Red flags in me
The Power of Self Analyze
I recently read a quote that my Pastor shared on Instagram that said “When work is an idol, rest will feel like a sin”. by Josh Teis.
This quote resonated so much in my ear, because it can be applied in many facets of life, not just in the literal sense.
For a long time I have felt bad because I have thought that I have wasted time in my life, mainly in my 20s, and that I should be in another professional position, already with a more solid musical career, with at least 8 years of marriage and two children (thank God it wasn't like that, God knows I wasn't ready), since God had the perfect partner for me and was there for me for this time, not before.
When I get desperate, I start to judge my progress and at times I get so frustrated that I just want to drop everything and live an ordinary, quiet life, working on my 9:00 to 5:00 all my life, just settling for it, that life would be easy without ambition, and without expectations, but what if that is not what God wants for you, what if what He wants is to form your character because what is coming has such a great weight of glory that if He sends you as you are you would get lost on the way! God prepares his best soldiers and subjects them to the harshest fields so that they will be able to endure more. HAHA, how easy it is to say it, but how difficult it is to live it, and even more difficult, is to have a good attitude about it.
The same day I coincidentally saw a story from a very dear friend, where she reposted the following from the account of @psicologa.ednalozano; "don't ignore these possible red flags in yourself" and when I started reading the list, I saw some that fit me perfectly, I didn't even know that those were red flags towards me, until recently I began to notice how much that it was harming me even in the communication with my husband.
Among that list were the following claims;
Isolate yourself for fear of rejection. -I do this a lot, mainly now that I'm in the public eye because of my music and these same posts or blogs, sometimes it takes forever to finish a post, or I review a blog post so much that I end up postponing the publication for weeks, and sometimes even months.
Assume, shut up and do not ask to clarify. -This one in particular serves me half, because although I assume what the other really means or is thinking, I do ask, but the way in which I ask is already assuming that this person means what I am thinking that it means, and even if the person tells me otherwise, I can no longer get my mind off that first thought and I get stuck.
Worrying about looking good with others and ignoring your needs (eg, not respecting your meal times for work). -To which I could add many other things that I do, that only benefit others and harm me directly, such as postponing a medical appointment or a personal appointment for attending a work schedule that does not correspond to me, or for performing someone who needs me at the moment, even knowing that this person sees it as my duty or that it is my “responsibility”, not as if I am doing them a favor, among others.
Wanting to control everything around you. -I always tell my husband that it would be easier if God simply said what to do, since He already knows what is right, but He does not work that way, He wants you to pray and meditate on His word and have discernment of what is correct or not, but since I am a very impatient, and I want to be able to have the ability to control everything, it is difficult for me to have the patience to wait for an answer, I want to solve the matter on the spot, and this behavior over the years had brought me quite a lot of suffering.
Listen without taking responsibility, only to respond defensively. -Uff this is a really hard one! If I took the time to really listen and take responsibility for what ails me, how many trouble would I avoid, and many times what I do is respond with sarcasm and make the situation worse.
Invalidate your thoughts and emotions and/or those of others. -I do this extremely a lot, mainly with my own thoughts and emotions, and when I complain about something it's because it's literally killing me.
These following I add them myself;
Feeling guilty for taking time to rest. And this is what I was referring to when I mentioned the quote at the beginning of this blog, many times the fact of resting or sleeping makes me feel anxious, and I start thinking about all the things I could have done during the time I was sleeping, eg. Finish a blog post, create content for the social media, bring my YouTube channel back to life, create a business strategy for a project I want to undertake, etc.
Procrastinate instead of resting or using my time wisely. Sometimes I do neither one nor the other, I neither rest nor am I productive, I just watch television, watch videos on YouTube, or binge watch a Netflix series, this is also a super toxic behavior, sometimes I spend weeks with this attitude, and it can go to an extreme, where I don't even want to do my hair.
Missing important opportunities for work, eg. To even be afraid of losing my job and doubt what God can do and that He will give the necessary provision.
Doubt my ability and ideas and not develop them for fear of failure. Start and stop halfway, thinking they won't work and then get angry when someone else has a similar idea, does it and does well.
If they told me about a person with all these problems, or I got to know someone and realize that they have these "disadvantages", I would never give them the "chance", my first instinct would be to think that I already have enough problems to Throw another one at me, because that's what red flags are all about, classifying people as valid or invalid for you, this trend of red flags is basically to get away from those people you consider "toxic" for you, but what if those red flags apply to you? Have you evaluated yourself and analyzed if you are valid for someone? It's super easy to put categorizations on people and not put them on yourself.
Each and every one of us needs to do a retrospect, a personal self-evaluation before God, to see how "valid" or "deserving" of love we are, but do you know what? For God we are all worthy of His love, we all deserve second, third and fourth chances, we can all change through His Holy Spirit, then, before trying to categorize someone, we must go into retrospect and repair what is damaged, because It is not anyone's job to fix us, that is our responsibility, to enter to marriage healthy and not make someone innocent pay for the damages caused in the past.
