Have you had challenges making decisions? I know what it’s like. For the first time, I became indecisive and started experiencing paralysis by analysis when I was 34, enduring narcissistic abuse in my marriage. Through eloquent mental cruelty tactics, the narcissist manipulated me to believe that I was insane. That was why I became unable to make decisions, which led to my suicidal depression. This daily devotional focuses on showing you that no matter the difficult choices you face, you can make good decisions. You have a sound mind of Christ.

Daily Devotional for Women: “I am Decisive”

I am decisive. Making good decisions is both art and science, all at the same time. We have to remember our identity, purpose, intentions, motivation, and destination. We have to take our thoughts captive and choose whether we want to walk in the Spirit or be slaves to sin in the Flesh.

It’s a lot to process!

The good news is that we don’t have to ever experience paralysis by analysis. We have God’s Spirit of Truth dwelling in us. We have access to God’s infinite intelligence through His Spirit. We have the mind of Christ when we abide in Christ.

I am decisive.

Yet, I didn’t always know this.

There was a time when I experienced such paralysis by analysis that suicide appeared to be the only solution to my then overwhelming and unbearable emotional pain. Let me start from the beginning. I need to share with you first how I learned to doubt my thoughts and mental abilities. Then, I will take you on a journey to show you how God revealed to me that I am fully capable of making great decisions because I am in Christ and have the mind of Christ. I want you to reflect on your life, your beliefs, your perceptions, and see that you can be decisive, too.

Learning To Doubt My Thoughts

I am decisive. However, my story begins in a very different place… Born out of wedlock during the crush of the USSR, raised on welfare by a single mom with mental health issues, I was told that would never amount to anything. My mom taught me that I was ugly, stupid, worthless, and a mistake. She revealed to me how she went to abort me. She persuaded me that I didn’t deserve to live. She looked me straight in the eye and yelled: “I hate you and I just want you dead!”

RELATED: Things Narcissistic Mothers Say

All I knew about my father was that he was in jail and that I was an unwanted accident. I felt confused about who I was and why I was even born… There was so much pain in my life. But I was never allowed to feel. Instead, I was forced to perform and achieve perfection. So, performance, perfection, and toxic positivity became my addiction. When I wanted to cry, I was told: “Hold your shit together and look happy!” “Grab your ass by your fist and jump toward your goals!”

In our small Soviet condo full of alcoholic relatives, I endured emotional abuse and physical violence. I was raped twice. I experienced teen pregnancy. I suffered a miscarriage at 17. My life was troublesome, traumatic, and terrifying. That was my own observation. That was what I thought. But any time I brought issues up to my mom, she’d say I was crazy and “made shit up” insisting that I was the luckiest girl on earth and had a wonderful family life.

I attempted suicide twice as a child…

RELATED: My Suicide Story

I am decisive.

But at that time, manipulated by my mother and other family members, I was slowly learning to doubt my thoughts. The stage was set for this in my childhood but I coped well for decades because I trusted my intelligence. I had a very strong intellect, perceived myself as very smart despite my mother’s attempts to put me down, and I escaped my abusive family life into learning and formal education. I relied on my smartness as the main source of my identity. I was a nobody at home but I was a somebody at school. Education was life.

My Educational Background

I am decisive. And I decided to pursue education. I took it very seriously because learning to me was the same as living. I grasped for knowledge, skills, and wise counsel. I wanted to be better than what I witnessed at home. I wanted to grow.

When I was 15 years old, I graduated with high honors from the 8th grade of school #36 in Kursk, Russia. It was 1998. There, I was taught acting, drama, poetry, stage performance, and so much more. School was my life. I loved studying. It was an escape from my environment of abuse, assault, adultery, and alcoholism.

In 1998, at 15, I was accepted to the Kursk Pedagogical College with only one exam because of my excellent performance and academic achievements. While there, I did my internship at a jail with “difficult children” and became passionate about Criminal Justice. After four years of training and practice as an elementary school teacher, I graduated from college in 2002 with high honors.

In 2002, I began working at a boarding school with abused and abandoned children while attending a business school called The All-Russian Distance Institute of Finance and Economics (ARDIFE) in Kursk, Russia. I was accepted into that university in 2002 and graduated in 2008 with high honors after 6 years of business studies.

In 2005, three years before my graduation from ARDIFE, I enrolled in another university, the South-West State University in Kursk, to study Criminal Justice. After three years, I graduated from law school in 2008 with high honors. Let’s summarize!

