Finding You

 
Journeying through life, things start to become what it is. I remember as a child questioning things that did not make sense to me, wondering if I was then doing something wrong because I would think of things a different way. In a different perspective. We all have different perspectives, based on the individual experiences that we've had. 

I recently asked myself, how do you find God? 

I was raised in Church to an extent, my mother ensured we went to Sunday school and said our prayers before eating dinner. We learned the Lord's Prayer. I developed a belief that if I didn't pray on my knees God didn't hear me, or wouldn't find me worthy. When I made a mistake, I believed God would punish me by taking something dear to me away. Therefore you must be perfect and follow the living word of God. At twelve years old, this is the ideology of life in which I figured I would follow so that the very things I wanted in my life would come true. I understood that all things come from God, just didn't know how or why. Just knew I had been taught that all things come from Him. I made mistakes and waited for God to chastise my life, waited for all bad things that were to come to come. I prayed still hoping for some type of redemption, that God would grant me grace, would say I know you made this mistake, but it's okay, you still get to be what you have been called to be. 

The frustration that stemmed from this cycle of hoping to please God in every moment of the day so that I could get the things I wanted, devoured me. It causes anxiety and worry, the very anticipation for something that I do no want to show up in my experience so that I can prove that I am not worthy. I hated not knowing who I was because of this. I had no idea who I was supposed to be, I know I liked things generally, which didn't really make up who I was to my core. 

The first step came with the demolition of my belief system that I was unassumingly not even aware of. From the beginning, I questioned motives of others not because I didn't believe, but because the emotion did not match the action. I was confused on how one could say something but do the opposite. Until I found myself practicing the same beliefs, believing the same thoughts about something, I started questioning where was that coming from to start with. I broke down my beliefs, I still am, this is a journey that will go deep. To have to remove everything you've been taught and replace with your truth. 

Believe in Your Truth. 

My biggest fear with doing this was how do I reconnect with myself? I was scared to let go of the limited beliefs that no longer served my purpose, but I struggled with how. I researched. I read books. I meditated, I read more books. I'm still reading and meditating, I am at a point where I feel that I need to fully take back my power. I for the longest thought that I could do it on my own. But quickly realized that telling your truth to someone who is completely neutral could be beneficial, especially when the one person you have spent the last 13 years of your life with suggest that this may be the next step for you. A pure God-send. 

Reconnect with you to reclaim Your Power. 

The constant expansion. As you grow, you never stop. There's always going to be a need for your to expand, daily, moment by moment. You will never be complete, because there is no completion. I am okay with wanting to continue to strive to my greatness. I used to believe this meant you were ungrateful for what you had, that if you wanted more than want you had, then you were not grateful for what you had, and therefore selfish, greedy, etc. Grateful is a social emotion, it is a social-reaction that is used to show appreciation for what others do for you. When my reaction wasn't accepted, I was then labeled ungrateful. Being labeled as such didn't feel good. I questioned my very worthiness from this. If my worthiness  was based on my reaction to get more of what I wanted, then this would in turn also depend on how worthy I was based on my gratefulness, my expression of gratefulness. However, gratefulness is the show of emotion for appreciation for OTHERS. What about for self? How do you show appreciation for self?  Appreciation is recognizing the value and meaning of something. That something can be a person, object, anything. But most of all, it had to be me, I had to learn to see the value in me, the very self-worth that I thought came from others. Gratitude is the description of the feeling where appreciation is recognizing the feeling of the very value of what gratitude is. 

Feel Self-Worth and believe it. 

To bring this all together, no journey to finding yourself will be identical to anyone else, your perspective is validated because it is your journey. I will be starting therapy this week, and I am excited and curious as I believe this is the next step for me to stand in my purpose. I will continue to share my journey, insights and breakthroughs I have, the pretty and the ugly, the comfortable and uncomfortable. There is nothing more comfortable than the feeling of being able to stand in your truth, freely by finding you. 

Be Great,

   Stephanie