[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”How healthy is your core?” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”]
My son, Chris, was four years old during the time his grandfather was sick with cancer and passed away.
It was during this time I learned the value of asking my children what they knew about things. By asking Chris what he knew about Grandpa John uncovered some misconceptions he had and allowed me to correct his faulty understanding.
For example, I wanted to help him and his younger sister understand that they could not be rough and tumble with their Grandpa when we got together for Christmas. I asked them how they could show him that they loved him in gentle ways.
Chris immediately piped up saying, “Well, we can’t hug or kiss him.”
Since that was the behavior I was hoping to encourage, I asked Chris why. With a tone of dealing with someone too dense for words, he replied,
“Well, germs you know.”
I explained to Chris that Grandpa John’s illness wasn’t caused by germs and it was indeed safe to hug and kiss him. Set free from anxiety about catching what Grandpa had, it was a very snuggly Christmas.
When we were flying out to attend the funeral, Chris kept telling me he didn’t want to see Grandpa John. Why?
“Because I don’t want to see his bones.”
Turns out he thought Grandpa turned immediately into a skeleton, like Halloween, when he died. I was able to explain the truth of what to expect when we got there and my children’s participation in the wake and funeral was sweet and very touching.
Uncovering Chris’ faulty thinking and beliefs changed the course of his responses and actions and relieved him from carrying a burden of false anxieties. My son’s misconceptions and false beliefs once brought into the light were easy to recognize and, because they were not allowed to fester and linger in his mind, easy to eradicate. What we believe drives our actions; our Christmas and experiences at Grandpa John’s wake and funeral could have been radically different if those false beliefs had not been exposed.
Consciously or unconsciously we all have a core system of beliefs about the world and ourselves that drive our actions.
Sometimes what we believe is intentional, obvious and easy to see and articulate. Sometimes our beliefs are subtle and hard to identify, formed by hurts or past experiences hidden in the dark recesses of our consciousness yet impacting every dimension of our lives.
The beliefs about ourselves and the world that have become a part of our core through hurts or past experiences are sometimes outright lies or at best distorted versions of the truth.
I lived many years, even into my adult life, believing that I was not smart.
Looking back, I “learned” that I was not smart in second grade. When I was in Kindergarten, I wrote everything upside down and backwards. Learning to write correctly required a great deal of mental energy on my part. Consequently, I wrote very slowly. In addition, half way through second grade we began to learn cursive writing. In my class, if you were not able to finish the worksheets or seatwork in the amount of time she gave you, my teacher made you sit at a back table until you finished. I lived at the back table and quietly absorbed the idea that I was dumb. That belief impacted my choices about what I thought I could do and was willing try. It contributed to low self-esteem.
Then one year a friend challenged me about the validity of my self-evaluation.
She said, “Liz, you are carrying a false picture of yourself around in your head. You need to take a new snapshot to store there that is true to who you are. When someone pays you a compliment, you need not to negate it and just say thank you. And be willing to consider the possibility that it is actually true.”
Wow, we didn’t know anything about mentoring at that time, but in that moment she was a true mentor to me. It was a turning point towards truth, towards healing, towards seeing the potential that God wanted to fulfill in my life. It was not an overnight change by any means, but growth came bit by bit.
(And oh, by the way, there was no special education back then, I now realize that the fact I was able to overcome my problem with no special help was an indication of the exact opposite of what I had believed.)
It is healthy to examine our beliefs and share them with trusted others.
Reflection on and sharing of our beliefs draws them into the light where they can be affirmed as truth or challenged, exposing the misconceptions or lies that undermine us becoming all God created us to be.
I have been fortunate at various stages of my life to have people speak truth into my life in ways that brought hope, healing, greater clarity and direction. It is what attracts me to LDG’s Circle of Life, intentional whole-life mentoring model. I have experienced the truth of core beliefs, whether true or false, impacting all eight dimensions of a life. I see it reflected in my own journey and in my children’s journeys.
I work part-time at a school. It is my hope each day to recognize the opportunities God provides to intentionally speak truth and affirmation into the lives of the students and adults I interact with in ways that will help them become all God created them to be.
[/blox_text][blox_row]