Who Am I

This is the new thinking I am adopting.  The first one I share because I think it not only applies to me, but I need to apply it to everyone I encounter.  I tend to judge my "inside" by other people's "outside".  I forget that behind every smile there lurks an unshed tear.  Beneath every laugh, there is or has been a painful groan.  Everyone has pain.  Everyone has problems and challenges. Everyone has sorrow.  We all learn to mask it well.  I am the world's worst to cover or worse yet, stuff my feelings.  I have made mention that I am a master at being a chameleon.  I can be whatever and whoever I need to be.  I really want to find out who I am.  I really don't know how I feel about many things.  I don't know what is my truth.  I don't know what is real.  I am unauthentic, hiding behind what I think might be what others expect me to be.  I want to be real and authentic.  I believe God made me to be what He wants me to be and whether through environment, genetics, or circumstance, I have lost my way.  

The second picture is to remind myself that I cannot expect to make much headway if I am perpetually criticizing myself and belittling my own existence.  It is my reminder that I am God's child, his adopted daughter and He loves me.  Jesus cares enough that He saved me.  The Holy Spirit is so concerned that He lives within me to give me aid.  I know all this in my head.  I just don't feel it in my heart.  The heart is what He wants, right?  That is such a scary thought to me, but not knowing what is real and true for me, makes me extremely vulnerable to other people's opinions.  I am equally vulnerable to ghosts of the past and the guilt and shame I allow them to inflict on me.  

I am in a very uncomfortable place.  A place where I don't feel worthy, I don't feel accepted (because no one, not even I, knows the real me).  A place where I even wonder how anyone could love me.  I understand they love the person they see, but they have not seen the real deal yet.  I live in fear that one day someone will see me as I really am, perhaps before I know who I really am, and they will find that I am just as worthless as I feel.  Again, my head knows better, my heart?  Not so much.

I am anxious to get back to Elizabeth.  Impatient to improve.  Ready to know who I am and what I feel.  I know it will not be easy.  Sometimes it may not even be pretty, but I am ready to find myself, love myself, appreciate myself, and hopefully my children will see the change and will not be too scarred by my actions prior.