I’ve been learning how to embrace myself lately and realize I am a gift to the world. Not in a rich-kids-of-Instagram sort of way, but in a way that is helping me become comfortable with how God has made me.
I am thoroughly convinced that we behave the best, we walk in the most confidence, and we love with the most heart when we are comfortable in our own skins.
If you’ve ever had someone tell you (or if you’ve ever told yourself) you are TOO…
unorganized, sensitive, quiet.
It is only because that TOO-ness about you makes that person in some way feel uncomfortable. It tells them something about themselves that maybe they don’t want to come to terms with.
Your TOO-ness highlights something in that other person that gives them discomfort. Your quietness highlights the fact that they feel too loud, your unorganized home reminds them that they live a life that feels too controlled and maybe your sensitive heart makes that person feel harsh and unfeeling.
Every Saturday my six-year-old takes the soccer ball down the field. This is her third year on a team sport and she is still on a journey to learn what it means to play well with others.
I never understood this about her before but she highly competitive. That idea is so other to me because my most comfortable place as a little girl was with a book in one hand and a bag of Legos in the other.
Competition just doesn’t make sense to me.
Unbridled competitiveness has gotten her in a bit of trouble, however. She’s elbowed other players that get in her way, she’s lobbed a soccer ball at the head of another little girl who made a goal in practice and she regularly gives the other team the I’m-going-to-take-you-down stare at a game.
So do you know what the coach did? He made her goalie.
It’s perfect. Her competitiveness has been directed and she is a gift to the team. Without fear she jumps on the ball as it comes into the goal, she picks it and passes it to a player. She loves the honor of being the goalie and she can still be herself in all her competitive glory, but in a place where there is less temptation for her to trip another six-year-old girl.
She’s a gift. And so is her innate drive to win.
How dare I tell her to dial it back, but I do have the responsibility as her mother to help channel it correctly.
I think too many of us have been told that the unique pieces of us, the ones that shout, are too brilliant for the world. That they are TOO much and that we must stifle the parts that were made to shine.
Don’t you dare dull what was made to be brilliant.
You were born to be sensitive, to be competitive or to be loud. You were born to love deeply or to think before you speak. You were born to be joyful or serious or unpredictable. You were born that way and you are one of God’s gifts to this world.
If you stifle those parts of you you are stifling the parts that God has intended to give to the rest of humanity.
Yes I should channel and hone and bring the wild parts of me to a place of ease and rest, but by no means shall I say any longer that I am not born to be this way.
So let us all embrace ourselves and thank God for the big and brilliant parts of us. Let us stop apologizing for the TOO-ness of ourselves. And when someone wants to stifle us, let us take it in with wisdom and wonder if that piece of us may need some channeling. But let us never, ever choose to break those parts and leave behind the beauty that God intended for us to share with others.
Remember, you are a gift to this world.
Have you ever been told you were TOO-something? Is it hard to recognize what needs channeling and what needs to be embraced?
Oh, this is good.
This is good because it simultaneously made me feel valued and unique while causing me to say to myself, “That is the EXACT reason you question other people. Because it forces you to confront something about yourself”.
So good and so true.
God made us each different and who are we to dumb it down?
thank you rachel! =) and i am very very guilty of the You’re-TOO- Whatever dialogue. Especially with my girls. Thank you for your comment, friend. =)
What a great post Sarah! I really appreciate it, and will try to remember that this is how God made me… Too sensitive, Too Deep, Too serious, Too many things.
And by the way your daughter is Beautiful!
thank you so much tammy! i’m the same TOO’s =)
Thanks, I’m too and i’m proud of it.
i love it!! =)
Oh, gosh. “Don’t you dare dull what was made to be brilliant.” I might need to cross-stitch that and hang it in my house. In like every room. Powerful words, Sarah.
I’ve been told (by some of my dearest friends) that I feel things “too” strongly. For so long, I felt so strange and different. And sometimes, I still do. For awhile I took medicine, because the intense worry and sadness was just too much. But the problem was it numbed everything and I couldn’t feel anything as much and my joy kind of disappeared, too. I’ve learned to live without the medicine, but sometimes it’s so hard when people don’t “get” me. Honestly, I love it (sometimes, maybe most times?) that I feel things the way I do. It’s a beautiful reality and it’s mine. No one has to understand it. Just accept it.
