Tag: Life

Seeing the sights

one thingInside each and every one of us is a wonderful person the world is desperately wanting to know.  Every day all around us are people that have incredible talents and gifts that often go completely unseen and unknown, and the world is worse off for it.  So much potential that goes unused and unnoticed.

The world doesn’t need more carbon copies of others.  It doesn’t matter if they were the greatest person around.  What the world needs is people who are willing to be authentic, and allow their potential to be lived fully.  This comes by knowing yourself, your limitations, your talents and giftings and being secure enough in who you are that there is no need to “fit another mold”.  We were created unique and special.  Every person born is important and has a wonderful potential.   There has been and never will be another you, and if your life goes unlived because you were trying your best to fit in or measure up the world will have lost a great treasure.

Coming to know yourself is a journey.  It isn’t something that happens overnight.  In fact because we are developing and growing it is a journey that is continually ongoing.  Everyone of us needs to be going on that journey.  This is done with a lot of soul-searching, and thought spent deciding why we do things, what we love to do, what we are passionate about.  It involves analyzing motives to understand the reasons for behaviors we have.  Many of our behaviors are a result of our childhood, and often they are self-protection mechanisms that have completely outlived their usefulness and are now just keeping us from become ourselves.

This journey isn’t easy at times.  In fact it can be painful as we come to understand things about ourselves that we won’t necessarily like.  But the rewards for going on the journey exponentially exceed any discomfort we may go through.  The world around us needs people who know who they are.  There are a lot of people compensating, calculating and even being like a chameleon and changing themselves to fit the expectations of those they relate to.  Very few people are truly self-aware and confident in who they are and what they are gifted to do.

So it is an important journey for all of us.  The big thing is that we need to enjoy the journey.  Every journey we take in life has its ups and downs.  The car breaks down, tires go flat, engines overheat, flights are delayed or cancelled, traffic jams cause us to be late.  Everywhere we turn there will always be joyous highs and heart breaking lows.  Unfortunately it is a facIMAG0157t of life.

But even with the lows and high the journey can be worth while and very memorable.  I recently traveled to Turkey and Armenia, and there were difficulties and frustrations.  There were highs and lows, but the memories will stay with me for a life time.  It is the same when we journey to knowing ourselves.  The journey was meant to be enjoyed.  It will be hard at times, definitely life changing, and an incredible release of burdens we hang on to, and passions we have bottled up.  We are all worth knowing.  That is the way God created us.  But to be known we have to know.  I need to know myself so I can share myself with the world I live in.  If you haven’t started your journey, it is never ever to late.  Every journey begins with a single step.  Just enjoy the journey and see where it takes you. journey enjoy

Mapping the journey

journalingJournaling is something that I used to hate doing.  It was always something that others mentioned that would help me in my life and encouraged me to do.  But every time I tried I struggled to make it worth while.  It always seemed like a diary to me and I had absolutely no use for a log of my daily events.

Recently I came to understand journaling in a whole new light.  It was never supposed to be a diary.  There was no need at all the log events that happened in my life at all.  Unless that is something that you want to do.  Journaling was meant to be a way to sort out your thoughts and feelings.  Sometimes this is linked to an event, but doesn’t need to be.  If we want to truly know ourselves then this is something that is necessary to the process.

Dawson Trotman said “Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through the lips and fingertips.”  As we put our thoughts down on paper, or computer screen, we can process what is happening in us.  Without doing this we will miss out completely on knowing who we are, and who we are becoming.  Life simply passes and we struggle to get by.  Journaling allows us to place markers along the journey.  Things we have learned about ourselves and the way we see the world.  Discoveries we have made about life, and the struggles it brings.  As we process what is happening to us and within us, we grow.

You wouldmemory map never plan a trip without deciding first where you wanted to go.  A destination is very important in every journey.  But just as important is knowing where you are now.  You can plan a trip from London to Sydney, and have everything lined up for the journey and it will do you absolutely no good when you are currently in Toronto.  Journaling is a way for us to see first where we are at personally.

It allows us to look within and see things about ourselves we would have never noticed otherwise.  It allows us to be honest with ourselves because there is no one to impress.  It is simply us looking in a mirror and writing what we see.  Just as important is the writing where we want to go.  Without a destination to work towards the place we are in now can be painful and not have any purpose or hope.  A destination makes the start worth while.

When we journal we simply are mapping our journey of self-discovery and becoming.  As we journey we mark memorable and life altering moments and discoveries, and allow ourselves to process what is we are discovering and clearly understand who we are becoming.  This allows us to not simply exist, but to really live life and achieve our potential.

The journey begins

journey stepEveryone needs to be on a journey of self-discovery.  It is a journey that many never start, and they miss out completely on some incredible things.  There is only one you in this world.  There has never been someone like you, and there will never be again.  This is the worlds only opportunity to experience you.  And it will miss out completely if you don’t experience you.

Who are you?  Who are you when no one else is looking?  Once you take away all the trappings of life and scratch away everything that life has taught you to be, who would you be?  Would you be the same as you are?  Without your job, or your family, or your friends who are you?  It is a very good question to ask ourselves.  One day all of those things will disappear.  We will retire, our families will grow up and move away, our friends will come and go, and if our identity is based on those things we will be very miserable indeed.  There are a great many people who pass away a few years after retirement,or their spouse passed away, because their identity is gone.  Who are you?

The best place to start is to begin some honest self-evaluation.  This needs to be honest evaluation. We often lie to ourselves about ourselves.  We justify behaviors and responses, and we explain our choices in life which cause us to be the way we are.

For example:

.  If we want to lose weight, we might claim that we’re eating healthy, but in reality our eating habits haven’t changed very much.

.  If we want to be more creative, we might say that we’re trying to write more, but in reality we aren’t holding    ourselves to a rigid publishing schedule.

.  If we want to learn a new language, we might say that we have been consistent with our practice even though we skipped last night to watch television.

We use lukewarm phrases like, “I’m doing well with the time I have available.” Or, “I’ve been trying really hard recently.” These statements are usually just soft excuses that make us feel better about ourselves or about having a goal that we haven’t made much real progress toward. (I know because I’ve been guilty of saying many of these things myself.)

Why do these little lies matter?

Because they are preventing us from being self-aware. Emotions and feelings are important and they have a place, but when we use feel-good statements to track our progress in life, we end up lying to ourselves about what we’re actually doing.

Being honest with yourself is a very important step.  It is where you begin to see what is good in your life.  Start making a list of what is right with you.  But don’t stop there.  Make a list of what you think is wrong as well.  Then you can begin to sort out what you actually want to, or need to change because a lot of what we do is a result of the life we have been pushed  into by the expectations of those around us.  Only when we begin to see ourselves as we truly are, and then make some steps to move towards who we actually want to be can we begin to truly know ourselves.

But it starts with that first step of beginning to be honest with ourselves.  The journey is definitely worth it.every-journey-begins-with-a-single-step-you-will-never-finish-if-you-dont-start