Fruit & Freedom

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent".
-Eleanor Roosevelt

Hello everyone!

This weekend has gone by really fast for me ... ha, I'm still not sure where it went.

I'm just sitting here on a nice Sunday afternoon eating a fresh fruit salad (yum ... it has freshly sliced cantaloupe, strawberries, half of a pear, and blueberries. I was feeling like some leafy greens for some reason so I added a little bit of kale just for fun). Anyways, while I'm eating this, I've been thinking. For reasons I won't exactly get into, this weekend has been kinda tough for me. But it's also made me think and that's a good thing ; )

I've always been a very shy and mostly quiet person. And though I didn't always realize it, I'm very much a people pleaser. I don't ever want to do anything that upsets anyone. It sounds horrible to me for something I do or something I say to make someone upset or disappointed in me. I never want to disappoint anyone even a little bit by anything I do, and if someone's feelings of disappointment are because of me, I feel SO bad. And if someone is doing something they don't necessarily want to do, but they're doing it for me anyways, I feel really bad as well. Along with this, I've always gotten my feelings hurt VERY easily. (Ha, just ask my family and/or my husband!!)

I feel like it's hard to explain because it can affect so many areas of life and how I interact with people. It makes me afraid and self-conscious to do something in front of someone I don't know because I'm afraid the way I do it won't be the way they expect me to do it and then they'll think less of me. Now, when I reason this out in my head I realize none of this is true and my common sense of course tells me it's not true. But those feelings always seem to take over and I listen to the negative voices in my head telling me that I'm not good enough, or that someone else is better so why try, or that everything is my fault, etc etc.

Anyways, all that being said I've realized some things lately ... it's impossible to please everyone and not everyone is always going to like what I do ... and that's okay! I feel like this has hindered me from becoming me and finding what I'm passionate about because I've been so busy trying to make everyone else around me happy and not disappointing anyone. I let people control me by trying to always, always please them and taking words they haven't even meant in a mean way and twisting them all around in my head and beating myself up for something.

Which brings me to the above quote ... "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent". I love that. Anyways, there's an honest, short synopsis of what I've been thinking about this weekend. I'm becoming more and more conscious of where I let others define me by trying to be who others want me to be. But I feel VERY done doing that. I'm ready to be me! In many aspects with God's help and my husband's help I feel like I'm becoming just that ... and this blog helps because a lot of people I know read it and suddenly, I don't care what they think! (And thanks for reading all you people I know!! ; ) Out of fear, I would normally not want to be so open about anything in my life, even about all the food my husband and I eat, haha, but I'm just done caring and it feels great. I feel like I have, in some ways for the first time in my life, found something (healthy eating, nutrion, etc) that I am passionate about and enjoy doing just because I enjoy it.

It reminds me of a song we just recently starting singing at church called "The Living Tree" written by the worship leader at our church, Eric Stark. Part of it says:

"Let’s live each day on God’s good earth
In the wonder of each new days birth
Let the sun shine hot upon your face
Be fully alive in God’s good grace
Be fully alive in God’s good grace."

That's what I want to do and it's what I'm on the road to doing : ) No matter what, there is always hope in Jesus ... not empty, fleeting or fake hope, but REAL hope for REAL life, for REAL situations. And because of this, despite the rough spots I can truly say that I love this journey of life! : )

This week I plan to freely "live each day on God's good earth in the wonder of each new day's birth. I'll let the sun shine hot upon my face and be fully alive in God's good grace!"

Thanks to everyone who actually read all of this, and may you let the sun shine hot upon your face and be fully alive in God's good grace : )