When I Know Who I AM...
Several years ago I was faced with the difficult decision of whether or not to divorce my husband. My dad taught me to write a Pro/Con list whenever I had a tough choice. He said a list makes the answer clear and takes your emotions out of it.
I wrote my list. No offense to my dad, but for divorce, no pro/con list is sufficient or helpful. Everything about divorce shows up as a con. All I saw staring at me were catastrophic consequences - a broken family, traumatized children, loneliness, financial ruin, disapproval from God and all of society.
Then, in the "pro" column I wrote one little phrase - "my heart"
It turns out honoring who you are, at your core, is the most important thing. Honoring your true self is the winner of all lists, the ultimate deal-breaker, and your ace in the hole. When you know who you are, and you honor that, everything always works out.
Always? Yes, I think always. Because even if things go badly, or not like you expected, you didn't abandon yourself. You didn't go against your own truth for the sake of someone else's feelings or approval. You didn't shut yourself down or make yourself small. No one is small. We are all here to take up as much space as we possibly can.
I have this challenge of wanting everyone to like me and approve. I want to be all things to all people, and it simply isn't possible. Not only is it not possible, but being all things to all people means I have to change who I am for each person or situation.
When you are yourself, 100% of the time, most people won't like you. But we aren't meant to be liked and approved by most people. We are meant to be loved and cherished by the few people on this planet who are meant just for us. Which doesn't mean the others don't matter, it only means they have their own truth and their own small group who are meant for them. And that's just fine.
When I have trouble making big decisions, I often have to ask myself if I'm operating for the sake of others, or for myself. Divorce, for example, is a difficult decision because it carries so much disapproval from society. And every societal belief seeps into us and makes an imprint of some sort - maybe a belief about ourselves, maybe a critical thought, maybe a feeling of unease. What other people think about my marriage or my divorce doesn't matter. I'm the one who has to live with my choice.
So how do I know who I am?
It's taken me years to peel back layers of others' approval in order to discover and accept the person beneath all of it. I'm different than I thought. I've learned I have strong convictions, but I never knew them, because I was always too afraid to speak up. I've learned that I like being serious and sad sometimes, but I never knew it because I always felt like I had to smile and make people laugh.
I like learning about myself. I like finally acknowledging who I am. I like the simplicity of not worrying about others, and simply asking my own heart, when faced with a difficult choice.
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