The last few weeks (and month, really) have been quite a roller coaster for me. Lots of ups and downs. I know life is supposed to be like that, but it's less fun when the highs and lows come closer together.
I think I've learned a lot about myself in the last few weeks. I feel like the image of who I am in my mind is becoming clearer. It kind of feels like my whole life I only ever saw representations of me, as if I had only seen myself as drawn by someone else. Have you ever tried to draw a self portrait? It's harder than you think! I have a self-portrait that I can tell it's me, but then again it's not an accurate reflection of what I actually look like. Oh, here it is...
(I went for a "neutral" pose here, and I think it's significant and maybe a little "freudian" that it came out looking so sad...)
I have thought a lot about what it means to be "me" over the last few weeks. The thing is, I don't know that I've ever been clear about who I am because of the way I've treated myself and, to a certain extent, the way I've let others treat me.
Sure, I could go on an on about how there were emotional messages I never got as a child, and that I never really believed I was important or of value to anyone, consequently, I treated myself as unimportant and without value and found that the world only reflected back to me what I already felt was true about myself. (Turns out I was wrong; that's a hard place to go to FYI!)
The irony is, the more I try to "find" myself, the more I feel the Spirit telling me that my journey isn't about self-discovery, nearly as much as self-creation. In other words, I shouldn't be asking, "who am I," but asking, "who do I want to become?" It isn't that I've somehow fallen out of alignment with myself, even though I do sometimes feel like I'm walking through life as a blurry image at times, but it's that I never realized that I get to decide who I am. If I don't like something about myself, I get to change it. It's pretty simple, but very powerful for someone like me who has felt so helpless all my life. I guess I'm done playing the victim and ready to take responsibility for myself and trying to learn how to accept the good and the bad.
I know we are all children of God and I know that we all have unique personalities and traits that we brought with us because they are a part of our spirits and a part of who we are, but I don't think Heavenly Father sent us to earth simply to uncover the things that make us who we are. I think He sent us here to build ourselves into something better.
Unlike the Hindu god Brahma, who sits back and simply observes that which he created, I think Heavenly Father never stops being a God of Creation and not only in the material sense. Sure, worlds are always being created and formed, but I think He is helping us as individuals to be created into something new (see 2 Corinthians 5:17), a new creature (John 3:1-8).
It's almost funny to me how, after making this revelation, I immediately feel the influence of the adversary, as subtle as my own thoughts, reminding me of who I was and fearing that I will never be able to change. It's true, I do look at my past and see a history of failures which makes me wonder if I can do anything other than fail or make wrong choices. But then another voice says that for every time I failed I got back up. That may not sound like much, but for someone who has been into "suicidal" territory, it's pretty major. Yes, life has beaten me down. Yes, life has given me hardships and an overwhelming load to bear. But "life" has also given me a Savior. He makes new life possible. He makes it possible for me to create myself into something new.
This is all very new territory for me. I'm entering a phase in my life that I've never been to. The scenery is unfamiliar and I don't know how I'm going to find my way. I may stumble and will often want to go back to the "comfort and security" of who I was, even if it means getting back into negative self-talk and depression. But I have to believe that this road is the right one. I think I'm going to like what I find in this new place and I'm sure the views will be worth the climb.
Incidentally, I want to send a big THANK YOU to everyone who has ever supported me to any degree. It is so important to value and praise each other, but it's just as important to accept it. I know that I may have offended some, who, when trying to offer a compliment, I disputed it and whether I vocalized it or not, I found various reasons as to why they were wrong. As much as I thought I needed that external validation, what I really needed was internal validation.
I never learned how to tell myself that I am ok. I craved attention and wanted the world to see that I am important, but then when I did get any measure of praise or compliment, I discounted it because it didn't match the picture of who I thought I was. I didn't feel deserving of it and so, I didn't accept it. How may people out there think they need the world to validate them, but when they are praised it doesn't mean anything because really what they need is to accept themselves. That to me is the definition of despair, thinking you need something from the world and not realizing that you have the power to get it from within. I suppose in some weird "coping mechanism" way I felt that if I could convince the world that I was worth something, then that would in turn convince me that I was worth something.
I can tell you right now that self-esteem doesn't work that way! I have to decide that I'm worth something and be okay with who I am. That is a struggle for me - it doesn't come naturally. I've noticed a pattern in my life: I feel disatisfied with something > I struggle to understand it > I learn a lesson > I have to practice the lesson. The hardest part for me is practicing the lessons!
So thank you to everyone who believed in me. Thank you for trying to tell me that you saw more to me than I saw in myself. I hope it's possible to click "publish post" and have this message transcend time and space to reach all those who have been an influence for good for me. I can only hope that one day, I might be able to return the favor.
