No matter what your situation is, you can fight the fear and win the mental fight! Stand firm, sensor your speech, think about what you’re thinking about and see break through.
We have the authority as Christ believers to take back our peace, joy and happiness. We don’t have to be dragged into a mud slinging match, as that is how we get muddy. Instead decide today to rise above and be victorious!
If you’re needing support, encouragement and accountability; consider joining my group coaching program Unstick Your Mind. As a Mindset Coach I’m here to help you shift your thinking and unlock your full potential!
Grab the FREE Prayer Guide https://mimikac.wpengine.com/warrior
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TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Mimika TV. Get ready to break through barriers, fuel your faith, pursue your purpose, and market your message so you can impact the marketplace for God.
Hi everyone, it’s Mimika Cooney. I wanted to pop on today just to give you a little bit of encouragement, and some tools and tips to overcome this current atmosphere we’re living in. I know we are experiencing an unprecedented time in history, although it’s not new. Presidents do come and go, and governments rise and fall, and nothing is new under the sun. But living in today’s society, we don’t have to be sucked into the fear, and the negativity, and the hatred, and the mudslinging, because they say if you attend a mud match, some of the mud is going to get stuck to you.
This reminds me of a story back in 1994, which was my last year of high school. I was living in South Africa. At the time, as my classmates and I were leaving high school, we all had our hopes and dreams of what our future was going to be like. But sometimes, when life gives you lemons, you have to make lemonade. During that time, there was a lot of political upheaval and a lot of fear around our next president, when President Mandela came to power. The rest of the world looking on thought that this was great news, but for us living in South Africa, it didn’t feel so great because there was a lot of fear. There was a lot of hatred. There was a lot of fighting and looting. They closed down schools, people were burning cars. We were on the brink of civil war.
And when you live in such a fear-based environment, it starts to mess with your head. And it starts to discolor your whole world. But as believers in Christ, we have to believe that we have authority over that. We can rise above. We don’t have to be sucked in by the negativity around us. And that even if the results don’t turn out the way we like, we know that we have the assurance that God knows what’s going to happen.
It also reminds me of the story of when Jesus was in the boat sleeping and His disciples were having a freak fest, like, “How could He be sleeping at this time?!” The reason why He was relaxed was He knew the future. He knew what He had to do. So this tiny little blimp, this little storm that He was in, just seemed insignificant to Him because it didn’t really play an important role in what His future would hold. Knowing and relying on that are super important. For many of us, we’ve just become accustomed to the whole concept of fear.
Personally, I’ve lived my whole life up until adulthood with a fear-based mentality. And what fear does, is it discolors the way you view yourself. It opens the doors to a lot of things like depression, anxiety, phobias, and it starts to drive your thinking and your behavior.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be fear-based. I want to know with assurance that I can make decisions that are going to positively affect my future even if things don’t turn out the way I want. So I want to offer you some encouragement from a book I wrote in 2018, which is Worrier to Warrior: A Mother’s Journey from Fear to Faith. This is my personal testimony. God knew how relevant it would be for today.
For those who don’t know my story of growing up in South Africa and the trauma I had to go through as a child—my parents were divorced, I was physically bullied, I was dragged through a really ugly court battle, I got married young, moved country, and then lost a loved one and had to deal with a family member with severe depression and suicidal tendencies.
We’ve all gone through things, everyone is suffering or going through something. That’s why kindness and patience are so important. So I want to read a little bit from the book for you just to give you a little encouragement.
But before I do, just to let you know, I do have a free resource. If you go to mimikacooney.com/warrior, you can get a free prayer guide. This is based on my book where after most chapters, there are activation prayers. For instance, you want to break free from fear. There are little prayers in the book that you can say to address that. Because there’s power in your words when you speak things out loud, which is why you also need to censor your speech.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes fear as “an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger and instance of this emotion; a state marked by this emotion, anxious concern, and a reason for alarm.”
Fear is an emotion and it’s an unpleasant awareness. But that’s not necessarily the truth. The feelings of fear aren’t necessarily truth. We can rise above the way we think and feel because as human beings, we are made of three parts. We have the spirit; we have our soul, which is our mind, our will and our emotions; and we have our body. The whole idea of when someone is sick or has disease is “dis-ease,” meaning the body is out of balance. And oftentimes, I believe that these things are connected to internal conditions. So if you have very anxious and fear-based thinking, it’s going to show in your body; you can get heart palpitations, sweaty palms, restless sleep, stomach issues—all those kinds of physical symptoms accompany the way that you are thinking.
