Honestly, I hate this title. We live in a culture obsessed with "self-love" and overall I find it to be selfish and in direct opposition to our call to love God and love others. But for those who know me, it caught your attention right? Like, "Uh oh, Marla's gone off the deep end now." ;) Anyway, what it should be called is something more like, "Learning to Have An Accurate View of Myself," but that didn't seem as catchy, so here we go. For as long as I can remember, I have been a people-pleaser. To the extreme. Even as a kid, people would always ask questions like, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I've known I want to be a stay-at-home mom for as long as I can remember, but even from an early age I knew that wasn't what people wanted to hear so I always went with my second choice, "A secretary." (Which to be honest, also wasn't what my teachers wanted to hear based on my academics, but I wasn't willing to lie either.) Similarly, when I graduated high school and went on an out-of-state college visit to the very expensive private school I was planning to attend, I cried most of the night. I didn't want to go to college at all, but felt like it was expected of me, so that's what I would do. Thankfully my mom overheard me expressing this to a friend over the phone and DOUBLY thankfully my parents aren't the "every kid must go to college" type, so they sat me down and explained to me that if I didn't want to go to college, that was okay with them. In adulthood, my people-pleasing ways looks like throwing all of my groceries up on the lane as fast as I can so that the person behind me doesn't get upset that I'm taking too long. DESPERATELY hoping I'm not the first one to train tracks when the lights start flashing but there's no train yet, because I'm terrified of getting hit by a train, but for unexplained reasons I am even MORE terrified of strangers behind me (whom I'll never meet) getting angry with me if I don't risk my life to cross those train tracks before the train comes. Possibly one of the hardest for me is that I keep mental track of almost everything people mention (in person or online) of things that bother them and then try not to do ANY of those things in front of ANYONE in case it also bothers other people. But I also know I fail, which make me all the more nervous. So sorry to all you loud-chewer-haters out there...I chew loudly. I try not to, but it can't be done. I apologize profusely. The last thing that I do for unknown reasons is I quickly believe anything negative anyone says about me, but if anyone compliments me I'm quick to find a reason that "they have to say that." "Oh, they're my parents, they have to love me." "Oh, it's my therapist, she has to say things that make me feel good." "Oh, my friends know I'm self-conscious about that, so they feel like they need to be nice." I can almost always come up with a reason why a compliment is not genuine (although I will say there are some people I can accept compliments from because I know they're always genuine...including my parents. I've learned to trust the nice things they say since becoming a parent and realizing how much parents truly do love their children). Probably needless to say at this point, people-pleasing is most likely the lead cause of my anxiety. I am constantly in thought over how my words and actions are affecting other people (except for when I'm suffering social anxiety, in which case I'm likely to say rude, thoughtless things that I will reflect upon later and worry about for the rest of my life). ALERT ALERT: ALL of this is actually just as selfish as the "self-love" craze that I loathe. It is first of all assuming that everyone is concerned about me and what I'm doing. Secondly, it's assuming the worst of other people and their intentions when they speak kind words to me. And there are probably more things, but the final one I'll mention is that it speaks untruth about who God is and who He created me to be. Which brings me on to the couple of things that have really helped me: 1.) There was a video series we watched over the Sunday School hour in the summer one year. I can't remember who the speaker was or what the series was about or literally anything about the series except this speaker did a demonstration with a basketball and then he dropped the basketball and made some point that profoundly affected my ability to see that God created me to be me. All of the verses that speak to that suddenly became real to me: -Genesis 1:27 "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. -Psalm 139:13-14 "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. -1 John 3:1 "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. I accepted that God made me perfectly, because He's a perfect God who loves me unconditionally. 2.) There is another series that I remember a lot better: Chip Ingram's "True Spirituality" with a focus on Romans 12:3 "For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." Now, I had focused a lot on trying not to think of myself more highly than I ought, but Chip's focus was on "think of yourself with sober judgment," the command here being to "think accurately about yourself." That means that while I need to be humble, recognizing my faults and working on the areas where I am weak (of which there are plenty)...I also need to acknowledge that God uniquely created me in His image, that I am unconditionally accepted in God' family, and that God gifted me to fulfill His purpose, making me significant. Now, I certainly have not perfected this whole self-assessment thing. I can still be incredibly selfish in the way I look at situations. In fact, just a couple weeks ago I came home and informed my husband that I had said or done something weird and that "everyone disapproved and gave me dirty looks." My wonderful husband who knows me very well responded with, "Okay, but did everyone actually give you dirty looks or were you just imagining they did?" Fair enough. Do you struggle with this also? I don't know if I'll ever stop being in a state of worry over possibly offending friends and strangers alike, but I do know what helps me the most when my worry gets the best of me. I have to speak truth to myself. The truth from above....truth from God's Word about how He made me and how much He loves me. I really do have to learn to love myself...by having an accurate view of myself, one that reflects who God created me to be, while always acknowledging that I'm a sinner saved by grace, whose desire is to follow God's commandments to love Him first and love others second.
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Marla HoyMy family says and does silly things and I write it down. Archives
March 2020
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