Thank you. Thank you.
Sarah, God made you that way so that you can be in tuned to the big feelings of the world. He made you that way so you can weave within people and understand (and recognize) their fears and hurts. Be proud of it! =)
thank you so much for your comment!
this made my morning.
Thank you for validating the person I am.. helping me to feel more worthy. more me.
More valuable.
You shine in your writings.
xo love to you. xo
you are worthy and valuable. and God made in a way that is undeniably unique. Rest in that.
Sarah…me and Jesus right on this topic…I feel…think…process…too much… even as a young child my dad told me I would never make in this world because I was too sensitive…so I did what he told me…toughen up. I have let my too much spill over places that it should not have…then in my own strength I tried to be “lighter”….now in my 50’s I am embracing who I am and how God wired me…especially when it comes to my relationship with Him. I now realize God brings some people into the deep with Him…some people walk in more shallow waters with Him…both are the valid walks…just different…and the ones who go into the deep…don’t need to drown others by forcing them there…and those who walk in more shallow waters don’t need to make someone else get out of the deep. great post…blessings to you~
mmm. i love your take on this : the deep waters and the shallows. thank you SO much for sharing this ro!
This is exactly what I’ve been experiencing in my “journey” right now! (only I couldn’t have written it as well as you, of course.) I was always “too” transparent and open with people, “too honest” I opened myself up to some big hurt, but mostly just a sense of acceptance and eventual love of “this is how God made me”. It’s such a burden lifted off of my shoulders and brought me much joy! Thank you for sharing this, Sarah. Blessings!
i love it, jaime! your gift is that you are the same outside as you are inside! how wonderful for others to know exactly where you stand and what you think. Embrace it and channel it and thank God for it! Thank you for sharing! =)
Sarah,
Thank you so much for this. I just moved to a new community for a new job. I am struggling to fit in and feel like I TOO much for them. I needed to know that it is not wrong for me to be me and that it is okay. I don’t have any friends here so thank you giving me the “friend” advice I so desperately needed!
so sorry kiersten. that must be very hard. hoping/praying you find the friends and community you need and that in all of your uniqueness you fit perfectly where you are supposed to!
I’ve been told that I’m “too sensitive” for years by loved ones, and it made me feel bad about myself. Thank you for giving me another perspective!
me too. my therapist told me something recently that was really great: she said that sensitive people are needed. that we see people and groups in special ways. she said that we noticed the emotion in a room and are able to take the emotional temperature of people in a way others are not.
rest in that girl. God made you that way for a good purpose!
I love that, thank you!
So if someone says “Girl, you are too much!”, we call all just smile, and say “Thanks, I know!”
i love that. i’m going to start using that!
i was told i take things “too personally” when i told my boss about how someone had hurt me. i have also heard “too sensitive.” i suppose she was right, because i did take her comment personally and have tried ever since then to not allow things to bother me, to not feel things so deeply. it’s sucked me dry.
wow. that can be rough, im sure. i think its about embracing who we are and approaching it with the idea that it can be channeled and tempered without losing the essence of it (or of you!).
Oh, this was a joy to read! This reminds me of the Dr. Seuss book with the line “there is no one you-er than you!”
I’m happy for you; that your daughter’s coach helped her channel her competitiveness in a positive way. I’ve seen many a coach that either don’t recognize those attributes or “punish” the kids for their aggressiveness by putting them in less desirable positions.
right? i love it that he did it. =)
and i love that Dr Seuss book too. I cant remember which one it is. so great! thank you for commenting!
Love this: “Yes I should channel and hone and bring the wild parts of me to a place of ease and rest, but by no means shall I say any longer that I am not born to be this way.”
I am most often caught up in this, but in the reverse, potentially even more damaging way – not enough. I’m not ______ (tactful, in control, sensible, mature, educated, sociable, trendy…. etc. etc. etc.) enough. My too-ness comes at the flipside of my lack: too emotional, too anxious, too proud, too stubborn, too _____.
