Welcome to Weekly Topic Saturdays!
Hello all, I pray that your week was filled with joy and love. Welcome back to those who have been with me here at A Golden Dream. For my first-timers, a great big hello there, if you haven't already please check out my previous posts when you get a chance.
Please don't hesitate to join the conversation, there are no right or wrong answers or questions. I'm not proclaiming to know everything, I am simply just discussing and picking topics on things that I personally have gone through and that I know would help someone.
“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”
2 Corinthians 13:5
At the beginning of 2019, I made the decision for myself to get better. I needed to turn my life around and get myself out of that autopilot mindset that had me cruising through my life. God gave me the idea and the strength to self-evaluate and get to know who I am, and whose I am.
This process took several months of me, painstakingly, zeroing in on myself. For the first time, I was figuring out who Sherronda N. Best is! What's her purpose? What are some of the deeply rooted issues that have caused her to feel so many negative emotions about herself and so many others?
I have learned over time that when it comes to self-healing, sometimes you, yourself can be the problem. It takes prayer and works to be self-aware of those tendencies and to self-correct.
“All I want this year is spiritual growth and full recovery healing. I’ve been so broken for years trying to cope, restore, and process my life on my own, but in some way or another, it never sticks.
This year WILL BE my total transformation process. I need healing and clarity. I can only get that by seeking God.
Let's Begin!”
*excerpt from a personal journal entry in 2019*
-Sherronda Best, 2019
Above was an excerpt from a journal entry that I wrote on January 1st, 2019. I was so broken, and hurt, all while experiencing immense levels of anxiety and anger due to my past. In order to release these negative emotions, I had to begin a self-evaluation process where I acknowledged that there was something wrong. It was almost like an infection, out to take over my mind. I had to get to the root of the problem and pluck it out before it caused any further damage. I believe in order for you to start evaluating yourself, acknowledgment, and mindfulness both play a big role in this too. To be mindful and truthful in yourself to know that there's something wrong, I think speaks volumes towards the path of your own self-awareness.
“I feel suffocated, helpless, saddened, in pain, broken, worried, hostile, anger, overwhelmed, unappreciated, misunderstood”
*excerpt from a personal journal entry 2019*
-Sherronda Best, 2019
What is Self- Discovery?
A journey where a person attempts to determine or understand their perspective on how they feel, who they are, their morals, their spiritual beliefs, their values, their environment, their unique cultural background, and how they perceive others without following the opinions of family, friends, or peer pressure.
Self-discovery on a mental level is about recognizing and acknowledging the deeper issues that have been lying dormant on the inside. These issues need to have proper healing in order for you to fully move forward. You should know that this is not about self-satisfaction but more so about self-understanding while growing a sense of self-awareness.
On this journey of self-discovery, the TOUGHEST question that I have a hard time answering is “Who am I?”
Questions That I Constantly Asked Myself Were:
What do I value most in life?
What is my passion?
What is my purpose?
What are my strengths and weaknesses?
Who I am?
How is my inner child? Does he or She feel safe?
What is my deepest emotion or issue with myself?
What are my likes and dislikes?
What will I tolerate when it comes to people?
What are my values and morals? Do I stand by those standards?
What scares me the most right now?
What keeps me up at night? What are my fears?
When my mind wonders, where does it take me?
What am I so afraid of?
What's keeping me from my skills, dreams, and opportunities that I have set and planned for myself?
Be mindful of automatic thoughts. Automatic thoughts are a response to a trigger. It's an immediate thought that pops into one's mind without thinking. Automatic thoughts can be positive or negative. So be mindful of your thinking process. Breaking negative automatic thoughts can be a very difficult thing to do if you are not self-aware.
Automatic Thoughts/ Questions that I wrote down as well:
Why am I so afraid?
Why can’t I let myself be happy?
Why am I constantly losing inspiration?
Why can’t I shake this feeling that there’s something wrong with me?
Why do bad things happen to good people with good hearts?
I can’t get anything right, I should have...I could have or I would have…
They looked so happy, why couldn’t that be me?
I will never get where I want to be.
This is too hard, I might as well give up!
I’ve never done that before, so I'm not going to attempt to try!
These questions and thoughts have popped in my mind throughout my self-discovery journey. Knowing that I find healing through writing and self-reflection, I wrote these automatic thoughts out as they came. Once I write them out, I later ponder on a specific question or thought and challenge it head-on, one at a time. It’s important to note that some negative automatic thoughts are not factual, they are indeed false and need to be noticed and self-corrected.
With hindsight being 20/20, only God thought to have me write them down all those years ago and reference them to you on this Golden platform that he has created for us. God works in mysterious ways, and I thank him for it!
Self Discovery Is Hard!
What is Self Awareness?
Is the ability to focus on one's self on how your actions and emotions align with your internal standards.
Self-awareness is about acknowledging yourself both positives and negatives. It's about becoming aware of your issues and being willing to make the changes as needed. God tells us to always be aware of who we are, where we are, what we allow ourselves to watch, hear, think, or do. He tells us this so that we will not be led astray by those sent to do us harm.
“Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
1 Timothy 4:16
Being aware of yourself means you recognize your patterns and if there's a problem you can self correct accordingly. One thing that my mother always instilled in me was self-correction. She would always say, “I don't care if I'm wrong or right, you let me know something.” This self-awareness has shaped my entire outlook on life. I recognized that if I'm out of order or said something out of line, I will immediately try to change it so it doesn't happen again. If someone said, “Hey, Sherronda you made me feel this way or you said something that hurt me” Then I will take the criticism from them and then reassure and apologize to the person for what I did. I wanted to make sure that it didn’t happen again. Everyone has feelings and I would want someone else to return the feeling to me if the tables were turned.
Be in tune with your self-awareness so that criticism does not appear as an attack but a minor correction.
Things I’ve Learned Self Awareness Requires:
For you to be observant!
To be honest with yourself!
To self correct without being defensive!
Self- Reflection
Self-Discovery
With Love, You are who you are today...because God used your mistakes, outcomes, and mishaps, and he worked them ALL out for your good! Like NO one else ever could! It was necessary for you to lose that job, that car, that friendship. He worked it ALL out to get your attention! He took CERTAIN people out of your life for a REASON because he heard the conversations that you didn't. God always has our back now and forevermore! It all WORKS with hindsight being 20/20!
Self-Discovery and Self-Awareness are both brutal challenges that take time to process. There's not a time limit or a time frame. When I was going through it, I realized that my inner child was broken and damaged because I never healed properly from my past childhood trauma.
Please note that this process is not self-righteousness, so please don't confuse the two. It is a necessity to understand that self-love is important during character development. To have a good and stable foundation for yourself and to not be shaken by the judgment of others is powerful. Once I knew who I am, I could understand better whose I am, and with that, I was able to align myself with God’s will to serve.
~Just Breathe...A Golden Dream~
Amen.