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Writer's pictureKimley Dunlap-Slaughter

7 Ways To Love And Embrace Who You Really Are – Part 2: Day 5


4. Acknowledge Your Success:

You might not have succeeded according to your terms and definition, yet the definition of success is arbitrary. What does success look like to you? There are many people who never make any effort to step out of their comfort zone and yet insist that success pave a path to their front door. If you made a direct effort toward pursuing something you desired, but were unable to succeed due to any number of reasons, do not let that impair your definition of success. Failure is part of the process toward reaching your goals. In fact those who succeed in life will have you know that they failed miserably on many occasions prior to reaching success. Your success is determined by how you bounce back from your failures and lessons acquired along the way. For many making an effort is a big thing so that you can continue to live on purpose and successfully embrace your identity in Chist. It is not always about winning, sometimes it’s the effort that counts. “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” James 1:2-4 (NKJV).

5. Release Your Worries:

Worrying is a futile emotion that can be better spent by taking appropriate action. Worrying uses up vital emotional energy which instead can be channelled into developing emotional resiliency and fortitude. The more you entertain worrying thoughts, the more you establish a place in your mind that becomes habituated to the worrying thoughts. There is a term used in neuropsychology known as the Hebbian theory, which states, nerves that fire together, wire together. To entertain worrying thoughts, you establish stronger neural connections in the brain for the worrying to exist. Set your worries aside since they may be holding you back from prospering at greater levels. Surely you want to taste success and transform your worries into empowering emotional energies, which can serve your greatest potential. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” John 15:5-7 (NKJV).

6. Learn to Forgive Yourself:

We all make mistakes at some point in our life ;  some people make more than others, yet that does not qualify you or them to think less of oneself. Holding on to your mistakes by thinking negatively about yourself inhibits vital neural pathways in the brain from learning. Your brain is engineered for growth and learning within the context of a fun environment. We are all subject to making mistakes , no one is immune to it. Learn to forgive yourself by practicing detachment of the outcomes. Trust that whatever happened in the past was done so with the level of awareness that was apparent to you at the time. In other words, you were doing the best you could given the resources available to you at the time , and thus forgiveness opens the door to moving forward. “You have been criticising yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens” ~Louise L. Hay Appreciate the lessons gained from your experience by seeing it as an opportunity to gain the emotional resiliency to fight other battles in life, of which many will surely be presented to you.“Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures” James 4:1-3 (NKJV).

7. Be Grateful In All Things:

Gratitude entails being thankful for what you have right now and in the future. It does not mean being grateful in the future when you acquire something of value or have someone in your life who will compliment you and become the source of your happiness. Obstacles can sometimes get in the way and prevent you from finding that happiness that you crave so much. You might try finding joy in less conventional ways and forget that you can only find true happiness in one person: God. Keeping in mind that God wants you to embrace who God made you to be. God is the Creator. And because He is the Creator, therefore He is creative. He has made each one of us uniquely. That is why we don’t need to compare ourselves with others and even pretend we’re someone else. Do you know that living out who you are, brings glory to God? Because you are His creation. You cannot glorify Him by living in someone else’s identity. You are made for a specific purpose and specific reason. No one else can be you. Embrace every part of you because it glorifies God. Embrace even your dark past because it has already been surrendered to Christ; God will use it as a testimony and thereby glorifying His Name.“ But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” Romans 8:25-28 (NKJV).

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