On February 21st of 2008, I passed my final exams at The All-Russian Distance Institute of Finance and Economics and graduated with high honors and a 3.9 GPA, receiving a Bachelor’s in Business Administration.

On July 18th of 2008, I passed my final exams at the South-West State University and graduated with high honors with a Juris Doctor in Criminal Justice and a 4.0 GPA.

I am decisive.

While I was pursuing education with eager and passion, I also found a perfect husband, in America, through an online matchmaking agency. Yes, I am a mail-ordered bride.

On July 31st of 2008, I emigrated from Russia to America to live my happily-ever-after with my American Prince Charming. He beat the life out of me. I was rescued by the police and taken to a shelter for victims of domestic violence in 2009. I became homeless in a foreign country without speaking the language. Within 18 months, I taught myself English listening to Frank Sinatra and was accepted to GA state university in 2011. 

In 2013, I graduated from Georgia State University in Buckhead, Atlanta with an MBA and a 3.74 GPA and published a book called “Turn Your Dreams and Wants Into Achievable SMART Goals!” which was recognized by International Book Awards and Indie Excellence Awards. This was the last university I attended.

Why am I telling you all this?

To make a point.

What’s my point?

I was always confident in my intelligence.

That’s my point.

My intelligence was my identity source. My intelligence was what I relied upon for my decision-making abilities. I always trusted my intellect, logic, and discernment. That was until I married the Narcissist… He taught me to doubt my thoughts through a series of very clever mental cruelty tactics I’ll explain in detail here.

Marrying The Narcissist

In 2015, a Godly man, who worked at the mega-church I attended, began courting me for marriage. A seminary-graduate Bible-quoiting Jesus-enthusiast, he portrayed himself a Saint.

READ: How Satan Came at Me Looking Saint

Narcissistic abuse has to do with the mental cruelty tactics the Narcissist deploys to manipulate the mind of his victim very eloquently. In my case, narcissistic mental cruelty was practiced on me. There are several narcissistic abuse tactics, all explained below from my personal marriage experience. I am sharing also some of my poems birthed out of deep pain and my own loss of decision-making ability. Making his victim feel inadequate, indecisive, doubtful, confused, and disoriented is the goal of the Narcissist. Let me explained how cleverly the narcissistic abuse techniques were imposed on me, which led to my indecisiveness because I started to believe that I was insane.

Premeditated Deception To Lure Me In

The Narcissist lured me into a premeditated deception because I was his trophy: beautiful, smart, educated, and independent. He described me as ” a beautiful woman in a red coat from Facebook” where he saw me for the first time almost a year before we met. I discovered this way too late… The Narcissist targeted me for many months before he got to meet me. He waited 11 months from the first time he approached my friend Tanya asking for an introduction, which she refused to do. Once he did meet me, he did everything he could to appear as a man of God and present himself in the best light possible.

READ: “The Narcissist Is a Chief Deceiver and Liar”

His goal was to have me, because for having me he loved getting compliments. Praise, compliments, and admiration from others are all his narcissistic supply. I provided praise, admiration, and compliments. When he began courting me for marriage, he was so perfect that, after each date, I wrote him a gratitude letter, a collection of which eventually turned into a gratitude book, which I gave him as a wedding gift. Here’s our wedding video from May 14th, 2016. I was a source of food for the Narcissist’s ego, so he wanted to have me to satisfy his need for “food.” I was just food for him, but I didn’t know this…

The Narcissist would say: “I can’t believe you chose me! It makes me feel good about myself” So, having me was a checkbox check for the Narcissist, while I believed that he loved me and wanted to build a life with me. Interestingly, the same thing he wanted to have me for was the thing he actually hated me for. Why? Because the Narcissist lives in the world of scarcity, so he constantly compared himself to me.

READ: “The Narcissist Is Jealous”

My accomplishments eventually made him feel like he himself didn’t measure up. That was what he said in counseling: “I feel like I don’t measure up!” He repeatedly expressed to me that he was in an ongoing competition with me to prove to me that he was better than me.

Four months after our wedding, my perfect Christian husband … filed for divorce saying he wasn’t interested in me anymore and wanted to be an IronMan instead and compete in Kona. He called his bicycle “My other wife I cheat on you with” and I felt deceived, disoriented, devalued, discarded, and depressed. The Narcissist was unmasked.