I want to challenge you today to think about what you’re thinking about, and think about where you’re getting your inputs. If you want to be freed from negativity, then don’t watch the negative news. Don’t be privy to conversations where people are getting into mudslinging matches online: he said, she said, blaming, hatred. There’s no point in dragging yourself into it, even though you might have something to say. Sometimes, it’s better to zip your lip and stay at peace.
Going back to the book Worrier to Warrior: A Mother’s Journey from Fear to Faith. Let me read a little bit about the fear section.
So the first thing we need to realize is that fear is a punk loser. He is a demonic spirit. It’s not your own thoughts, and that is not acceptable. Just think of it this way: Would you allow someone to talk to you out loud like that or to someone you love?
I don’t think so. Fear is a liar, a bully, and a thief. And he is part of that punk gang from down under who all had the same agenda: steal, kill, destroy. It makes me angry. However, the good news is that we are on to him. We know his punk-like tactics, and we are going to destroy him once and for all, because 2 Timothy 1:7 says, “For the spirit of God did not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.” Part of that self-discipline is monitoring your thoughts. What are you thinking? Fear keeps us in bondage and it doesn’t often show up as a neon sign.
Its power is in its stealth and secrecy. We give power to fear by keeping the roots of fear secret, hidden. We break free from fear by confessing our sins, renouncing our iniquities, accepting mercy from God, and walking in faith. And this is something that could go way back to your childhood, because as we go through life, we pick up bumps and bruises and traumas and experiences that do affect us. And sometimes, we’re not aware of it at the time, but fear and trauma go together. So it could be something that happened as a child, or maybe you don’t even have a memory of it, but maybe somebody had hurt you that you feel unforgiveness towards them. Let me invite you to let that go, because unforgiveness and fear go hand in hand.
It might have been years ago that something was said to you or done to you, but you don’t have to be under that heavy load. You can decide today because you have a choice, you have free will. And God doesn’t mess with your free will. Many say, “Why doesn’t God do this? And why doesn’t He just change this?” But God wants us to choose. So you have a choice today. You can either stay in fear, and hold on to bitterness and unforgiveness, because oftentimes we think that’s a badge of honor when we feel like we’re justified to stay unforgiving to whomever has hurt us. But we don’t want to be a victim to fear; we want to be victors. We want to rise above that. So let me encourage you today to think about some parts in your life where you want to invite God in and say, “Well, help me forgive this person.”
Sometimes, it’s hard to do it yourself. That’s why as Christians, we have that faith in God, because we know we can’t do this. We are a hot mess by ourselves. And I want to encourage you to do that. So if you want some more resources, if you want to get the prayer guide, go to mimikaycooney.com/warrior.
Another resource is this other book I wrote which is actually free on Amazon. If you have Amazon in the US, you can get the Kindle for free. It’s a short read, but it really is useful. It’s Mindset Makeover: How to Renew Your Mind and Walk in God’s Authority. You can download that today and start to readjust the way you think, because our thoughts determine our behavior.
Let’s start to be proactive in how we’re thinking, and how we’re reacting, and how we’re speaking, because words are powerful. Let’s also flip the fear, flip the script on fear, and flip the way we speak about ourselves and others. Let’s start saying, “I’m not going to be sucked into that drama. I am going to decide to rise above. I’m going to fill myself with positive things. I’m going to rely on God’s Word and start speaking it out loud.” I believe it’s so important to say these things, and censor our speech, and come in alignment with God’s Word. Lastly, I want to encourage you that no matter what happens in the world, though we as humans don’t have control, we need to decide to trust God and have a good attitude. Even in the days of Daniel who served Nebuchadnezzar, a king who wasn’t necessarily godly, he still served him as if he was serving God.
Even if things don’t happen the way we want them to, or even if things do go according to our desires and our wants, we don’t have to start acting arrogantly, but instead, we start to ask, “Okay, God, where are You in all of this? What is my plan? What is my lane?” I want to encourage you to stay in your lane and focus on what your task is, because you are called for greatness. You’re called to do something to help others, and if you can stay focused and stay out of fear, you can definitely change your future.
So thanks for those who’ve joined me live. If you haven’t yet shared this, please go ahead and share it. I will put the links I mentioned in the comments as well. So you can go ahead and grab those free resources. And I pray that you have a wonderful day and a blessed week, and that you are happy and content, that you rise above and have good reports. So until next time. Bye!
