Figuring out what you believe about yourself might be one of the more challenging parts of this uniquely beautiful journey of inner healing. What do I mean? Our brains are wired to avoid pain and they do it very well – with or without conscious decision-making.
Digging around in the landscape of our inner world has the potential to bring up a lot of painful things. Here’s the beauty though; once that part is dug up and exposed, now it’s an invitation to step into healing. It’s a beautiful dichotomy; on the one hand, it feels ugly and painful and hard. On the other hand, the invitation to work through this newly uncovered part of us can lead to something remarkable.
The more we uncover and choose to respond “yes” to the invitation to step into the healing process, then the more our souls come alive. We then get to live in the freedom that healing brings.
In this post, we will talk about how to discover what you personally believe about yourself and how to have grace in the process.
This post is all about uncovering your inner beliefs about yourself.
What do you believe about yourself?
Everyone comes from different backgrounds and therefore has different belief systems. Did you know that what you go through in your childhood and young adult life has a PROFOUND impact on the beliefs that take root in you? I want to dive into uncovering some of your belief systems surrounding you, your value, and your ability to face hard things.
First, I would recommend that you sit down with a journal, keyboard, or scrap piece of paper and write down everything that comes to mind when you think about what you believe about yourself. Write down the good, the bad, the neutral, and the ugly. Be honest. This takes a LOT of bravery and you can do it. If you struggle with where to start, here is a post on journal prompts for self-exploration.
Give grace and practice self-compassion
As you write, I want to emphasize how important giving yourself grace and showing self-compassion is here. It’s easy to start writing and realize that you actually have a lot of stuff inside that you haven’t put conscious thought into. Take a second, put your hand on your heart or on your abdomen, wherever is most comfortable, and take a deep breath. You are NOT the things you believe about yourself. You have done the best you know how with what you have and this is an incredibly rewarding journey. You’re doing a really good job. It may seem overwhelming now but I promise it gets easier as you develop tools to process hard things.
Keeping self-compassion close as you discover what you believe about yourself is very important. You are not broken, you are just covered up. As you peel back the layers to a freer and healthier you, you will see it so clearly it will make your heart ache with happiness.
You are not alone
I don’t know what your personal beliefs are about God or the extent of His involvement in your life but I can speak from experience that as you create safety with yourself, you will also find God has been right there with you all along; nurturing you with His giant Papa love. Go ahead and ask Him to show up in your mess. Just wait and see what He does.
We will talk about connecting with God in later posts but I want you to know that He is so close, waiting to wrap His big loving arms around you. He’ll hold your hand the whole way. It’s comforting that we are never truly alone in our messes and that we have a good Father with a big shoulder to lean on.
Another thing that can be helpful to feel less alone is to find a group of like-minded people who are committed to a healing journey too. There are plenty of resources online and likely at your local church to check out. Community is vital to the human population as we all need a good support system!
Many people find it helpful to establish with a counselor or life consultant as they walk into their pain and process it. This can be a valuable resource for many reasons and can be helpful along the entire journey.
Now what?!
Now that you have a nice list of different beliefs about yourself (hopefully some encouraging things on there too), it is CRUCIAL that you consciously decide not to make these into identity statements. Getting curious about yourself is one of the best things to do to become, and stay, mentally and emotionally healthy. You are not negative things on the list you just wrote down. You are not hopeless or powerless to the feelings inside. Lovingly, quite a few of the more negative things you wrote down are probably lies that have grown into beliefs and they don’t have to hold space inside of you. It can feel overwhelming and that is normal. Honestly, it can feel really painful too and that is normal. Self-compassion is going to be so life-bringing here. Be kind to yourself, you are doing the best your can.