Breathe Deep

Over the past few days, I have found myself struggling deeply with accepting myself. I have been in situations which have dug up very old feelings of having to be someone I am not. Situations that make me feel like it is very unsafe for me to just spell out exactly what I am struggling with, to be honest with what I believe (or don't believe). I have no idea what is truth or not truth. If I voiced all of it, I truly wonder would I be accepted or not. Is my feeling that it would be dangerous to say where I stand on an issue reality...

Almost immediately following these situations, I find myself in the midst of people that are driving me crazy. They aren't being wrong or bad...they are just annoying me. And once someone starts to annoy me, I find that deep down I start judging them. Subconsciously I start viewing myself as better than them.

What an interesting picture. One day I am scared someone will judge me if I let them see me truly and the next day I judge another.

I have fought hard to just reflect on the individuals that are bugging me and to see them truly as they are...in all their beauty, insecurities, desires, and movements. To see all people as struggling to be happy.

I am beginning to think that at the core of each of us is a desire to be happy. I can read it in many books spanning many spiritual journeys and religions. I wonder if people's judgment of others is more from a position of trying to control a situation...to control a situation that has the potential of making someone unhappy. I know that is too simplistic.

What about the sinful nature or those living in sin? (I was literally asked this question).

I don't know the answer. But I feel like that isn't ours to judge...it is God's. We distort that judgment...it becomes so ugly and wrong.

I am rambling...largely I feel like I am breathing deep to accept myself. To love me and in turn love others...to stand firm in who God created me to be and not in what other's think I should be.