I have been on this journey of learning about myself for some time now. It has been one of those things that really digged deep inside, allowing me to withdraw from emotions I buried since childhood. For example, not laughing like you really do because of what someone else said about you in Primary School years. It has become a barrier in our daily lives restricting us from loving ourselves beyond what other individuals perceive us to be.
I thought about it during the week, how I have lived my life in the light of someone elses opinion. I always viewed and considered others before what I believed was right or is appropriate for that situation. I have always lived hoping that others would affirm me and reaffirm me because I needed to know that I was good enough. Never have I truly stood up for what I wanted to choose because of no other reason than the fear of what others might say or think. It was all up until I met my amazing friends (I have many by the way). They all come from different walks of life, most believing what I believe and the rest not believing what I believe - but that was never the issue. These people have taught me what the word "bold" really meant. By their individual way of living I have picked up that it was okay not to be okay with the way people on the other spectrum of life was treating me. I have seen how it was really okay to be human and break down when you were not okay, and admitting it that everything was not okay. I have laughed the loudest with these people, and we have had our issues with one another. However, the story had a deeper meaning. I see how God has just strategically placed these individuals on my path to help me discover myself.
I see how one laughs and I truly see that laughing loud and crazy is fine. I see how another vocalises their opinion and I realise that we should have a voice in any circumstance and opportunity. Then I look at another and I see how it is okay to express how you feel on your face, in your gestures and in your eyes. All this motion of ups and downs, in every season discovering how much gold is buried deep inside of us.
I am in the process of writing a song about my many friends, which is the first song I will be dedicating to people close in my life. I sat at the piano last week and decided to just sing what was on my heart about my friends. At some point during spontaneous singing the Holy Spirit began to show me how I have friends and they show me a part of the Father. He revealed to me that we are encountering Jesus everyday, through the people around us. We are all canvasses of a very small part of Jesus' face.
I started to think, how becoming real is not easy. Being real with family and friends (people who are literally in your space daily) is really difficult, because sometimes being truthful is not easy - but really needed.
Tonight some of my friends and I spoke about a topic I became truly passionate about and that is affection, especially physical affection. Hence my background in physical affection going wrong, I have restrained myself from showing or even publicly receiving physical affection because of how I have seen others gaze and stare. I am affectionate with both female and male, because that is just the way I am wired. I became aware of others and I have put up my own boundaries based on the second or third party's views on this specific topic.
Being real is more than just stating your opinion or showing off your attitude. It is all about being really comfortable and loving oneself truly. Only then can we truly love others rightly so.
It is no use we are opinionated out of brokeness or out of pride - because we would be hurting others and ourselves out of ignorance. Instead, if all this real talk and living is coming from a pure place in our hearts then it could change the history of our personal spheres and those who surround us.
I have become so hard, so quickly. For many reasons, but brokeness has triggered many heartaches and overly thinking in my mind. The Lord showed me how I was just drifting away from what I was supposed to be when He first created me. Sin had come to destroy and to break down all that was meant to stand - even in the foundations of my soul and somehow, somewhere I have allowed myself to feel so hurt that I placed walls around so that not a lot of people could come in.
Slowly and surely the Lord is breaking down all that I have placed around me to protect me. For out of fear I have left the thought of love behind, deep in the dumps of my broken heart.
Love is nothing to be afraid of, even though it costs us to become truly vulnerable, but it is so worth the diving into. Let us start the journey of becoming real and not masking ourselves under yokes of fear and boundage. Let us be comfortable with ourselves and our whole selves.
May God open us up like a flower in bloom time. Then the sun can penetrate our deep longing in our hearts for something real, something everlasting.
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