Retrospect
Many times we keep wounds deep within our being that we ourselves do not understand or know, we always need to self-evaluate and put ourselves in retrospect, most of the time we complain about behaviors in others, it is because we ourselves have problems with said behaviors, what we criticize the most about others is usually our own weakness, for example;
Whenever I feel that someone invalidates my feelings or puts them down, it makes me angry and defensive, especially when it is a family member or someone relevant, it makes me even more angry, like when I am sick and I feel very bad, or when I have migraine and I try to describe what I feel and they call me exaggerated, it makes me angry, but this is nothing more than a toxic behavior, since I constantly invalidate my own feelings, and if it is true that no one should invalidate how you feel, but why I feel so offended when someone does something that I do to myself all the time?
I feel that I am revealing myself in this post, however I know that it is necessary, since my life is for the service of God and I know that this can help many people to identify themselves and see that they are not alone, that there are more people experiencing their same personal problems and in life, being Christian or not.
Having said that, I have a confession to make, another one, LOL.
Naked Soul
I have always been insecure with my voice, I have never felt like the best singer or the best worshiper, I always find beauty in the voice of others but never in my own voice, since I was a child I hated listening to myself on live recordings of the Church, or in any recording, even today when I have criticism, that only puts another weight of insecurity on me, and the incredible thing about this is that there are more compliments than criticisms that I receive, but it is as if for each criticism I needed 20 compliments to be able to counteract it, and don't misunderstand me, I know the ability that God has placed in me, and I know that I sing well, but I am also quite aware of my weaknesses, I know where I limp, whenever someone compliment my talent or a job I do, I don't know how to receive it, I don't know whether to smile, or say thank you, or ignore it, I feel that if I say thank you it's hypocrisy or false humility, and I don't say this so that you stop complimenting me if one day you listen to me sing or see me, but it is a strange feeling which I don't know how to handle, and sometimes I think and question myself, where does this come from? What is the source of this insecurity and not receiving compliments?
I can think of so many reasons and sources, but none clicked for me. Until one day the Lord brought to my mind, every time I heard these phrases in church; "Glory be to God" "It's not me, it's the Lord" "I'm just a vessel" "We are forgiven sinners", I don't want to blame this behavior merely on Christian religiosity, but I must say that it has a lot to do with it.
It is true that all the glory and all the honor goes to the Lord, but it is also true that God himself glories in his children, that in Genesis the first book of the bible clearly says that God made us perfect, that God saw his creation and was happy with what He did. It is true that we were once sinners, but it is not true that we are forgiven sinners, we are children of God redeemed through the blood of Jesus Christ. Why pick up a nature for which Christ died to be uprooted? Why continue to call us as if we were of a nature that Jesus himself said we no longer belong to? “All things have become new” “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” and if Christ lives in me and I call myself a sinner, then am I not declaring that Christ is a sinner too?
Let's take care of what we say with our mouth, and the lies that we believe to religion, let's live a real gospel, Paul himself said in the book of 1 Corinthians 11: 1; "Be imitators of me, just as I am an imitator of Jesus", Paul was proud of who he was, of what God had done in him, and continued to do, and he said it with his mouth full and did not allow anyone to trample on that identity So, why if I am a daughter of God, redeemed, cleansed, adopted, am I going to call myself a sinner? Or when I get a compliment about the talent that God gave me, why shouldn't I receive it with humility and give thanks for the compliment? Why feel bad? That behavior only brings a religious mind, God did not call us to be tail, we are head. This is clear, recognizing our weaknesses and that we are not perfect and being aware that God is glorified in the midst of our weaknesses.
Getting to the Root
Unfortunately, in my youth I did not have the blessing of having one or two boyfriends and then getting married and that's it, I did not run with the luck of my mother or my sister, I had many boyfriends before getting married, mostly short courtships, I only had one long relationship and in which I was engaged for two and a half years in the beginning of my 20s, It is not something that I am proud of, on the contrary, it has always been a source of shame for me and even more so being a Christian since I was 12, it weighs more on me, because I cannot say, "old things have passed away, all things have become new" as when you accept Christ, and it was not that I was in sin, but each of those relationships left their own wounds, which accumulated over the years.
Thank the Lord I kept myself a virgin until marriage as it should be, it was the best decision I could make in obedience to the word of God, but precisely because of that I suffered a lot, I will explain why;
Most of the people with whom I had a dating relationship insinuated to me in one way or another the fact of reaching those terms, some more respectful than others, but the majority with the same need and initiative, some were more frank and said their intentions early in the relationship, others used psychology and manipulation to convince me, when they saw me more invested and committed to the relationship, they understood that this was a green flag to insinuate other things, or that the margin of 6 months gave them license to touch or demand things, this made me leave relationships that i did not necessarily want to leave, already committed or even in love, and they ended in the worst ways, since the intention of these "gentlemen" was not to marry at the moment, but rather to burn with the same person for years and then see if marriage was an option, and it should be noted that more than 80% were "Christians" willing to sin deliberately, without the slightest drop of remorse before God, one of my earliest dating relationships was with a non-Christian person, I was still a teenager, however, in this relationship there was more consideration and respect from that person than with any Christian in my twenties, I understood that I could not be with a non-Christian person, and I made the decision to break up, however this same position was not the same as the one I maintained in a more adult age in which I returned to have a courtship with a non-Christian person, thinking that after failing so much with "servants of God" perhaps I would have the same luck as that time, big mistake.