Gaslighting Me To Make Me Feel Crazy

The Narcissist intentionally took cruel actions to make me feel mentally incompetent, to persuade me that I was insane, to assure me that I was crazy. That was also how he portrayed me to others. He manipulated me to believe those lies. There’s a movie about it, it’s scary. It’s called “Cruel Intentions” and reveals exactly how and why narcissists gaslight their victims. It results in Cognitive Dissonance, which is a coping mechanism used by victims of Narcissistic Abuse. I am decisive. I married the narcissist and remained loyal to him no matter what.

READ: Narcissistic Gaslighting Examples

I felt completely devastated believing that I was mentally incompetent. Once I put the 2 and 2 together, the Narcissist’s cruel actions started all to finally make sense: his goal was to make me feel crazy, unnoticeably for me. He succeeded, indeed. No one ever believed me about any of his cruel tricks because he pretended to be a totally different person around people. I was mentally exhausted from his cruelty and manipulative games, so I myself appeared strange to people. Everyone believed that he was an amazing man and I was a psycho.

READ: “The Narcissist Gaslights You”

Feeling crazy, deceived, manipulated, disoriented, and highly stressed, I began losing my ability to trust myself, which led to my eventual inability to make decisions for myself. I became highly anxious, insecure, overcome with paralysis by analysis, depressed, and severely suicidal. The Narcissist pulled me in and out of multiple realities daily. He turned my life into a chaotic haze. He overwhelmed me.

Projecting His Faults To Make Me Feel Guilty

The Narcissist was portraying himself as perfect and me as a psycho. That was the main belief in his own mind. He was confident that he could do no wrong. He equated himself to a saint. He believed that I was all bad and responsible for his outrageous behavior. The Narcissist doesn’t have a real self, only his ego-self. He is incapable of reflecting on his actions. In the Narcissist’s mind, he is His Majesty, and I was there to simply serve his needs. It’s called an enmeshed relationship, which is the exact relationship my mother had with me.

READ: Narcissistic Cruel Treatment Examples

The Narcissist manipulated the truth in every situation in the way that I believed that his faults were actually mine and so I felt guilty for his faults.
I wrote a poem to explain how the Narcissist projected his faults on me so eloquently. It’s called “The Narcissist Projects His Faults On You.” Projection is Narcissist’s favorite trick and is ought to make his victim mentally weak. The Narcissist manipulated me to the point of being depressed and suicidal because I did become mentally weak. I became unable to think for myself, filled with self-doubt, and incapable of making decisions.

In the meantime, I was attending Biblical counseling weekly. My counselor Tammy guided me to get grounded and focus on God instead of the Narcissist. She taught me to seek all my answers in the Bible. As a result of that spiritual journey, after my divorce, in 2017, I founded Online Discipleship For Women, a Christian ministry dedicated to helping alleviate suicide among women globally by sharing hope in Christ. I’ve received many letters from women saying “Today I was going to kill myself but I found your blog and I am still here.” Glory to God! You can support my ministry by making a donation now.

Experiencing Paralysis by Analysis

The Narcissist succeeded: I was paralyzed by indecision. I remember the day I come home from work, he threatens me by saying: “I’m not in the right mind and if I were you, I’d leave the house right now or something bad might happen!!!” Instead of taking the most logical action and leaving our marital residence, I remember standing there in the middle of a hallway completely paralyzed and blinking.

I had become decision-making impaired.

The very few people, who knew the truth about our marriage, begged me to get out of there. People offered to pay to move me out. But I couldn’t decide what I needed to do. My mind was in the fog. I didn’t trust my decision-making ability. I was persuaded that I was crazy. My every next step seemed to already be a mistake. I loved the Narcissist. I married him for life. He was my husband. He was also evil and cruel. He was threatening me regularly and always carried a gun. He was dangerous. Yet, I wasn’t able to make decisions so I stayed where I was.

Discovering God’s Spirit of Truth

Shortly after receiving that threat from my husband yet still staying with him, I realized that I could no longer rely on myself to make good decisions. I even struggled at work at the time because I had lost self-confidence and felt mentally-impaired. This was devastating because of my lifetime of trusting my intelligence. I had degraded from having confidence and feeling smart to being filled with self-doubt and feeling stupid, crazy, insane, brain-scattered, and decision-making impaired.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your path straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6

The reality was very fluid in my life. Sometimes, I had Dr. Jekyl in the house and in my bed, and sometimes, there was Mr. Hyde. I described the impact of living in multiple realities with the narcissist in my essay called “What Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Do to Your Psyche.” I realized that I could not lean on my own understanding at all. I needed to trust God. I had a breakthrough: only if I reached out for Jesus regarding my every decision, small or big, would I be able to start deciding with confidence. But how would I go about doing so?

