REDEMPTION UNVEILED
When Others "Cause" My Problems
When I have frustrations in my life, my first instinct is to look around and find the source of my frustration. This usually ends in me finding the person responsible. Someone must be at fault, right? And it isn’t me. I then put my frustration on that person, whether in secret or to their face.
Only recently have I realized how truly unproductive this process actually is. This way of handling things is focused primarily on one thing and that is…
blame.
When I have frustrations in my life, my first instinct is to look around and find the source of my frustration. This usually ends in me finding the person responsible. Someone must be at fault, right? (And it isn’t me.) I then put my frustration on that person, whether in secret or to their face.
Only recently have I realized how truly unproductive this process actually is. This way of handling things is focused primarily on one thing and that is…
blame.
You see, I don’t like to be frustrated. I don’t like it if things don’t go the way that I thought they would or should. I don’t like it if someone is mean to me or rude to me. I don’t like it when people disappoint me. And I don’t like it when I feel that I have been “wronged”.
“They made me mad.”
“They hurt my feelings.”
“They made me frustrated.”
If only they would change, I wouldn’t have these problems because... well...
they are the problem.
I’m sure some of you are thinking… "Gosh, this girl has issues." (Which is totally true.)
I naturally think I am right all the time. I understand myself and my opinions make sense to me. It is not natural for me to question my emotions.
But what if my frustration wasn’t all about them?
What if the reason I was mad had more to do with my history than our present? What if the reason that I was so hurt had more to do with my insecurities than their actions? What if I was so frustrated because somewhere within myself is a child that believes I should get everything I want when I want it?
When we are feeling upset, instead of placing blame on someone else, we should sit down in front of the mirror and look at the reflection in front of us. We should not avoid this person. We should try to understand this person.
This person matters.
Our most frustrated, broken moments often reveal the most precious, vulnerable, interesting, and difficult things about ourselves.
It is vital that we look at ourselves during the times that we feel upset. If we don't, we will miss out on so many opportunities to learn who we are.
Many times, my feelings have little to do with the current situation I am in, and I find myself surprised by what is really upsetting me. It is often my undealt with hurt from a situation in my past. I can be surprised by my hate, anger, hurts, emotions, opinions, and frustration. Instead of making it all about them, I now ask, “What does this say about me?”
I learn more about myself when I am upset than I ever could when I am not.
My life is no longer a battle to prove to anyone that I am right. Being right is no longer my goal. My goal now is to be in peace. I am now living my life to grow, to heal, and to change. I am living this life to learn.
I am no longer scared of my brokenness. I no longer run from it. I embrace it. I want to know who I am, I want to know why I act the way I do and why I feel the way I do. I am getting to know myself, in all of my strength and all of my weakness.
My frustrations in life are no longer a “problem”.
They are an opportunity.
Next time you find yourself upset, hurt or angry. I invite you to do something that feels really wrong. I invite you to pause. I invite you to resist the urge to blame others for your emotions. I invite you to get to know yourself in a new way. I invite you to learn.
I invite you, my friend, to heal.
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Look in the Mirror and Clearly See
Have you ever felt discontent with who you are?
Several years ago, I found myself frustrated with my life. Don’t get me wrong, my circumstances were great. I had a wonderful family, great friends, I was a new mom, I was blessed with a job that I enjoyed and I was in a flourishing marriage, yet I felt disappointed with myself.
I wanted to find a way to live content.
I wanted to learn to be ok with who I was.
I wanted to learn how to love me...
Have you ever felt discontent with who you are?
Several years ago, I found myself frustrated with my life. Don’t get me wrong, my circumstances were great. I had a wonderful family, great friends, I was a new mom, I was blessed with a job that I enjoyed and I was in a flourishing marriage, yet I felt disappointed with myself.
I wanted to find a way to live content.
I wanted to learn to be ok with who I was.
I wanted to learn how to love me.
I set off on a journey to discover and learn to appreciate who I am. Now, after several years, I have a suggestion for anyone who is longing to become more secure in who you are:
Look in the mirror,
see yourself
and own what you see.
This is harder than it sounds. As I look back, I realize that I have spent a lot of time either running from the mirror or lying about what I saw. Why would I do this? I was filled with pride and fear. Pride kept me blind to the truth of my brokenness and fear kept me ashamed of my imperfections.
It can be so easy to get caught up in lying to ourselves about who we are, but in order to be completely free we must see it all, the good, the bad and the ugly. Only after we acknowledge that we have flaws can we begin to attend to them. I didn’t even realize that I had been hiding or denying complete parts of myself.
If we want to truly begin transforming our lives, we must stop thinking that it is unacceptable to have problems, insecurities and brokenness. It is not bad to have “issues”, it is human. The sad thing is that we are all walking around trying to be “perfect”, when in reality, we all have major shit we are working through.
Embrace the real you.
Embrace the truth of who you are, in all its beauty and in all of its ugliness. Embrace that you are a person filled with many aspects: wonderful things, embarrassing things, strengths, weaknesses and brokenness. Embrace your current self, embrace who you have been and embrace who you will be.
I was struggling with being secure because I wasn’t acknowledging who I was. My instincts told me that if I wasn’t perfect then I would lose my value; instead, I found the opposite to be true. Only in being genuine and embracing who I truly am, have I been able to find security.
Once we learn how to accept who we are, flaws and all, we learn something extremely powerful, to love without the premise of perfection. I have learned the life changing ability to love something that is a work in progress, myself. Even better, I no longer expect others to be perfect. I have thrown away the bar of “performance & expectations” in which I used to measure people’s value. I have finally tapped into the truth that value is not in having a perfect reflection, but being a person, which is of great value.