I have to warn you, this is a processing post. Stuff has been swirling around in my brain for a couple weeks now and I need to process. So, there will be no sweet children updates or funny stories here (I don't think).
The Resources Department at church is part of the Ministry Services division. We meet as a division once a month. Every year we focus on something, usually along the personal development line. This year we are focusing on personal resilience. My boss, Dan, is leading the charge on this as it is something he was trained in in his old job. Before we launched it with the larger division he asked me and another woman on my team, Rachael, to take the profile and let him go over our results with us as part of his refresher training. He gave me my results about a week ago and it was one of the most painful experiences I've had in a while. It confirmed some things for me that I feel like God has been trying to beat me over the head with recently. It was these results that force me to throw up my hands and cry "uncle" to God. I knew I could no longer avoid examining this area.
Without going into great detail, the profile rates you in 5 areas that all together add up to how you tend to cope with change. The good news is this is a learned skill and I can change these results. The bad news is the results can be significantly skewed by a recent major life change, such as, oh I don't know, cancer. While my results showed were not shocking to me, though they came as a great shock to my boss. Basically, what they showed was that I tend to handle change by getting lots of people involved in either the change or options to cope with the change and by getting organized. What is also showed in glaring, embarrassing, black and white detail, was that I have absolutely no confidence in myself or in the goodness of the world. Oh, and I'm a bit scatterbrained as well.
What it showed to me is that I have embraced my "fake it 'til you make it" motto a little too well. My boss was stunned by my lack of confidence in myself and by my pessimistic view of the world (though this is the place most likely affected by my bout with cancer). While I was not stunned to see the results, it has made me realize that I was doing such a good job of faking it that I had begun to fool myself.
Somewhere along the way, I would say in the last 10 years or so, I have completely lost confidence in myself. I have never had great self-esteem, but I would say in younger years that low self-esteem was almost completely in the body image category. In everything else I was just fine. I was good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people liked me.
That girl is gone. And in her place is a woman I don't really recognize. I thought I had gained some life experience that was helping me get over some of my social fears. But I am realizing that I am still painfully self-conscious, I've just learned how to hide it better. I know a lot of that rests with my weight gain over the last decade. As of this morning I weigh 183 pounds. I weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 135 when Jason and I got married almost 12 years ago. 50 pounds, 2 kids, and 12 years. I could blame the weight on the children, but I was pushing chubby when I got pregnant with Garrett. And I weighed 195 pounds the week before I delivered Harper. So to be only 10 pounds lighter than when I was 38 weeks pregnant is a bit of a blow to the 'ol self-esteem. To wonder "who is that fat woman in this picture?" only to have the horrifying realization that it's me is a blow. Seeing old pictures of myself is not nostalgic, it is painful. To see a picture of myself at 5-6 months pregnant and realize I still basically look like that is painful, especially when considering that my "baby" will be four in four months. To have been going to gym regularly (2-3 times a week) since December and not have lost one single, solitary pound is a blow. Going to the gym is hard. And not just physically.
But I digress...clearly I have weight issues. This is no surprise to anyone who has hung around me for more than 30 minutes. But in thinking about the issue of self-confidence, I realized that it's more than just my physical appearance. I have nothing that stands me apart anymore. Pretty much since the 4th grade when I first picked up my flute until the end of high school, I was always one of, if not the, best flute player in my school. It may not seem like much, but it pretty much saved my adolescence. I am horrifyingly bad at math. I was decent at English and a terrific speller, but barely over average when it came to school work in general. But I rocked band class like it was my job.
It started fading my freshman year of college. I was good enough to make the Redcoat Marching Band at UGA, but I was not a music major. I was a small, slightly above average flute-playing fish in a very large pond FULL of the very best flute players in their respective high schools. I may have been special in the Windsor Locks HS band, but I was nothing special as a Redcoat. Now being a Redcoat was special and I still consider it to be one of my greatest accomplishments, but as a musician, I was nothing special.
With graduation came the end of my "career." Did not strike me as significant at the time, but looking back, I can see that it was. I feel like my twenties were all about hanging out smack in the middle of the Bell curve. There was nothing wrong with me or my life, there just wasn't anything particularly memorable or special about it. But I seem to always be around people who have above average lives. Being on staff at North Point is a bit like being a non-music major in Redcoats. I am surrounded by these amazingly gifted, creative individuals. Many have written books or songs. A lot are known in Christian, church circles around the globe. And I'm not just talking about Andy. And while I feel very fortunate to work there, there is nothing all that exceptional about the way I do my job. If I were to leave, I know I would be missed by my co-workers, but they would not have a hard time replacing my skill set. There are plenty of detail-oriented, organized people out there.
(I know this is starting to sound really whiny. You were warned that I am processing.)
I don't really know where I am going with all this. I'm trying to think about and figure out where and when my self-confidence left the building. Did it always run in short supply? And now the weight and the medical issues have just killed it stone dead? I don't know. And is it just a shift in how my life is defined that makes the absence of self-confidence so glaring? I don't have grades or test scores to judge where I fit any more. I don't want to be one of those women who define their worth by their childrens' accomplishments.
Where does that leave me? No idea.
Still processing.
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