“The foolishness of man undermines his way [ruining whatever he undertakes]; Then his heart is resentful and rages against the Lord [for, being a fool, he blames the Lord instead of himself].”
Proverbs 19:3 AMP
The consequences
This repeated pattern of decision making created small lacerations in my heart and in my identity, little by little I felt less and less worthy of anything, I found myself in several scandals due to founded and unfounded gossip, and I broke the hearts of people who did not deserved it, because of my immaturity, my lack of decision and character, and even lack of taking responsibility in situations, and because of my impatience when asking God for answers in prayer, this was creating aggressive patterns, I began to push people away from me, and in church I began to give intimidating looks so that everyone would think that I was a difficult person, when in fact I was the most fragile of all, hiding in a shell.
For a long time my fellow worship partners had a wrong perspective of me, because it was what I wanted them to think, I was harsh with words and I bragged saying that I didn't mince words, but deep down whenever I said harsh words to someone , it hurt my soul and lasted days rethinking on what I had said and torturing myself in silence, but on the outside I looked arrogant and defiant and I didn't ask for forgiveness either since just as my self-esteem was low, so was my pride to the sky .
I stayed that way for many years and went through many trials and processes from God, and despite the sentimental mistakes I made over and over again, I remained in my pride, and continued to say yes to people who were not within God's plan for my life, or maybe yes, I do not believe in coincidences, I believe that God has a plan for everything, and although I recognize that I have suffered enough and that I continue to pay the consequences of my bad decisions, I know that God will be glorified with each of my experiences.
When I talk to a girl about this kind of thing, I have weight when I speak, because I know what I'm talking about, I know what it's like to be hurt by an insecure person just to feel safe, I know what it's like to be denigrated by a man, I know what verbal and mental abuse is, I know what manipulation looks like, I know what commiseration feels like, I know what it's like to have low self-esteem violated by another person with low self-esteem, I know what it's like to have anxiety attacks and depression, I know what it is to feel alone being surrounded by people, I know all these things because I lived each one of them, and all this is reflected in all those toxic attitudes mentioned above, which for some reason I did not remember where they came from, but God brought in retrospect all my life, and showed me the source.
The solution
And you may ask; Now that I know where the problem comes from, what do I do? Present it in prayer before the Lord, recognize that you have a problem that you need to remedy, learn to live in the presence of the Lord and He will show you the right path to healing.
It may sound easy to read but it really isn't, trusting in the Lord requires faith, acknowledging that you need Him requires humility, living in the presence of the Lord requires constant prayer, and none of these things are easy to do or achieve, but if you have a heart that loves God and longs to please Him, all this is possible, and even more so when you know that it is not with your own strength, but that He Himself will help you achieve all these things, because He sees the deepest intentions of your heart and knows your thoughts, therefore He Himself will lead you to the fulfillment of these things.
I encourage you to read the passage of 2 Corinthians 12:1 and meditate on it. In this passage we can see a Paul who has every right to boast about the things that God has done through him, a Paul who has seen and heard things that no other human has seen or heard, but we can also see, a Paul full of humility and recognition of his weaknesses, a Paul who knows who God is, and who has immersed himself in prayer, and begged God to remove a thorn that torments him, nowhere in the The Bible talks about what kind of torment this was, it could be his character, which resurfaced every time he turned away from God, it could be a painful illness, it could be many things, but what is known is that it was something hard, so much so that Paul asked God to take it away three times and God replied "My grace is sufficient", so that Paul would not forget who is the author of all the wonders that Paul was capable of doing, seeing and hearing.
I do not want to scare you by saying that God will send you a thorn to keep you humble, but I will tell you, that He will always leave you a reminder that He is the author of all things, so that you always return to His way, so that you always seek Him in prayer, and so that you do not get lost and just as Paul says you can say "because when I am weak, then I am strong" all this in Christ Jesus.
'It is necessary to boast, though nothing is gained by it; but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, [only] God knows—such a man was caught up to the third heaven. And I know that such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, [only] God knows— was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words which man is not permitted to speak [words too sacred to tell]. On behalf of such a man [and his experiences] I will boast; but in my own behalf I will not boast, except in regard to my weaknesses. If I wish to boast, I will not be foolish, because I will be speaking the truth. But I abstain [from it], so that no one will credit me with more than [is justified by what] he sees in me or hears from me. Because of the surpassing greatness and extraordinary nature of the revelations [which I received from God], for this reason, to keep me from thinking of myself as important, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan, to torment and harass me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me; but He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you [My lovingkindness and My mercy are more than enough—always available—regardless of the situation]; for [My] power is being perfected [and is completed and shows itself most effectively] in [your] weakness.” Therefore, I will all the more gladly boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ [may completely enfold me and] may dwell in me. So I am well pleased with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, and with difficulties, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak [in human strength], then I am strong [truly able, truly powerful, truly drawing from God’s strength]. ' 2 Corinthians 12:1-10
