Never in a million years would I think I would be at this point in my life. It feels like a beautiful little mid-life crisis some 20 something year old is having. I was ready to make a change but really doing the deep work hurts. It hurts to face your insecurities, focus on your healing and pushing through forgiveness. See no one really talks about the struggle to building up the courage to wanting better for yourself. No one tells you that finding yourself is one of the longest, slowest and hardest processes out there.
The deep work you have to do to get there takes some days where you do not feel like yourself at all. Some journal entries you have to force yourself to write. Your heart feeling like it is actually falling out of your chest. Let's be real when you are on a journey where you are peeling back the layers, things that are revealed to you will hurt. But resilience is being able to feel each and every moment of that feeling and bouncing back HARDER at life than every before. It is reclaiming your life for once. It is deciding that you have to push through this moment to get to a better version of yourself. There is so much victory at the end of a testimony where you had to use your resilience to get you out of it.
Deeper than ever...
When I started on my spiritual journey about a few years ago, God revealed to me that there was so much more for my life then what I had been doing. And, honestly I thought that what I was doing was worthy of my life. God sat me down for two years where I really had to peel back the layers of who I was so that I could deeply work with Him on those areas to get better. Only God knew that my heart was cold, my feelings were hurt, my trust was damaged and my words meant death. So, there was some deep home improvement needed in my life.
As I began my healing journey, I started to feel a lot of sadness, insecurity, depression, anxiety, unworthiness and deep pain. There were days where I could not leave the house due to being so out of it. That was my life for years. I pretended to be okay, but I was not. The pretending left me to being on the surface of my emotions. That was not fair to who I was as a woman, a servant of God, a mentor to many and to my growth overall. I was beginning to see that pretending to be good was surface. The real healing was when I dug so deep and worked through all the emotions to get to a better version of myself.
Pretending to not be okay anymore meant...
1. Allowing myself not to be perfect. Perfect was the woman who never spoke up for herself. The woman who could not say no to anything even if it would kill her. The woman who was so insecure about herself that she loss the most beautiful thing about her: her inner beauty. The woman who was scared to take a leap of faith and NOT be like everyone else. Being perfect is a lie we tell ourselves. No one who even thinks they are perfect, are really perfect. The person who usually thinks they are doing it by themselves is not. Interesting thing is we have no need to be perfect. Perfect means that we do this whole thing called life on our own. Seriously, I can already tell you that I can not do this all on my own.
Philippians 4:13
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
That one verse tells me that it is not me alone. It tells me that I need God. It tells me that I need guidance. It tells me that I can get through anything, not be being my perfect self- but allowing God to fill in those areas where I am weak. That is something that we can not possibly do. That is a role the Lord plays in our lives.
2. Doing the work even when it hurts. Peeling back the layers on my life has hurt my feeling bad. But still showing up for myself is the biggest thing I could do. There were times I did not want to break down in therapy. There were times I did not want to carry the heavy weight of forgiving someone who never apologized. There were times I broke down and felt at my lost and so vulnerable that I would beat myself up. But the thing is God will send reminders to you through those rough patches to remind you who you are in Him. Notice I said in Him. Queen, God is within you.Here are some of those shared reminders...
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not into your own understanding. In all your ways submit to Him and He will lead your paths straight.
1 Peter 5:6-7
Humble yourselves therefore under God's mighty hand that he my lift you up in due time. Cast your anxiety on Him because she cares for you.
Psalm 27:1
The Lord is my light and my salvation-whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life-of whom shall I be afraid.
Psalm 139:14
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
3. Building resilience along the way. I am the one who speaks life into my situation. I hear my words. I think my thoughts. I feed myself. I am what I consume. So it is truly important to fight off those things that do not serve you anymore. You have to literally do better and stay committed to doing better. Fight going back to negative self-talk. Fight never giving up on yourself again. Fight to pull yourself out of the mud, dust yourself off and fall so deeply in love with the woman you are becoming. Building my resilience takes a lot of work like going to therapy, daily quiet time with God, being authentically me. saying no when I really do not want to, never feeding myself lies and unconditionally loving myself for who I am.
Never stop fighting to get to who you truly are. Every day is not sunny skies and butterflies but the journey will truly be worth it.
Peace & Blessings
Toni
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