James 1:5 tells us how to do this.

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

James 1:5

I believed God’s word, so I needed to embrace the truth: I had a sound mind of Christ through God’s Spirit. All I needed was to ask. I discovered God’s Spirit of truth in me. The Holy Spirit was dwelling in me. I just needed to tune in and listen. I could make good decisions wit Christ instead of relying on my own logic and intelligence.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

2 Timothy 1:7

This was a healing revolution for me! I am decisive. God’s Spirit in me, the Spirit I received through Christ, was the one enabling me to make good decisions. Not my intellect. I started practicing making decisions with confidence in God, and my life transformed.

Accepting The Gift of Decisiveness

I am decisive. Decisiveness was a gift from God through Christ. I just needed to accept the gift. I didn’t have the gift yet because I didn’t accept it. The gift was already mine though. Let me give you a relevant example from everyday life to make it easy to comprehend what God’s discernment is and how to accept and use His gift.

I am decisive.

Because I accepted God’s gift of decisiveness.

Have you ever walked into a room with a beautiful Christmas tree there, seeing clearly the gift wrapped beautifully and marked with your name? And then you got distracted and left, forgetting your gift… The gift was already yours. It had your name on it. It belonged to you. It was assigned to you so you can have it. Its purpose was for you to enjoy it. The only reason why you still didn’t have the gift was that you didn’t accept it. You didn’t take the gift that was already yours, so you couldn’t enjoy having your gift. Not having the gift meant you didn’t use it but it was still yours, waiting for you to accept it, take it, and use it.

I found out from studying the Bible that the decisiveness I inherited from Christ was already mine. I was given the gift of the ability to make good decisions. The only reason why I did not yet have Christ’s decisiveness was that I never reached out for the gift to take it and use it. Once I understood where decisiveness was supposed to come from, I reached out for the gift that was already mine and I began to enjoy my newly-discovered decisiveness in Christ.

I became able to make good decisions again.

I am decisive.

The sound mind of power I use for making decisions today is not my own. I don’t count on myself and my ability anymore. Instead, I pray about my decision-making and God gives me His infinite wisdom through the Holy Spirit in me. I hear God’s voice and obey. I choose God’s Spirit instead of my walk in the Flesh. God gave me a huge breakthrough in regards to good decision-making. He revealed to me a step-by-step process for how to make the kinds of decisions that result in God-glorifying life. He showed me the cause-and-consequence relationship between how I think, how I decide, how I behave, and how I live my life.

That was when God blessed me with a sacred tool called the ITCEBO model. It revolutionized my decision-making ability, process, and outcomes. Today, I have a peaceful and joyful life, thanks to the divine breakthrough of the ITCEBO model. Download a printout here.

It’s very important to be able to make good decisions when it comes to life, marriage, safety, health, relationships, career, family, business, budgeting, hobbies, and other aspects of living and being. The ITCEBO model is a blueprint to help you use the gift of God’s decisiveness effectively and fruitfully. Leverage it every day.

I am decisive.

I have this ITCEBO tool framed and refer to it any time there’s a decision to make. It has not failed me ever. This sacred blueprint for wise decision-making has blessed me over and over again, making my life productive, peaceful, joyful, and fruitful.

As my healing continued, I cherished God’s Spirit of truth in me. Listening to the Holy Spirit speak to me as I made new decisions and worked through the word of God to follow Christ’s calling resulted in getting the answers to all my questions, sound decisions made with confidence, and ultimate peace in my life.

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Isaiah 30:21

The ITCEBO model helps guide my decisions because the Holy Spirit will never lead me the way that’s not intact with the Word of God. The model shows me the Word of God so I can discern which decision will lead to which outcome. This sacred process prevents me from poor decision-making and enables me to make the kinds of decisions that result in a peaceful and joyful life with God.

Making Good Decisions

I am decisive. Once I began reaching out to Jesus for help with my decisions, I’ve gained confidence and peace every time a new decision was made. Decision after decision, I was able to trust my discernment again and feel wise instead of mentally-incompetent. Here’s a declaration poem I wrote about discovering and embracing God’s Spirit of Truth in me and abiding in the power of Christ when making decisions.

"I Trust the Holy Spirit in Me" 

I am wise and I show a good judgement.
Jesus has become for me wisdom from God.
My experiences for the hope of others are meant.
My wisdom is with the Holy Spirit intact.

I am prudent and I show a keen mental discernment.
My conduct is in accordance with God's Word determined.
I am careful, reasonable, certain, and decreed.
I am aware, rational, logical, and concrete.


