Why, indeed! "Why can we not celebrate the talents and skills and differences of each other, encouraging others and ourselves to greatness, daring to stand out, to be unique, to be individual?"
Such is the verse that accompanies the image to the right in my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. We are continuing on through the book in our search and quest for sobriety and inner peace, and today we are looking at individuality.
This verse was prompted by my experience of always being compared to others and being found deficient, almost every time. My dreams and talents and skills were rarely applauded for the fist 16 years of life; instead, I and my interests were compared to my sisters and found to be stupid, a waste of time.
As a result, I have struggled with daring to stand out with my uniqueness, my talents and skills, until I became sober, did some healing work, and found inner peace.
We do great disservice to others when we compare them to ourselves or another, rather than accepting and applauding them as they express who they are in their soul. We are negating their Spirit-given talents and abilities, who they are at their very core.
Perhaps, the number one thing we can do to encourage individuality in others is to have a firm belief in and appreciation of who we are ourselves. We can work on ourselves to discover these things. When we do, we can go outside of ourselves and truly appreciate another who is different than us.
We no longer see the other as a threat, needing to be cut down, when we feel secure about who we are. Rather, we rejoice in all the different people that exist in the world, confident in the knowledge that the differences lend texture and richness to our lives.
It is this single action that will bring us respect of individuality in others. Ask yourself today if you can truly see yourself with respect for your own individuality, and then observe how free you are to appreciate the individuality of those around you.
Carolyn CJ Jones
on Facebook
Such is the verse that accompanies the image to the right in my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing. We are continuing on through the book in our search and quest for sobriety and inner peace, and today we are looking at individuality.
This verse was prompted by my experience of always being compared to others and being found deficient, almost every time. My dreams and talents and skills were rarely applauded for the fist 16 years of life; instead, I and my interests were compared to my sisters and found to be stupid, a waste of time.
As a result, I have struggled with daring to stand out with my uniqueness, my talents and skills, until I became sober, did some healing work, and found inner peace.
We do great disservice to others when we compare them to ourselves or another, rather than accepting and applauding them as they express who they are in their soul. We are negating their Spirit-given talents and abilities, who they are at their very core.
Perhaps, the number one thing we can do to encourage individuality in others is to have a firm belief in and appreciation of who we are ourselves. We can work on ourselves to discover these things. When we do, we can go outside of ourselves and truly appreciate another who is different than us.
We no longer see the other as a threat, needing to be cut down, when we feel secure about who we are. Rather, we rejoice in all the different people that exist in the world, confident in the knowledge that the differences lend texture and richness to our lives.
It is this single action that will bring us respect of individuality in others. Ask yourself today if you can truly see yourself with respect for your own individuality, and then observe how free you are to appreciate the individuality of those around you.
Carolyn CJ Jones
on Facebook
Loved your post!
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