When We Think We’re Right

But have it so wrong

When I reflect back on my life, there are so many things that I thought I got right but was so wrong about.

Like, when I was a teenager, I thought I was invincible and didn’t think about the consequences of my actions. So I did stupid things like pull all-nighter’s and then drive the next day being half asleep.

Or eating tons of junk food because I couldn’t see the long-term impact on my health.

But more subtly, there were things that I thought were “normal” or even “good”, but were actually anything but. Here are some examples:

• I confused people pleasing with being kind
• I thought perfectionism was excellence
• I believed avoiding conflict was being peaceful
• I substituted suppressing my feelings with being the bigger person
• I reduced not asking for my needs as being strong and independent
• I swapped approval seeking with getting advice
• I switched control with safety and security
• I traded productivity for self-worth

 

And this is the case for many of us who come from homes where our approval and acceptance were based on externals such as what we do, what we achieve, how we perform, how we compare to others, and what we have.

Often, this mindset carries forward into our adult life. We only feel worthy or good enough when others think we’re good enough…

or at least we think that they think we’re good enough. Read that again.

So my hope for you, my friends, is that you would challenge what you believe to be real and healthy.  Is your worthiness based on externals that can be robbed of you at any time by anyone, or is it grounded on the goodness of who you are, warts and all? I hope you believe in the latter.