9/3/17 © Anna Szabo, JD, MBA

Sign Up for Emails

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you’re human:

To help me recover from the mental damage caused by the Narcissist and his mental cruelty, I committed to self-care. I began practicing self-care, reaching out to God for wisdom every moment of every day, searching for lessons in everything I had experienced, and trusting Jesus to make my path straight. My communion with the Spirit improved my relationship with God and enabled me to trust my decisions again with confidence. I felt liberated from the Narcissist and his gaslighting, projection, and other cruel manipulation tactics. I became once again confident in my ability to discern and decide well.

Using God’s Gift To Become Decisive

You are decisive because God Himself makes your path straight through the Holy Spirit. You can make good decisions every day reaching out for Jesus and listening to God’s voice. You have the mind of Christ, not of fear or doubt. Trusting God’s plan and will for your life, believing that He will use all things together for good, and abiding in His Spirit of Truth – that is the foundation for making good decisions. You are able to make good decisions because you have a sound mind of power from Christ. Do you believe this? If you do, memorize the Biblical affirmation below and practice it often to remember that you can make good decisions.

I Am Decisive

I Am Decisive #52Devotionals

I'm decisive because God makes my path straight.
I ask Him for direction, and He gives me wisdom graciously.
His plans to propel and prosper me are always great.
I lean on Him and pursue His will in my life tenaciously. 

Click to Tweet

How does it make you feel to know that you decisive? Share with me in the comments below so I rejoice with you. When you share your story, you give God all the glory. Your testimony can encourage and empower someone who’s confused, lost, in pain, or even suicidal. Share in the comments how God is working in you right now.

On the cover image of this blog post is a picture of me when I lived in my own power and was decisive relying solely on my logic and intellect. I’ve learned to trust God after I discovered His Spirit of Truth in me. I am decisive because God says so!

Today, I help women see themselves the way God sees them. From the Bible, I discovered 52 incredibly-positive things God says about us as His daughters. Those 52 precious discoveries turned into 52 Biblical affirmations I created to encourage and empower Christian women. To help share this life-changing information with you, I created an ebook called #52Devotionals. Download it below for free. Share it with someone who needs encouragement right now.

Read Next

• “I am Forgiven” – Devotional #1
• “I am Accepted” – Devotional #2
• “I am Loved” – Devotional #3
• “I am Healed” – Devotional #4
• “I am Blessed” – Devotional #5
• “I am Special and Chosen” – Devotional #6
• “I am Justified and Sanctified” – Devotional #7
• “I am Alive” – Devotional #8
• “I am New and Transformed” – Devotional #9
• “I am Noble and Lovely” – Devotional #10
• “I am Beautiful” – Devotional #11
• “I am Holy” – Devotional #12
• “I am Worthy” – Devotional #13
• “I am Righteous” – Devotional #14
• “I am Valuable” – Devotional #15
• “I am Anointed” – Devotional #16
• “I am Free” – Devotional #17
• “I am Renewed” – Devotional #18
• “I am Not Alone” – Devotional #19
• “I am a Princess” – Devotional #20
• “I am Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” – Devotional #21
• “I am a Disciple of Jesus” – Devotional #22
• “I am a Child of God” – Devotional #23
• “I am a Citizen of Heaven” – Devotional #24
• “I am God’s Glory on Display” – Devotional #25
• “I am God’s Masterpiece” – Devotional #26
• “I am a Difference Maker” – Devotional #27
• “I am Light” – Devotional #28
• “I am a Peacemaker” – Devotional #29
• “I am Wise” – Devotional #30
• “I am Clear and Focused” – Devotional #31
• “I am Intentional” – Devotional #32
• “I am Decisive” – Devotional #33
• “I am Powerful” – Devotional #34
• “I am Disciplined” – Devotional #35
• “I am Thoughtful” – Devotional #36
• “I am Prudent” – Devotional For #37
• “I am Confident” – Devotional #38
• “I am Courageous” – Devotional #39
• “I am Victorious” – Devotional #40
• “I am Kind” – Devotional #41
• “I am Loving” – Devotional #42
• “I am Hopeful” – Devotional #43
• “I am Joyful” – Devotional #44
• “I am Grateful” – Devotional #45
• “I am Strong” – Devotional #46
• “I am Protected” – Devotional #47
• “I am Peaceful” – Devotional #48
• “I am Patient” – Devotional #49
• “I am Faithful” – Devotional #50
• “I am Gifted” – Devotional #51
• “I am Creative” – Devotional #52