As I was sitting in a psychology class today, we were watching a video about a counselor and one of his clients. She was having a problem with confidence, and this counselor said something that really caught my attention. He told her that she must risk herself to find out who she really was.
Now this sounds strange, risk yourself to be yourself. If you think about it, it actually is quite simple, but with things like peer pressure and wanting to fit in to today's world and standards this can seem very difficult. There are two things that I think someone has to do in order to risk yourself to find yourself.
1. You must love yourself and
2. You must learn to be tolerant of yourself
Easy enough right?
Well, loving yourself may seem easy but I know that as humans we see ourselves in a much different light than others normally do. So how do you love yourself? You embrace who you are, how you feel, and what you do NO. MATTER. WHAT! If everyone were the same this world would be very boring. In order to like yourself, you must first realize that you will never fit in with everyone around you, and believe it or not, this is okay and even NORMAL! Keep in mind that if you don't love yourself, there is no way that you can expect others to love you. So you decide that you are going to make an effort to love yourself, but what happens next?
Once you learn to love yourself you must learn to be tolerant of yourself. Today's world has pounded into our heads that we must be perfect. This is completely false. Guess what? Everyone makes mistakes, we live, we learn, and we move on. Once you realize that you are going to make mistakes along the way, your life will become so much less stressful! I'm not saying that when you mess up it isn't frustrating, because it is. However, if you have the attitude to live and learn, you are one step closer to becoming who you really are, and defining your own version of perfect. Being tolerant is not always easy, especially when it comes to tolerating yourself. I know that I can be very critical of myself and I know that others tend to be that way as well. In order to risk yourself, you must tolerate the fact that
1. You are wonderfully and beautifully made (Psalm 139:14)
2. You are not always going to fit in
3. It is okay to stand out and be different
4. You will mess up
In order to be yourself you must be who you want to be, feel the emotions that your heart and head tell you to feel, speak up when something isn't right, and take charge if you want something to change. All of these things take risks, and it can be scary, but I promise if you learn to enjoy life, love yourself mistakes and all, tolerate yourself, and be thankful for this crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful beautiful life, the reward will outweigh the risk.
