I heard it said, that what we say to ourselves has more impact on us than what anyone else says to us. Paul Hegstrom, author of Broken Children,
Grownup Pain, explained that God wired our brains in such a way, that we will line ourselves up under what we say out loud about ourselves. WOW!!
I just listened to a talk by Leslie Vernick, a Christian counselor and life coach, where she shared some self talk of Abraham Lincoln. In the list that follows are my notes of some traumatic events that occurred in his life followed by how he talked to himself (warning, I am listing these as best as I can from what I heard, so please excuse any details I may have gotten wrong that refer to government):
· 1816 – At the age of 7, his family was forced out of their home and he had to go to work to support them
· 1818 – his mom died
· 1831 – his business failed
· 1832 – he ran for the state legislature and lost, he lost his job and tried to go to law school, but could not get in
· 1833 – he borrowed money from a friend to start a business but at the end of the year was totally bankrupt; he worked the next 17 years to pay off his debt
· 1834 – he ran for the state legislature and lost
· 1835- he got engaged to be married; his sweetheart died; his heart was totally broken and he experienced a complete nervous breakdown during which he was in be for 6 months
· 1838 - he sought to be the speaker of his state’s legislature but was defeated
· 1839 – he sought to be an elector and was defeated
· 1841 – he ran for congress and was defeated
· 1846 – he ran for congress and won; he went to Washington and did a great job
· 1848 - he ran for re-election and lost
· 1849 – he sought the position of land officer for his state and was rejected
· 1854 – he ran for senate and lost
· 1856 – he sought the Vice President nomination at his party’s national convention and got less that 100 votes
· 1858 - he ran for the U.S. Senate and lost
· 1860 – he was elected president of the United States of America
Abraham Lincoln told himself, “The path is worn and slippery. My foot slipped from under me, knocking the other out of the way, but I recovered and said to myself, ‘It’s a slip and not a fall”.