Confidence

I am changing as a person. The change is coming slowly, but it is still happening. They say it takes 21 days to effectively change a habit, but for me it has taken much longer. For years, I've struggled with insecurity over what other people think of me.
Some stuff happened back in late high school and early college that really shook my confidence. Don't want to go into a lot of detail here, but suffice to say someone in authority over me took advantage of their position.

I got into the habit of needing other people to validate that I was ok. That I was doing the right thing. That everything was fine. But in the last two years, two things have forced me to face these insecurities and overcome them. The first thing is my job as a youth pastor and the second has been Jiu-jitsu.

I will give you a clear picture of how BJJ has helped me overcome some of th crippling and irrational thinking I was stuck in for so long. When I started BJJ, I craved approval from people in authority--like my instructors Ben and Fabio. If they told me I was doing well, I was over the moon. But if I thought they were less than thrilled with my performance, I would feel horrible about myself. If they ever happened to actually say anything negative, it would crush me.

I know this is stupid. Trust me, as a youth pastor, I have counseled dozens of girls on this sort of thing. But even knowing this desire for approval is irrational and unhealthy, I still struggled with it. It was kind of like my brain was arguing with my feelings all the time. Sometimes my brain won. Other times my feelings won.

Lately, God has really been helping me win the battle of my thoughts vs. emotions. I have been meditating a lot on encouraging scriptures. Now, I am finally getting to the point where my brain is winning out over my feelings more often. Point in case:

Yesterday I grappled Fabio. I felt good during the grapple, like I was moving ok. Obviously, he was letting me work. But I felt like I was giving it my best. After the grapple, he didn't say anything. Nothing negative or positive. He looked tired and it was the end of class and he was rubbing his neck a lot. I started to wonder if I had been muscly while we grappled. Had I cracked his neck at some point? Then I wondered if he might be annoyed or mad at me.

Anyone who struggles with the same stuff I do will know that, from there, I started interpreting everything from body language to the things he said as him being upset at me. There was no rational foundation for it. Just my fears.

So I took a deep breath and told myself to stop it. I thought for a second about the grapple. I couldn't remember doing anything jerk-ish. So I forced myself to think,"You didn't do anything wrong. There is no reason for anyone to be mad at you."

I still had the lurking worry that Fabio might be mad at me. But I forced myself to ignore it and did the cool down stretches and talked to people and tried to put it out of my mind.

After class was over, Fabio was rubbing his neck again. So I asked if he was hurt. Turns out it was his shoulder bothering him. He injured it a long time ago as a blue belt and the moves we drilled that day and the day before had been aggravating it.

There you go. It wasn't me after all. There had been absolutely no reason for me to worry.

It might seem to you like this was no victory. But for me, it was. I still had those insecure thoughts. But I was able to reason them away and put them aside. That is a step in the right direction.

BJJ and my job have both been forcing me to learn to look at myself with more grace. I am not perfect. Sometimes I will make mistakes. But I can't live my life fearing mistakes and fearing other people. When I am worried about a situation, I have to look at it and ask myself: Have I done anything wrong here? If I haven't, then I can let it go, knowing that if someone is upset at me, it is their problem, not mine.

That ability to let go is giving me so much more peace. Thanks, BJJ and work stress. Together, your constant challenges have forced me to face myself and grow stronger.

Murder The Alternatives

What happens for me in BJJ is kind of like a mini-replica of the larger happenings in my life. What I struggle with so plainly on the mat is also what I struggle with in secret in the rest of my life.

This is my second year as a youth minister. In my first year, I met with a lot of insecurity. Was I doing things right? Were my decisions working? Would the kids respond well? When people didn't like something I did, I let it keep me awake at night. Many times, I would make decisions, then people would complain and I would change the decision to try to keep them happy.

My Pastor, Ron, had a talk with me about that. He said something that stuck with me: "Allie, you have to learn how to make a decision and murder the alternatives. Don't worry about what everyone else thinks. Do what God tells you; what you know you are supposed to do. Let Him handle the rest."

The part I struggle with is the "Don't worry about what everyone else thinks."

I am 28. Right now, I feel like I am at a point in my life where I should know confidently who I am. I should have a direction, a career, an idea of what my husband and I are working toward in the future. But instead, I still have doubt. Have I made (mostly) good choices? Or am I completely blowing it?

Basically, I let insecurity rob me of joy in my every day life too many times.

I looked up this verse this morning after reading a rant I posted on my other blog

1 John 4:18 -- "18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

God and the people who love me don't love me based on my performance. If I know they love me, I am free to make mistakes so long as I admit them and learn from them. Why can't I get that through my head?

I think what I was afraid of when I wrote that blog post was not tournaments. What I was/am afraid of is people rejecting me because of who I am. I still feel like I have to edit myself around people, because I don't want them to dislike me. I feel like I have to do things right or they will walk away

I am tired of living like that.

Yes, I need to treat everyone with love and respect. I need to be considerate. But I need to be able to stand on my own convictions and let people disagree with me and still be confident.

I think this relates to how I grapple in BJJ. Make a decision and murder the alternatives. I need to commit. Have confidence in what I've learned. When I grapple, and I'm doing well, my mind is focused on what it needs to be: reacting and planning. But when I make a mistake or someone else out-moves me, my mind turns inward and I start to doubt myself. I usually start doing worse from there. I need to learn to stay confident, even when I am in a bad position.

All of the angst that shows up in my other BJJ blog roots back to this. I am sure people are getting sick of reading about it. But these are real struggles that I am trying to figure out and work through.

Thanks for being patient, guys. I appreciate it.