23 - You Live, You Learn

Day 23: Things You've Learned That School Won't Teach You*

1. How to respect myself and form healthy relationships! An ongoing process, but I have reached a point where I feel integrated and genuinely like myself for who I am, and I expect those I am closest to to value me and for relationships to be a two-way street. (I actually wish schools did teach this - a high school class on Boundaries might be really helpful to kids like me who struggle with insecurity and seek their identity through other people.)

2. How to forgive and let go. You can only learn this through HARD experience, and sadly, it doesn't get much easier with repetition. I clearly remember hearing sermons on forgiveness as a child and thinking it was such a sweet and simple concept and wondering why it would ever be a struggle for people. Mmmm, let's just say I get it now. 

3. How to be vulnerable while maintaining dignity. In my love for intimacy and being known, I have tended to be an over-sharer (hence, the 1300 blog posts I pulled back). lol I still write from my heart and share quite a bit here, but I'm getting better with boundaries and keeping certain topics offline, just between the inner circle friends and family. :)

4. How to have grace for others. I was a very black-and-white thinker growing up, and I'm sure I'm still that way on certain topics. But in theology and psychology and life struggles, I've come a long way in seeing things from both sides and having grace and love for people wherever they are in their lives and walk with God.

5. How to have grace for myself. (That it's okay not to be okay.) I've gone through major depression, struggled with anxiety, participated in binging and purging, contemplated suicide, and been deeply angry with God in the past. I really do understand what it feels like to believe you don't have what it takes to cope with your life, even when things look okay to most people. I've learned to recognize it and fight back when it comes to spiritual warfare. And I know that my perfectionism and high expectations for myself caused some of my issues, and I'm getting much better at grace and self-acceptance. I'm also getting better at defining myself on my own terms through God's eyes rather than looking to others for self-worth.

6. The value of simple kindness. I'm a phlegmatic (amiable) personality and naturally tend to be kindhearted, but somewhere along the way, I devalued that trait and saw it as weakness... being drawn instead to those who were "strong" enough not to ever care what anyone else thought of them. However, their tendency to view people as disposable things to be used for their benefit and discarded when inconvenient has now caused me to come back around, and I think genuine kindness is one of the very best qualities in a person, and I value it more in myself than I had in past years. I think true kindness and having a soft heart in a brutal world is courageous, and I loved the "Have courage and be kind" motto in Cinderella!

7. How not to lose heart. Thanks to John Eldredge, I've learned to "embrace the partial" and shift my highest hopes and dreams to eternity in heaven!  Putting too much hope on people or things here is wrong and dangerous. Things are not guaranteed to work out here, and all the joy and fulfillment we experience on earth is still only partial in comparison to what we will feel in heaven. It helps so much to remember that and to let my heart dream big when it comes to life in heaven - because we can't outdream God. Our firm hope in Christ is the anchor for our souls... and the anchor holds, in spite of the storm!

*Obviously, life lessons take a bit longer to master and I haven't perfected any of these, but I've definitely made progress in these areas, and I'm thankful for it!

#alanismorissette ;)