As I drove through the early morning darkness, I approached the \u201cGolden Arches\u201d for my first caffeine hit of the day \u2014 Diet Coke. As I pulled out of the drive-thru, I can remember becoming aware of an inner voice, \u201cWhy did you wait so long?\u201d \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you take this exam right when you graduated?\u201d \u201cYou are never going to pass anyway \u2014 just go home and get back in bed.\u201d The voice wasn\u2019t kind; it wasn\u2019t gentle, and it was so familiar that I wasn\u2019t necessarily conscious of it. It wasn\u2019t the first time I\u2019d heard it, and I was confident it wouldn\u2019t be the last. Instead of silencing it, I continued down the berating path.<\/p>\n
That particular morning I was on my way to take my counseling licensing exam. However, due to having a third baby shortly after graduation from graduate school, I delayed taking the exam for \u2026 let\u2019s see \u2026 five years! So, after cramming for months, the day arrived and my \u201cinner voice\u201d just wasn\u2019t cooperating with the plan of confidently going in and passing the exam.<\/p>\n
As I continued to drive through the darkness, a song played quietly on the radio. As I listened to the words \u2014 tears began streaming down my face. The words in essence were saying, \u201cOut of all the voices calling out to you \u2014 I will choose to believe the voice of truth<\/i>.\u201d I clearly remember becoming in touch with something that had gone on long enough: the negative self-talk only I could control. No one else was calling me names or shaming me for waiting five years to take the exam \u2014 while I brought another human being into this world \u2014 just me<\/i>. I was the only one who chose to say things to myself that I would never allow anyone \u2014 even a stranger \u2014 to say to me. Suddenly I realized I had a choice to make.<\/p>\n
Every time we step out into the unknown \u2014 to try something either new or something that causes our heart to race in fear \u2014 we have the choice to silence the negative cynic who lives inside our heads. You know, the one telling you that \u201cyou\u2019re not good enough\u201d; \u201cyou\u2019re not smart enough.\u201d; \u201cyou shouldn\u2019t even try because you will fail.\u201d We all have one of these \u201cinner critics,\u201d yet so often we don\u2019t tell them to be quiet. If our children were talking to one another in the same cruel manner, we would immediately put them in time out and make them apologize. Yet, why is it we typically do nothing other than indulge this negative voice?<\/p>\n
That day driving down Highway 65, I made a commitment to myself: I was no longer going to stand by idle and let this monster have his way. I decided I had a choice to make \u2014 to silence him; put him in time out and choose to listen to his counterpart — \u201cthe voice of truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
You see, this voice is much more loving and gentle. It is the one saying, \u201cYou can do this!\u201d; \u201cWay to go\u2014you had a baby and here you are not giving up on your dreams.\u201d \u201cKeep trying!\u201d This is the voice I decided to listen to and guess what \u2014 I ended up passing my exam that day.<\/p>\n
What a simple moment that taught me a life changing lesson. As you step out to Be you, Bravely, make a choice \u2014 the same way I did that early morning in the car \u2014 to listen to none other than the voice of truth.<\/p>\n
Erin Smalley is the mom to three girls, ages 6, 16, and 19, and one son, age 12. Erin was a labor and delivery nurse and then returned to school to earn a Master\u2019s in Clinical Psychology. Although Erin thought she had sent her last child off to kindergarten, she and her husband, Greg, were blessed with their youngest child through the gift of adoption. She works very part-time at Focus on the Family in the Marriage and Family Division, while attempting to balance life at home with four kids. She has co-authored three books, her favorite being, Grown-Up Girlfriends\u2014Real Friends in the Real World<\/em>. You can reach Erin at\u00a0www.smalleymarriage.com<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0erin.smalley@fotf.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n As I drove through the early morning darkness, I approached the \u201cGolden Arches\u201d for my first caffeine hit of the day \u2014 Diet Coke. As I pulled out of the drive-thru, I can remember becoming aware of an inner voice, \u201cWhy did you wait so long?\u201d \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you take this exam right when you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":5012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,102,117],"tags":[214,215,212,219,155,166,164,114,75],"class_list":["post-1109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","category-relationships","category-wellness","tag-be-you","tag-bravely","tag-courage","tag-courage-to-be","tag-educational","tag-erin","tag-self","tag-wisdom","tag-work"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}