If you haven’t noticed by now, I often start my blogs by filling you in on things that God woke me up out of my sleep to tell me. If it’s getting old for you, trust me, it’s getting old for me too! Like can’t we pick another time of day for deep life perspective shifts? Well a couple months ago, it happened again…a Sunday morning, sky still dark and starry, my mind not fully awake…and then I heard this question, “why do you need people to like you?”
At first, it seemed a bit random because that wasn’t anything that was currently on my mind. But I knew instinctively that He didn’t just ask a question like that for a quick response. He wanted me to go deep, to look within…at 4:30AM (womp womp). So I decided to do a self-assessment; why do I need people to like me? What is that longing that’s inside of me that wants people to see me in a certain light? Then I realized something, my desire to be liked is really based out of the fear of rejection. The idea of not being liked by the people around me is frightening because it implies that I would be rejected, isolated, and ultimately-alone. Feeling accepted, even if there is a lack of integrity attached to it, is to feel a sense of belonging and safety. How deceiving is that? The lie of “if I ensure that I’m doing everything in my power to be what someone else wants me to be, I’ll be seen, known, and loved”. But who are they seeing? How much do they really know you? And the scariest question of all-how real is that love? Love can only be as real as the people involved in it.
Then there was another thought that came to mind- basing your identity on other people’s opinions of you will never work out long term, because people and circumstances change. For example; we live in a culture now where even the most successful and celebrated people in one season can become “cancelled” in another season. However, on the flip side, no matter what people may think of you in the moment, you are the one who ultimately determines who you are, and who you’ll become. And you are the one who controls your own thoughts. If you’re currently in a mentality that believes “I don’t know who I am until somebody tells me who I am”, unfortunately, that somebody’s opinion of you can change on the drop of a dime. But even when people don’t like you, or may even have a false opinion about you, at the end of the day when you lay your head on your pillow-you still are who you are. The truth about you will not change, it always shows up. That being the case, your focus should not be on what people think about you, your focus should be on what you think about yourself. Ask yourself- “who am I?” “What is the truest version of me?” Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t to say you should completely rule out people’s opinions of you when investigating yourself. For example; if the closest people in your life are all saying you’re kind of…a jerk…you probably are. Don’t worry, God and therapy can fix that. However, it is to say that we must be careful not to entirely base our beliefs about our identity on the fleeting opinions of other people.
I know in my case, there’s probably been countless times where I misjudged someone initially. Anyone else been there? And then when you actually got to experience the person and know them better, you realized you were wrong about them. Even the best of us can be wrong sometimes. That’s a clear indicator that a person’s opinion of you can change, but the truth always comes to the surface. Have you ever embarrassed yourself badly, or put yourself out there and got rejected, and never thought you would recover? Didn’t you always somehow recover with time? When we have an embarrassing moment, or experience a moment of rejection, we have to remember that they are simply just that-moments. It is the collective of many moments that make us who we are, not just one moment. We have to understand the crucial truth that rejection is an action-not an identity. How we respond to that rejection is what shapes our mindset. I’ve been guilty of allowing some rejections or perceived failures to define me-but not anymore. I challenge you to join me in daring to be all of you whether or not that brings rejection or embarrassment. Why? Because I’d rather be free and rejected than bound to the approval of others. Who we are at our highest potential as humans is remarkable. Marked for greatness. Full of power.
My husband and I are currently serving in ministry at our church, and in full transparency, I definitely want those who we serve to like me. And at the end of the day, I think it is normal for you to want people to like you. Here’s the problem; becoming a leader is literally signing yourself up to be met with either admiration or scrutiny. We’d all prefer the former. However, we have to remember that people’s opinions are so complex because people have complex lives, backgrounds, and experiences. There could be a plethora of reasons a person may or may not like you because of situations you would never even think to consider. A lot of times those opinions have absolutely nothing to do with you and absolutely everything to do with someone else or something else. Even so, opinions are so futile that they can always change. That’s why it’s better to let people’s opinions of you be their business-not yours.
I remember when I was starting to take classes at a film school in LA. I was still a teenager, I didn’t know anyone at the school, and it was my first real footstep into the “entertainment industry”. Wrapping my head around it all on my first day, my heart beating fast and my palms sweaty, I paused outside on my way to the car for a moment. In that pause, I took a deep breath and let the sunshine caress my skin, and let my heart feel warm and full again. I realized-all that I needed or wanted, was inside of me. I knew I was loved deeply. I was seen. I had joy and laughter in my soul. After realizing those things-it was not a matter of me needing something from anyone anymore, it was about what I could bring. To that school. To those people. To the world around me. Because when you stop focusing on people’s opinions of you, and wanting their validation, you begin to not want something from them, but want something for them.
I invite you to take the same pause whenever you feel anxious or self-conscious. Breathe. Feel your heart beat. Hug yourself. Remember the love that is already yours. Remember the God in heaven that has an incredible plan for your life. Remember that you must first be a safe space for yourself. When I did this for myself, I realized I was creating a home, a safe place, inside of me that I could always come back to no matter what happened outside of me. Starting from this foundational place of safety has made me a better sister, friend, daughter, and wife. When we can focus less on what we want people to see and more on the quality of who we really are-we will have better, deeper relationships, and therefore feel less alone. If everyone on the planet could do the work of finding validation internally-through love-imagine what a better world it would be. We would go from greedy to giving. Judging to understanding. And no one would be alone.
Will you be apart of that number?
ItsreallyRen 