Securing Yourself on a Strong Foundation

It is now June 17, and I started this post back in January sometime. You see, I have to be motivated to write or nothing comes out of my head, and if anything does, it sounds like trash. Sooo sorry I’ve been gone a long time. Hopefully, this post lives up to your expectations.

Oftentimes, I write a title down and then drop the idea for awhile. It sits in the back of my mind while I ponder on what I want to write about and how I want to accomplish it. As it sits in the back of my mind, I gain more and more experiences that have to do with the topic at hand. It’s kind of perfect.

I told my cousin that I was working on a post, and she told me how excited she was to read it. That compliment filled me with so much happiness and my heart swelled with love. So thank you to those who read my posts. It means a lot to me.

Now to the topic at hand: finding security after an insecure conversation or event.

How often do you have a conversation with someone and leave it feeling super drained and unsure of yourself? You feel unsure of life’s questions and sometimes doubt who you are and what your purpose is. Sometimes you doubt what is even going on in your life and you begin to question everything. You feel lost; you feel alone; you feel confused; you feel stressed; you feel despair; you feel sadness; you feel overwhelmed; you feel unsure and insecure.

I just want to be clear that feeling insecure does not always mean you feel unworthy of love or don’t like the way you look. This version of insecurity is being unsure of life. Feeling confused or anxious. It’s when you begin to question everything and wonder what is even going on.

I think these conversations and/or events happen a lot more than we think, and they don’t always affect us right away. Sometimes, three days later, we feel extremely stressed and have no idea why. Has this happened to you? Have you been so stressed but had no idea why?

The big hang up with this is that oftentimes, one cannot move on and release the stress until they understand what is causing the anxiety.

One of the biggest and most influential reasons for why I want to study psychology and become a counselor is because I LOVE understanding the “why.” I love making sense of the world and analyzing why people make the choices that they do.

In June of 2020, I wrote “Rage and What’s Underneath.” I felt so flustered by worldly events taking place on social media, and the amount of hate that was radiating off of people and their words. While pondering on why this was happening, everything clicked and made sense. When I accepted that people were acting out because of shame and fear, everything felt clearer to me. Each person that I saw online typing hateful and irrational paragraphs did not seem like such terrible, horrible people anymore. They were just sad and broken and did not know how to help.

I’m not condoning their behavior, but when we understand what is happening behind the scenes, or behind the screens (that one was clever of me hehe), then we have a chance at healing our broken and hurting society instead of continuing to attack one another!

I kind of got off topic, but my point is clear: understanding the why often changes everything.

Back to securing yourself in an insecure world…

By the way it is now August 30, 2021. I’m a silly goose…I know. 🤦🏻‍♀️

It is absolutely vital that you have foundations to stand on and experiences to hold on to. I share with others while sharing my testimony that writing down those spiritually defining moments is absolutely vital to our future happiness and our future testimonies. I’ll go further to add that writing moments where we know everything will be okay are very important too. (I know not everyone is religious, and that’s okay.)

Writing down these experiences, or at least remembering them, is extremely important as they can be anchors for us when things get confusing and when we begin to fall down a spiral of insecurity and sadness.

I go on about 5 tangents or so every post, but I try to tie them back in. *Cue the tangent*

In basketball, personal trainings and practice are almost always focused on the basics: shooting, dribbling, boxing out, shuffling your feet, and passing. In order to be any good at basketball, (or any sport for that matter) one has to be good at the basics. It’s not only important, but absolutely vital to excel.

Parallel to this basketball analogy, I emailed a missionary I know and asked him about reading while on the mission. He expressed that he began to read Jesus The Christ and stopped midway through because he found himself trying to teach the complex doctrine within the book rather than teaching the basics to investigators. (Investigators are people who are looking into the church.)

The same principle is applied here: without the basics, one cannot progress in their testimony, knowledge, or faith. The investigators could not learn more complex doctrine without the basics.

Therefore, writing down moments where we know we felt the spirit or we know we were happy can remind us that we believed and can believe again with a little patience and perseverance. We can hold on to those moments when we feel like we are flying sky high with stress and confusion.

Now September 30, 2021

When I was a sophomore in high school, a basketball teammate who was not a member asked me how I knew the church was true. I told her it is because I felt the spirit, and the evidence for me personally left no room for doubt. She then asked me what it feels like to feel the spirit. I didn’t know how to explain it to her, but I did my best to express how happy it made me feel. She nodded and that was it.

That conversation has forever changed my heart when I feel the spirit. My gratitude for its comfort, warmth, and the peace it brings has grown exponentially. To me, feeling the spirit is magnificent, marvelous, miraculous, and inspiring.

So what do we do when we feel insecure? When philosophy tries to convince you that you don’t know anything…(I’m in a philosophy class in college.) What do we do when we don’t know what’s real and what’s false?

First, breathe. It will be okay. Go back to the basics…what do you know? What matters to you? What makes you happy? What is something you know that will help ground yourself to reality? Does it really matter what a forty year old philosophy professor said to you that does not affect your life in any way? (I mostly roll my eyes at my philosophy teacher because he is very opinionated and I don’t agree with all his ideas.) 😂

*Cue another tangent*

My philosophy professor was going off on how if God is all knowing, all powerful, and all good, but we can be deceived, then God isn’t one of the above things. Maybe He’s all knowing and all good but doesn’t have the power to help. Maybe He’s all powerful and all good but doesn’t know how to help. Maybe He’s all powerful and all knowing and doesn’t care to help.

I just rolled my eyes because I believe God is all good, all knowing, AND all powerful, and who cares what my philosophy teacher says. However, there was this girl in my class who said “Well what if one has to experience bad to experience good? Because isn’t there opposition in all things?”

My professor was stooped for a second and then said, “Well, we really aren’t on that right now.” It’s like his jaw got stuck and he couldn’t think of anything to say.

I wanted to stand up and applaud her.

*end of tangent*

I have many things that I do to bring peace to my life. Find something that does that for you. Find something that makes you happy. Find something that makes you feel loved. Because no matter what, at the end of the day, the most important thing in securing yourself is to know that you are loved. To find love for yourself. To find who you are day by day.

This life is a process, but there is opposition in all things…and if there’s bad, there must be good too.