It's been at least a month since I first wrote about rediscovering God's purpose for my life. You can tell from my post that I was excited to start living in it, but I didn't do that right away. Despite this big revelation from God, I was still stuck in feeling bad about my work situation and even how some things were going personally. I couldn't understand why I had such conflicting emotions: one part of me was ready to jump head first into God's vision for my life, but the other part couldn't move past the pain I wrote about in the first blog post. Why did it still hurt so much?
A month later, I understand why. There is a process to this purpose thing:
- Step 1: Be receptive to God's voice. If you've read my first blog post, you'll remember that I was hearing Him loud and clear. :-) I know my purpose is related to entrepreneurship and empowering others.
- Step 2: Allow yourself to feel and then move through the negative emotions of the past. This is where I got stuck. I tried to convince myself that I was done with the pain, when in fact, I never addressed it. I was putting on the "Everything is just fine" face as a front for coworkers, friends and family. One night I decided that I had enough. I cried out to God (literally) and told Him about all my pain, frustrations, anger, and hurt. I praised Him for getting me through this far and told him to take away the pain. I was too tired to keep carrying it. I had kept so much bottled up over the past year that after at least an hour of crying, I fell asleep. I woke up feeling a little better, but some of the negativity was still there. That's when I had to move on to Step 3.
- Step 3: Forgive yourself. Though it's been hard, I made a point to pray for those who hurt me over this past year. I forgave them for the pain they caused me and even wish them well. However, I never took the time to forgive myself for the pain I caused others by dwelling in negativity...and I had done some bad things. I made work a god, neglected my family and friends, neglected my health, lost confidence in my abilities, and even lost a piece of me. As silly as it may sound, I looked myself in the mirror, apologized and forgave.
- Step 4: Get to the root of what took you off track. My revelation came as I was journaling about a completely different topic. Then in the side bar I wrote a little note, "I'm tired of letting my want of perfection drag me down!" Aha! That was it! I stopped living my life on purpose because I thought I had to be perfect. Anytime I wasn't perfect/acting like a superhero, I took it as an indication that I was letting myself and others down. Because the past year had been one imperfection after another, I started letting people define me instead of letting God define me. I let others make me feel "less than" and forgot that I am created in God's image. All my life I had been striving to be that perfect person, and while it got me far in places like school, ultimately it was tearing me apart. From that moment on, I decided to be ok with my faults. I am no longer going to hurt myself or those around me to be perfect. After making that commitment and sharing it with others, the negative emotions went away. To make sure they don't come back, I've made a plan to reframe my thinking. I also shared this with close family and friends so they can hold me accountable if they see me drifting back into those negative emotions. Now , my mind is free to think of all the ways I can bring God's purpose to life. I also thank God for learning this lesson so the test does not need to be repeated. :-)
Step 5: Take actionable steps to living your life on purpose. To bring this to fruition in my own life, I create weekly goals. Because my roadblock was perfectionism, my initial goals are purposely small. This way I will be able to achieve them, feel good about moving closer to my purpose and not get sucked back into thinking I need to be a superhero at all times.
Have you gone through this process? If so, were you able to figure out what's been holding you back all these years? Did you devise a plan so that the roadblock won't come back easily? Are you taking actionable steps toward your purpose?
Remember that you're not alone in this. I'd love to hear how you're doing and offer my support!
No comments:
Post a Comment