If a Voice Speaks Truth, it Doesn't Matter What it Sounds Like.

 

Self-worth is an everyday struggle for me and for a lot of us.   My big struggle currently is not being “enough” as a pastor.  Not being old enough, male enough, smart enough, not having enough faith, you get the picture.   When people meet me, 90% of the time their reaction is, “YOU’RE THE PASTOR?? You’re so young!”  This comment helps to knock my self-worth down a notch and make the perfectionist in me rear her ugly head and want to prove myself.  This helps to create the extraordinary pressure I put on myself to please everyone else.  This knocks me off course of living authentically, and makes my anxiety level skyrocket. 

I have learned over the years the only way to combat this is self-care, self-care, self-care.  How I go about self-care varies.  One favorite anxiety reducer of mine is guided meditation.  Today, I put on a guided meditation by Lacy Young.   I just found her work.  When I pushed play and heard her voice, she sounded like a 20-some-year old woman.  Immediately, I thought, “Oh how is she going to help?  What is she going to teach me?  She’s sounds just like me.”  And then I stood aghast at what I just thought.

In her book, “Rising Strong,” Brene Brown talks about how we make up stories.  When we don’t know something, our minds fill in the gaps.  When I hear people say, “You’re the pastor?  You’re so young!”  My mind fills in, “How is she going to help? What is she going to teach me?”  Some people may very well be thinking that, but others may not.  They may be thinking, “You go, girl!” “Wow, it’s amazing you’ve accomplished this much for your age.” Those are not the stories my mind makes up though, my mind makes up the worst.  

But an amazing thing happened today.  I gave Lacy a chance, I listened to the guided meditation and do you know what happened?  Half way through, I was thinking, “Wow, this is a great meditation, this is really helping.”  Then life did one of those slow-down moment kind of things and I realized, “If a voice speaks truth, it doesn’t matter what it sounds like.”  The words I was hearing were words of healing.  They were words that I needed to hear, words that spoke truth to my inmost being and while they did, I lost all sense of the voice they were coming from.  It didn’t matter.  It didn’t matter who she was or what she sounded like.  The voice was irrelevant, all that mattered were the words and I thought, “I wonder if this is how people feel about my preaching.”  Maybe it started out as, “Ugh, what can she teach me?”  And it turned into, “It doesn’t matter what she looks or sounds like, I’m being fed.”

Today’s meditation stripped down a layer of my self-unworthiness.  Today’s meditation reminded me that I need to be less hard on myself and others and not be so quick to judge and not be so quick to think others are judging me.  Today’s meditation taught me: if a voice speaks truth, it doesn’t matter what it sounds like.  Next, I have to battle the inner gremlin who is saying, “yeah, you just figured this out?”  So what stories are you making up?  How can you be more gracious and gentle with yourself and others?   Feel free to share your stories in the comments!