Revelation-Spiritual Validation

For the past few weeks I have been doing some self reflection. For the whole month of October I deleted all of my social media's. It was relieving. I saw blessings where I was able to follow promptings to call old friends and actually catch up on their lives rather than relying on social media to update me. I have been thinking about how many people rely on social media to know what is happening in someones life and how misleading social media generally is. For example, I have one friend in particular in which I was prompted to call because I thought I needed her advice, I thought I needed her to help me (and she did) BUT even further God needed me to know what was happening in HER life so that I could at the very least pray for her. Social media did not make it obvious that my friend was in need of ministering, I needed to listen to the spirit and CALL HER. After hanging up that one hour phone call, the spirit confirmed to me that I had followed a prompting to call her even though my intensions might have been self inflicted at first. 

The spirit felt after that phone call validated my decision to call her and I further felt closer to my Heavenly Father which validated my worth as a daughter of God. This month long break from social media also gave me time to really think about who I have become since I have been home from my mission. I am three months away from being home for two years, how have I changed and who have I become? I think back to the first 8 months of being home from my mission... I was passionate and I wasn't afraid to express it. I would dance, I would write, I would draw, I was posting some kind of spiritual thought or message weekly AT THE VERY LEAST. As I was reminiscing on these times I wanted to understand - what changed? - now I can think of several factors that went into this change, but before I started to think about what caused the change, my mind immediately went one step further to think - how can I get back to that? - not that I am unhappy with who or where I am right now in my life, but I had felt like I had lost a big part of me. I was sad that I wasn't expressing my thoughts anymore. It is therapeutic for me to write and share what I know to be true. I find joy in sharing my experiences. I make connections with people through writing and I felt like after I had reverted back to my childhood introverted ways where my feelings, thoughts, ideas, knowledge, everything was kept to me, myself, and I. 

So I started the quest to FIND MYSELF again. I started by making my screensaver this photo of me walking through the woods labelled, "find yourself." I wanted to retreat back to my passion. I wanted to start writing again. This whole process reminded me of Ali in the classic movie, The Notebook. Ali spent a summer dating Noah, they had the summer of a lifetime. When the summer ends they are forced to part ways and they don't speak for YEARS, until Ali sees a picture on the front page of the newspaper where Noah had built her dream house. Ali was appalled! She goes to visit him and while with him she notices that when they parted she had lost a part of herself that she misses. She lost her quirky, spontaneous, easygoing personality together with her desire to paint. In this dream house Noah had built a whole room for Ali to paint. Long story short, Ali had stopped doing one of her passions and she missed it. 

I think it is just one of those things that happens. For myself, I think one of my biggest flaws is that because I grew up emotionally neglected as a child, I have a hard time understanding my self worth alone. I rely on other peoples opinions A LOT. When other people think highly of me I perform better. When people praise me, I work harder. It is just something I do. Serving a mission helped me to understand my worth a lot more, so I thought. But, perhaps it was just because I gave it my everything and hard work paid off. The revelation was validating and I felt accountable to be what the Lord, my companion, and my mission president expected me to be. I thrived on the blessings the Lord gave me in the midst of hard times. Coming home I thought I understood my worth, I thought I was independent in my understanding of my worth, but oh was I wrong. 

With this flaw, I often allow people to treat me however the heck they want to treat me because my opinion of myself wavered to be whatever they thought of me. This was extremely frustrating because Satan knew how to use it to his advantage. I stopped writing because I stopped feeling like I was good enough to share my experiences. I had an individual who told me that I was fake, that my posts were what I wanted instagram to think of me, but that my posts didn't match up to my reality. This broke me, I had felt like I had shared each of my posts with pure and real intent. I had vulnerably shared experiences that meant the world to me. Experiences that have shaped me into who I am, even the not so good ones. The person who told me this was someone I loved, someone whose opinion mattered probably too much to me. So much that when they told me, I BELIEVED THEM. 

AND SO I STOPPED ALL TOGETHER. 

I would rather cut myself off from the world than be known as fake or hypocritical. I would rather never post my experiences or thoughts than for someone who I thought knew the real me and UNDERSTOOD me to think I was fake. It is one thing for strangers to tell you that you are fake and unrealistic, but someone who you loved and saw daily. That was hard. Really hard. So I deleted every single post on my instagram. I stopped posting, and when I decided that was extreme I would only post in black and white with no description, and then I decided even that was extreme so I chose to be more vague and distant and still only post one picture of me in every state. BUT even that is crazy. Because that's not me. That is fake. I am the kind of person whose goal with social media to promote and spread HAPPINESS not just pointless pictures of me in different states. Who  is it going to help if I just do that?

I have to give some credit to someone who followed a prompting in helping me come to this understanding. A few days ago, my mission "father" direct messaged me on Instagram and said that he felt like he needed to read some of my blog posts and he personally thanked me for my writing. After reading that the spirit validated my love and passion for writing and my open willingness to share my thoughts. BECAUSE... WHO CARES WHAT THE HATERS SAY!!! My thoughts, my posts, my blogs are REAL and genuine. They are inspired and the spirit has confirmed to me over and over that they help more than just myself! So I quickly was rebuked by the spirit for allowing ONE PERSON'S opinion to make me abandon a part of me that is so crucial. 

I wish I could say that revelation, my spiritual validation, was always enough for me and that I don't need validation from my friends and family to FEEL like I am doing well in life. If you are anything like me, just know you are doing great. I often look at myself and although I just opened up a new Chip Cookies location, I managed 4 Chip locations(American Fork, Salt Lake City while the new GM was training, and the two Kiosks in the Vivint Smarthome Arena) at once for two weeks, and I still manage three, on top of school in which I am getting all A's, and maintaining a social life with the 80+ hours of work I have been doing each week... I don't always feel proud of myself because I heavily rely on others to be proud of me. Doesn't that sound crazy? How can I not see that I am working insanely hard and performing well? Sadly, I know that there are more of you out there that feel this on a personal level. If you are managing being a mom on top of work, working over 40 hours a week, or whatever it mighty be.. you don't feel like its enough. I heard an analogy I loved today at church. The first counselor in the stake presidency told a story about his grandson who was full of energy and very confident. His grandson was at a rodeo about to ride a sheep, when introduced to a "REAL" cowboy, the cowboy looked at him and said, "I ride bulls." The grandson looked right back and said, " I ride sheep" confidently. 

The stake president then bore his testimony that God doesn't care what your riding as long as your trying. He doesn't compare ones sheep to another bull. He loves us all equally. I want to add my witness that he doesn't compare you to your neighbour, or to the soccer mom who always has perfect hair and nails. He loves you for WHO YOU ARE! So don't let your own feeling of self worth waver because of what others might think of you. Base your worth off of what GOD sees in you. I promise that he LOVES you! 

BLOCK OUT THE HATERS YO! 

So how am I going to apply this? I am going to write. I am going to keep writing these long wordy blog post that perhaps no one reads, or perhaps people think they are unrealistic and fake, BUT I DON'T CARE. I hope that you will have the strength to block the negativity out of your life and I hope you have the strength to stop spreading negativity. 

God is good. 

I am grateful.

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