It’s been a while since I posted a Sunday Sentiment. Every week I have some sort of plan for what I might write, but I haven’t been able to fit it in. My Sundays have been brutal and frankly, unpleasant lately.
It’s currently past 11:00 pm, and I’m going to do this! I’m going to post! It will probably be short, but that’s not a bad thing. I don’t know if anyone endures to the end during my lengthy ramblings (I have one in my draft folder about my CPAP machine, so get excited)!
I’ll just share a couple of quick thoughts. This week I listened to a podcast episode from Twenty Something called “The One Word That Saved His Life” which was shared by a friend of mine (so thanks, Friend. It was a really good episode!)
I’m actually shocked to see the title of the episode because I have no idea what the “one word” was. Now I feel like I need to go back and scan the transcript. Or maybe one of you dear readers could go listen and come back and tell me? Cuz that was not my takeaway at all!
Anyway, this episode is an interview with a man named Todd Sylvester. He tells his story of hitting rock bottom, and how he turned his life around. I won’t recount his story, but there was one thing that really stood out to me. There was a point in his life where he was prompted to perform a particular service for another person. After his first time engaging in this act of service, he realized he liked who he was when he was doing it.
Those words, “I liked who I was,” really resonated with me. I have spent a lot of time feeling bad about myself and not liking myself. I’m especially struggling with these feelings right now, but I have experienced times when I’ve felt like Todd felt when he was serving someone else. I’ve had times when I liked who I was. In Todd’s case, it was a necessary experience to get himself on track to change his life. He needed to see a version of himself that he liked so he could know what he was capable of.
A few years ago, I was beating myself up over some of my character flaws. Let me have an honest moment here: sometimes I am mean. Sometimes I have a really rotten attitude, and I take it out on other people. Sometimes it’s hard for me to be nice - to the extent that, when I am being nice, I feel fake. I feel like people see right through me, and they know I’m not really a nice person.
During some chats with God (which sometimes take the form of prayer, and other times consist of me “think yelling” at Him), I discussed the fact that I’m not a nice person, and that when I am being nice, I’m “masking.” I whined about it a bit (like I do), and then a thought came to me: “You have confused which one is the mask.” Then I realized that Nice Britt is who I really am. Mean Britt is actually the mask. I am mean when I feel insecure, scared, powerless, or overwhelmed. When I’m experiencing anxiety or depression. Or when I don’t know my place. That is the mask. It’s not who I really am.
When I am my truest self, I like who I am.
Since listening to that podcast, I’ve been thinking a lot about what version of myself I really like. What moments have I been my best self? When have I really liked me?
Definitely some of my most likable moments have involved service or other Christ-like actions. I like myself best when I’m being a disciple. I also like the creative, productive, social version of me, but she won’t come back til about November.
One final thought from the podcast was this:
“The most delightful surprise in life is to suddenly recognize that there is nothing wrong with you.”
If you’re in a place right now (like me) where you are struggling with your self worth and constantly thinking about your shortcomings, mess around a bit with the idea that there’s nothing wrong with you! This is new to me, so I can’t say yet if it helped me overcome some of my negative thinking, but I’m trying to embrace it.
I hope I can become a version of me, over time, that I can become proud of.
Now it’s past midnight, so it’s technically Monday (but I will gaslight you by changing the date and time when I post this). I have fallen asleep at least six times while typing this. I’ll definitely need to do a Monday morning proof reading because I’m not even sure what I’m typing right now.
(Remember at the beginning of this post when I said it would probably be short? That was just me being silly).
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