortunately for us all, Robin Melvin can tell a story! In her new book, she puts to rest the nagging struggles all women face. And she does it like a real friend, a sister who gets life can be dang tough! Uncover Your Divine Design: Who did God create you to be? reminds us we were made for more.” ~Cathy Krafve, author, speaker, host of Fireside Talk Radio
I Refuse to Forget
On another note, one thing I will not forget is the last 13 fallen American heroes in Afghanistan:
- Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover;
- Marine Corps Sgt. Johanny Rosario;
- Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee;
- Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez;
- Marine Corps Cpl. Daegan W. Page;
- Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez;
- Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza;
- Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz;
- Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum;
- Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola;
- Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui;
- Navy Petty Officer Third Class Maxton W. Soviak; and
- Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss.
It’s been a year and still no accountability for the debacle of the American retreat. Their story reminds us America must fight to hold onto the values that bought us freedom in the first place.
I’m amazed that so many friends have not heard what happened at Abbey Gate or why it happened. I chose a video by Jennifer Griffin, in case you missed the tragedy. I like Jennifer’s reporting because she is balanced in an old-school very professional kind of way.
Better Conversations
Finally, I keep our books easy to find because people tell us stories all the time of better conversations after reading these two books. Wow! That’s got to be a miracle!
Here’s help on having great conversations no matter the topic, The Well: The Art of Drawing Out Authentic Conversations. Jesus took one woman from isolated to influential in one conversation. Also, I go into the Biblical reasons Christian leaders should listen to women. Powerful! You don’t want to miss this!
Then, Marriage Conversations is about how to spark better conversations on any topic with your hubby and your whole family. Life-changing stuff.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Cathy Krafve, host of Fireside Talk Radio and author of The Well: The Art of Drawing Out Authentic Conversations and Marriage Conversation: From Coexisting to Cherished. Your stories, ideas, and questions welcomed here!
Recent Comments