Charity thinketh no evil. This part of charity has been hard for me to overcome. I am going to start out with the thoughts we have for ourselves. If I may, I will share with you a personal story. When my husband and I were going through a really tough time in our marriage, I would take many of the things he would say to me, in our very difficult conversations, and escalate them to be 100 times, even 1000 times worse. I eventually got to the point where I could not even look in the mirror without telling myself how much I hated me. After one particular time of looking in the mirror and telling myself that, I fell to my knees and begged Heavenly Father to please help me. Later that day, while cleaning a bookshelf, I came across a book on negative self-talk. I read this book, and from that day on I worked on recognizing and changing my thoughts. Some days were still extremely difficult, especially after my husband and I would have a very difficult conversation. It is still natural for me to think evil thoughts about myself, however, now I recognize it and can stop it and turn it around.
It is so vitally important that we do not allow ourselves to use negative self-talk. It can and will destroy us. It can and will take us to a very dark place that is so very difficult to be in. Perhaps, some of you have heard the saying in Proverbs 23:7: “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” If we think bad of ourselves surely that will show to others through our actions, attitudes, and our body language. If we can learn to let virtue garnish our thoughts, then our confidence will wax stronger. We are the master of our own thoughts. While we do receive influence for our thoughts through outside sources, we are the ones that determine what we will think about ourselves and others.
How does one master their thoughts? Like a garden, where we have plants that grow fruits and vegetables and weeds, we pull those weeds or negative thoughts up and out and throw them away. When we pull the weeds out, we also try to get the root of the weed, otherwise they just grow back. We can do the same with our thoughts by writing the negative ones down and shredding them. We need to discover the source of where our negative thoughts come from, for example: our self, others, or evil sources. We do need to replace every negative thought with at least 5 positive ones about ourselves and others. Then cultivate thinking positive things about yourself and others by looking at the good you do, and the potential you have. Keep in perspective this world is a place for growth and learning. When we fail, it becomes a teacher and helps us to work harder and become better. We can learn to reframe how we look at ourselves, each other, and our challenges in this life. Thomas Edison looked at his 1000 failures with the light bulb as 1000 steps to success with the lightbulb. We can look at our failures as stepping stones, with each mistake becoming a lesson learned.
Here are a few suggestions of possible solutions to help you:
Sing an uplifting song
Recite a favorite thought or scripture
Positive declarations
Think the best about others and their potential. See yourself and them as a child of God.
Read good, positive, uplifting books
Supplant the evil thought with something pure and wholesome.
The point is to do something. When we are in a negative state of mind there is not progression, only digression. Find something that will work for you and then use it. I use all of the above. The two that have helped me the most are positive declarations and learning about how my Lord and Savior see and view me. I have discovered for myself that they look upon our potential for good, which allows them to have charity for us as we learn, and we grow. When we can see ourselves in a more positive light, we can then see others in a more positive way.