The problem is in discerning what is me as I was meant to be (just a passionate person?) or what is unhealthy and really needs to change (being more empathetic, level-headed, reasonable, laid back). At first, this sounds like an easy distinction to make but it is a lot harder in the moment, in the confusion of (outer and inner) voices, in the being and becoming who I was created to be. without knowing how to channel those “toos” into good Kingdom things.
yes, that is a hard tension i think. how much of the ME-ness of me is to keep just like it is and how much of it is something that should be channeled and honed. thank you for your good thoughts!
Jenna,
I struggle with this often, as I try to navigate who I REALLY am, who I WISH I could be and who I THINK I should be. It would seem to be easy to figure it out….see who God made you, but it’s not for me. I am constantly having to step back and analyze situations and question, “Did I do that because I wanted to? Felt like I had to? Dumb down who I am so I would be more socially acceptable?”
Sometimes I’ll think I don’t know myself at all because I have created so many facets in my personality, each to fit different circumstances. I catch glimpses of who I really am, often, but I yearn to walk completely in step with my authentic self. Maybe that’s the journey?
Your daughter is darling. But how ironic this post is coming after I just sat through a bunch of meetings for the church nominating committee. I couldn’t help but think how prized those organized, administrative types were. Kind of made me crazy, since I fit your description. Most probably I was being too sensitive, but I do need to value what I have to give and not feel because I can’t organize an effective campaign that’s subpar.
yes!! let someone else do the organizing, i say, so you are freed up to do what you are supposed to do! =)
Oh, what a great post!!! It is a sweet reminder to me as my daughter’s mom. She is actually the opposite of your daughter when it comes to soccer- not aggressive enough. But there are other areas where I know I have used “too” with her. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
i love it that all of our kids are so different (as are we). and when we as mothers can recognize and love our babies for who God has made them, maybe we’ve all won? =) thank you for your comment!
love this…naomi is such an awesome kid…with a style only hers!
she is God’s gift to me, to our whole family…as you are…
as your sister is…as each of us are…
we are ALL
a well-thought out grace of God
shaped to the needs of this confused planetload of people..
too often, what we do is to take our “God-shape”
& twist it to suit the needs of our fears & scars…
in a defensive style of living
that God never intended.
as a “veteran people-pleaser,” i believe that God shaped me
with a deep sensitivity…
but
in my fear & hurt from life, that sensitivity
was shaped (by me) into a shield
that works hard to extrapolate how people
MIGHT respond…
then shaping my life-strategies to suit
MY desired outcomes.
i sell God short every time…
as well as the grace (gift) He desires me to be.
love you,
dad
so wise dad. thank you.
Sarah – thank-you, I never thought about how I was taking the gifts that God has given me and not appreciating them for what they are – many times being told not to wear my heart on my sleeve, not to give so much of myself to others… your post struck me and has really made me think. Thank-you.
ps – you are an amazing photographer…. and I really wish I had your wisdom when raising my daughter – so many times I ignored the gifts she has and tried to mold her into someone else – now I can apply your wisdom as I coach her to be everything God intends her to be as an adult…
thank you Joann! I appreciate your words!
This is a great post, Sarah. It speaks to the heart of every single one of us who’s ever been too we’re “too —”. It’s important to remember that WHATEVER we are, it’s by design. Thanks for the reminder today!
This was so inspiring to me. I was once let go from a customer service postion because the supervisor said I was to nice and that he didn’t pay me to be nice. I have tried to be a firmer at times. but it is not in me to treat others badly. Thank you for helping me to embrace the kindness that God has put with in me!
I have always thought that those things about your personality that you try so hard to but just can’t change, maybe just maybe thats how God wants you to be. I am too serious {thoughtful and careful} I am too quiet {observant} I am too many other things. These are things i just can’t change and I am learning how to embrace and still be proud of them when someone tells me i am just too…
This right here Sarah, will help me along in the process.
I was born exactly how God made me., my quietness is a gift.
thank you
yes it is, jimmie lee!! =)