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Sometimes in life, there are forces that seem to press down on us trying to get us to change to fit someone else’s mold or idea of who and what we should be. Resist those forces and those pressures! YOU are worth it. In this episode, I share my own journey with that and how… Continue reading Never Give Up on Being You
Welcome back everyone. I am so glad that you are here!
Today’s message is pretty short, but I think it’s important. Here it is:
Don’t give up on yourself, your happiness or the life that you want to create for yourself.
When you are the author of your own life and you make choices based on your values and not just follow a path that others think you should follow, you are likely to encounter resistance, skepticism, and perhaps even scorn.
Rick and I certainly did.
And, sometimes that was painful.
There was one time that I will never forget. This was way back in 2001 or so and we were living in Portland, OR and an issue arose with a family member of mine. It’s a long story but the gist of it is that she drew a line in the sand and essentially told me, “You need to live by my rules, or I’ll cut you out of my life and my family’s life.”
And she did – and it hurt.
As time went on, I would sometimes really miss this person and her family and I would wish that things could be different. After about a year of this silent treatment, I thought, “Maybe I will reach out and just give in and say, “whatever it takes, I’ll do it” so that I could, once again, be part of the family that I loved.
That was on a Friday. Instead of acting on it immediately, I decided to give it a week to see how I felt about it. I prayed on it and asked for a sign.
The next day, we got our Netflix movies in the mail. (Remember those?) One of the movies was Inherit the Wind with Spencer Tracy. It’s an amazing movie about the court case where the young high school teacher who was teaching evolution was put on trial. At one point in the movie, the teacher said to his attorney, played by Spencer Tracy, “You have no idea what it’s like.”
Spencer Tracy paused and then said something to the effect of: “I know exactly what it is like. It’s like you are walking down a dark road and all the houses are closed. And all you have to do is go up and knock on any door and say that you’ll believe the way they want you to believe and live the way they want you to live, and all the doors and windows will open and you’ll never have to be lonely again. But, in the process, you will have given up on being you.”
I remember grabbing the remote, tears running down my face, and I hit rewind so I could listen again. As I listened to those words again, I thought: I just got my sign.
Never, ever give up on being you.
