Have you ever had anyone ask you… “Who are you… really?” Not to say that you wear a mask or hide behind a personality (or several)… orrrr you might but the deeper point is, what is the state of your identity. It’s the knowing who we are part that determines what the SELF Esteem does.
Back in the day, I once knew this fiiiine older man, a 6-foot tall, brown skinned Trinidadian. When he spoke, SPLOOSH. Though I kept mine contained I could see the women all around swooning as he talked. You should’ve seen their husbands, lol… how many times did I want to say, “Green doesn’t look good on you.” So, when Frank made a comment about my nose ring… “Guhl, why wouldya do that to ya face?” He proceeded to say that his wife wears no make-up and is naturally beautiful. I thought “Yeah… so, what’s your point?” “If I had met you before I met her, I wouldn’t have even taken a 2nd look at you. To do something so drastic must mean you have low self-esteem.” (#oldschool). Although I wanted to argue with him about the low self-esteem thing… I was stuck for real when he asked me “Who are you really?” Number one, he caught me off-guard and secondly I was going through a really tough time in my life. And I hated, hated, hated being single, a single parent raising 3 children.
I wonder if he would’ve backed down if I told him “I am a child of the Most High God.” But what does that really mean? I know now, but then was I tired of being rejected and alone (#noBae). The person that I was seeing at the time was separated but not divorced, which was frowned upon in my circles. Eventually he told me “I can’t be your god” as he was breaking up with me. And I thought “What the f^%$ does that mean?” In short he was saying… I can’t be everything that you need, it’s too much. Was I smothering him? Did I need him near me every minute of the day? IDK, but I always believed this was his poisonous female friend twisting what she saw because she herself wanted him? Either way, this all lead me on a journey to discover who I was in truth… and why I was sucking the life out of my guy.
Listen, we have talked about the “vacuum need” thing in previous posts (see Featured Posts). This type of brokenness drives a person to suck, and suck and suck from their environment to fill in missing pieces of their psyche. And they often do outrageous things to “make themselves feeeel better” like partying a lot, tattoos and piercings… Quite simply they go outside of themselves to get what can only be found on the inside. Physical things can not satisfy spiritual needs. (#Looking for love in all the wrong places). So in a sense, The Guy was right. You can’t plug a man into the “God-shaped” void and think you are going to be satisfied… “man” is only human. And just one of the benefits of actually knowing God is He will tell you about, show you - the real you. But you can’t shove off all the responsibility and work onto God. You have to do the SELF-work of discovering/re-discovering your SELF. The Pproblem is many of us have just DONE life to the point that we haven’t actually taken time for SELF. We give everything to everyone else and starve our own souls, almost to the point of death. Look at yourself in the mirror and say… “To know me is to love me.” Know, your own SELF and fall in love with you. You’ve heard it a thousand times, whose gonna love you if you don’t love your SELF? And it rings true… you CAN NOT love anyone else UNTIL you love your own SELF.
Who am I? What’s your answer? Are you more than what we see? Why? What is your worth based on? What are your God-given gifts and talents? What’s your purpose… everyone has them. Aaaand what are you DOING with them? Don’t feel bad if you don’t have the answers right at this moment. This is my little push for BE “all in” this SELF DEVELOPMENT journey. Step #1) Answer the door to your heart, God is knocking, and boy does He have some STUFF to tell you!
Need help answering the questions, I got you, CLICK HERE.