“What you think of me is none of my business.”

1. What other people think of me is crucial (good or bad).
2. Other people’s success is a threat to mine (especially in areas that I wish to be successful).
3. If I am not “as good as” someone else, I am inadequate.

If you read my blog about a month ago (A Beautiful Beatdown), I listed a few lies that I have allowed to outline my life–lies that have seeped in and taken over my mind, subtly, darkly and deviously. I have written 2 other blogs about the lie of not being “enough” and about the lie that multi-tasking is admirable and the mark of successful people.

Today I am ready to talk about the three lies listed above. They all seem to overlap. My readiness today comes from where my mind has been camping for quite some time and has finally hit its proverbial “bottom”.

You can see that the obvious theme is over-concern about someone else; Someone else’s approval or disapproval of me and someone else’s successes or failures compared to my own.

When I am consumed with how I am perceived and how I compare with other people, there is little room left over for love, serving, and compassion, which are the markers of the genuine and vulnerable woman I long to be. I write about this longing repetitively in my blogs and pray for it often. 

I sign my books with the tag line “…in this together”, and reiterate the message that “you are not the only one” who struggles with signature defects like control, worry, fear, jealousy and judgmentalism–the diseases of the soul that keep us sick.

And yet…when I view myself as either less-than or better-than others, there is zero chance that we can be united in our struggles. Comparison in any form results in isolation. It fosters a pedestal-posturing or bottom-dwelling life. 

Lately I have allowed my mind to be overtaken by the need to please and perform at my peak in order to feel validated–in order to feel worthy.

When I live with that mindset, it becomes my overarching purpose for existing. I slowly forget that “I am here for a good time, not a long time”, as my daughter always says. And that “good” time is defined only by God, who gives all good gifts to me so that I might in turn share them with others. It is not about me (revelation!). 

One of the good gifts God gave me is the gift of writing. And, as we have established, I don’t have to be a “real writer” to get my message across that you are not alone and that there is always hope. I do, however, have to be, at the very least, “real”. 

Real means that I have to give up being concerned with what you think of me, and allow God to help me be raw and vulnerable so that by His grace, something I say might prompt you to seek Him on your own, embrace his love and tenderness, and receive his grace and mercy so you can finally take a deep breath and let out a sigh of relief because he holds you in the palm of his sweet and mighty hand.

I saw a t-shirt once that read: 

“What you think of me is none of my business.”

Only what God–who loves me unconditionally and doesn’t compare me with the “someone elses” of the world–thinks of me matters.