One of the most important pieces of equipment the military gives you when you are heading off to a combat zone is a helmet. It protects your head from possible attack. And although it is a good thing the first few days you wear it, it really hurts.

The pads in it that should make it comfortable end up feeling like hot pads burning into your head. And you even might believe the military designed it so that it pushes the spots on your head to give you a blazing headache. You will likely be certain you won’t ever be able to wear your helmet for more than 5 minutes without wanting to rip it off. But you wear it because you have to. And after a few days, you stop noticing the painful spots. You get used to it. And it is a little heavy and clunky, but it is now a part of you. A part of your uniform, protecting you.

And we won’t even mention the super heavy body armor they give you and expect you to wear comfortably. That my friend, likely won’t happen. It won’t hurt so much, but I don’t know if you will ever find the comfort level you can with your helmet.

Just like in war our heads need protecting in daily life.

For example, when I became a mom I had a lot of negative self-talk.

For the record, conversations in your head at 3 am are probably not a good idea. Can you remember one conversation where you were super sleep deprived and arguing with yourself that had a good ending?

Well, this negative self-talk led me to feel like I wasn’t doing a good job. The more I told myself these lies the more I believed them. I don’t really remember how I realized I was doing this to myself, but it is something I continually have to be on guard for. Protecting my head.

Your Past Matters

Recently the most negative self-talk I have been having is about how my past doesn’t matter. That sharing my story and my experience wasn’t important. It was a lie that started small and continued to grow until I believed it.

Do you have a lie like that is in your life right now? Are you stopping yourself from doing what you want to do because you are believing a lie that you can’t do it? That you are not worthy.

I presented a devotion last semester for my mom’s group and it was on a topic I didn’t think was worth talking about. I didn’t think anyone would care. That anyone would want to listen. But guess what, they did. In the story of transitioning from military member to mom (which you can watch here), I mentioned I had received a bronze star and promotion at the end of my deployment. What happened next completely surprised me.

Applause.

What? Applause, what had I done. What made me worthy of receiving such an amazing gift from the women in the room. My story. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t still in the military the things I accomplished still mattered and they were even praised and respected by others.

So, where are you? Are you protecting your mind from negatives self-talk and the lies that quickly can stop you from moving forward? I hope that you can use this story to remind yourself of how important you are. It doesn’t matter what your story looks like. There are important parts of it. Things that you used to be proud of that maybe today you don’t think matter anymore. But they really do. You matter and so does your story.

So dream big and then leap. You can do so much more than you ever realized.