Dear Crystal:

The formal definition of a curse is: "to call down evil on someone or something" and the "intended evil of a curse takes effect only when the just God wills it" for whatever reasons He has.

A curse that can have spiritual effect even though a person given it does not intend as actual curse is, for example, a parent saying, "Damn you, Johnny, didn't i tell you to take out the trash."

When we, even in spontaneous utterances, or force of habit, or used as what we think is a mere cuss word, damn someone, Satan's ears perk up.  Satan may then act, though not necessarily. We should not be so careless as to catch the devil's attention for any reason.

Telling ourselves "Ill never be happy" or "I'm not good enough", or having parents or others express those thoughts to us, are not technically curses, unless the party uttering them intends them to bring evil down upon the person, or to intend some form of "bad luck" to come to the person.

These sorts of statements are what might be called "psychological curses." In other words, these sorts of statements told to ourselves, or told to us by others, damages our self-esteem, which in turn can cause many problems in our lives, including facilitating other psychological problems.

It is said that for every negative statement like this, said to ourselves or by others, need at least seven positive statements to cancel out the effects of the negative statement.

Such negative statements, which are all "thinking errors", that is, false statements, have direct effect upon our psychological health, and thereby on our spiritual health. We need to cease such thinking errors about ourselves.

All of this can take place without the help of the devil in any way. These negative statements said to ourselves, or said by others, naturally damage our self-esteem, and can, in essence, program our minds to think that we are indeed worthless, or whatever, which then an affect and effect many other parts of our lives.

Now, with all that said, it is possible for the devil to take notice of these natural dynamics. As such he can egg on negative and abusive people to be more negative and abusive to you than they would have been otherwise.

The devil can see the effect of this negativity on you and the fact that you are saying these negative things about yourself. While this is a natural phenomenon, the devil loves to intrude to make things worse than they have to be.

On the first score, psychological abuse is often "inherited" from ancestors because the behavior patterns are modeled from generation to generation, and each generation abuses the next generation and thus maintaining the cycle.

On the second score, the devil notices this negative cycle and does things to ensure the cycle repeats itself from generation to generation.

Thus, one of the spiritual ways to combat this is to prayer the following:

Prayer to Renounce Ancestral Sins

Breaking Personal Curses and Spells

Then as a regular daily prayer:

Hedge Prayer for Protection of Self

Whenever necessary you can also pray:

Rebuking Particular Spirits

Identify the spirits by their attributes. For example, rebuke the spirit of gossip, lies, sickness, financial difficulties, failure in business, rejection, etc.

In other words, if you think there is a evil spirit behind these thing,s then rebuke that spirit, naming it according to the attribute.

The prayer ask God for the opposite spirit. Thus, the opposite of a spirit of rejection is a spirit of acceptance. The opposite of a spirit of failure is a spirit of success. The opposite of a spirit of gossip is a spirit of charity, etc. All this is, of course, dependent on the will of God for your situation.

You may have to live with this negativity from others. In that regard you must accept it and live with it. In all things we must rest in the arms of God. Abandonment to God is critical to the Christian life. See our pamphlet on this.

As for the negative statement you say to yourself, you need to stop these thinking errors and realize your worth to Christ. We have a prayer litany for that to entitled, Who you Are In Christ. Be sure to look up all the Scripture verses.

In this litany is not enough for you to overcome these thinking errors, you may want to consider counseling with professional counselor.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary