We’ve all heard each other say mean things about ourselves.

“I’m ugly.” “I’m fat.” “I’m such a loser.” “I hate my laugh.” “I’m never going to have a guy like me.” “I’m never going to be able to ____________.” “I hate my life.” “I have nothing to give to the world.” “I’m a terrible friend.” “I’m an awful mother.”

Hello, inner mean girl. While most of the negative things we say about ourselves are only partially true or completely false, because we say these things often enough, we start to believe that these things are absolutely true. Hitler’s propoganda guy, Joseph Goebells, put it this way: ““If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Our inner mean girl likes to tell the lies loud and proud, doesn’t she?

And so the world tells us that to make that inner mean girl quieter, we should start practicing self-love and self-care and eventually by loving ourselves so, so much and taking extra good care of ourselves, we’ll one day think that we’ll start feeling better. Only the spa days aren’t really helping quiet our inner mean girl’s voice and focusing on trying to love ourselves keeps bringing us further into anxiety, fear, worry, and depression.

We find ourselves going further down the bad-feeling spiral because even when we learn to fake confidence in public, our inner-mean-girl is still whispering harsh, emotional death traps into our thoughts and feelings.

So, what do you do? Just keep trying to love yourself even more even when you don’t feel like it? Just keep on saying unkind things to yourself? Just accept the downward spiral of anxiety? Here’s three better ways to get your inner mean girl to go away:

1. Learn how God sees you. There’s a very popular phrase going around social media right now that says, “Girls look at the sky and think, ‘Wow: God is amazing!’ but look in the mirror and think, ‘Ugh,’ as if He didn’t make both.” Isn’t this so true? Psalms 139:16-17 tells us, “Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!” God created the stars in all of their glory and the woman in all her glory as well. The word precious means, “of great value; not to be wasted or treated carelessly.” So, yes, you might be going through an awkward bangs phase right now and yes, you might have made an ill-thought out choice today that resulted in some unnecessary stress, but God thinks you are of GREAT value! The Creator of all things, of time, of matter, of space, of snow-crusted mountains and wind-wept valleys, the intricate delicacies of a rose’s petal and the vastly unknown universe thinks you (of all His creations) are the only thing worth dying for. Because of His grace, He’s right there to redeem your faults and failures if we’re willing to let Him. If that God Who values you more than any other thing or person would not saying what you’ve been saying to yourself lately, why would you keep letting your inner mean girl treat you so carelessly?
2. Forget about yourself on purpose. Tim Keller said in his book The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, ““The way the normal human ego tries to fill its emptiness and deal with its discomfort is by comparing itself to other people. All the time.” But where does the emptiness and discomfort come from? Normally, it comes from not living by the God’s commanded us to live. A woman living by faith doesn’t really think about herself very often: she’s too busy loving God most and she’s too busy loving others. Jesus answered the question of what the greatest commandment was by saying, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” So when our heart, soul, and mind are too preoccupied with what people think about us or with the unkind things that we’ve been repeating in our thoughts about ourselves or really anything self-focused or selfish, we’re directly disobeying God’s command. Disobeying God only brings sadness, low self-esteem, and disappointment — all emptying and draining feelings. If you’re too busy comparing your body to another woman’s body, how are you going to be able to love her? If you’re too busy comparing your failures with other women’s successes, how are you going to be able to submit to God’s love and will for you?
3. Speak life. Proverbs 18:25a tells us, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Proverbs 12:25 tells us, “Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad.” We also see time and time and time again through Jesus’ ministry how much power God can place in the power of words through His spoken miracles. Our words — even the words in our thoughts — have such power over our well-being. When our thought life and conversation includes consistent death speak (negativity/worry and fear), we find our emotions, body, and mindset quickly follow. When our thought life and conversation includes consistent life speak (positivity/faith), we find our emotions, body and mindset quickly follow as well. So, whether you’re speaking deadly words to yourself or you’re speaking life-giving words to yourself, your whole self is going to end up believing those words. By actively choosing to speak life to yourself, even when you may not really believe the words at first, the rest of you will follow. Because words hold the power to change. But where do we get words that speak life into ourselves? We look to God’s Word. Psalms 119:50 tells us, “This is my comfort in my affliction: for Thy word hath quickened me.” The word “quickened” here means “to bring to life.” We can only truly battle the death-giving lies we’ve been speaking to ourselves with the Living Word of God. God answers and redeems every one of our insecurities, failures, questions, and emptiness with His Word — we just have to be willing to open our Bible to find His life-giving Truth.

Lady, it’s time to shut up our inner mean girl. It’s time to start seeing ourselves through God’s eyes, it’s time to stop focusing on ourselves, and it’s time to start speaking words of life instead of word of death. It’s time to make that inner mean girl that keeps telling us every flaw, failure, blemish, fault, and imperfection makes us unlovable stop because we are choosing to take every thought captive (2 Cor 10:5)! We’ve wasted enough of our lives listening to her lies.

I’ve had enough of the inner mean girl: haven’t you?