Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live my friend. I am happy to see that you decided to stop by to visit with me. I have been thinking about the topic of filters. Not water or air filters, but the way in which I filter and frame what I hear and what I believe about God, other people and myself. In my experience, I have found that I have a greater part in the process than what I had been led to believe through societal stigmatization and other sources. In my experience, I found that I allowed fear and insecurity to filter and frame the way viewed my relationships — with God, other people and myself.
For many years, I was unaware of how the filters of fear and insecurity undermined who I was as an individual, and my ability to create with my being. In my experience, I allowed my fear and insecurity to drive my life, and in the process I found that my relationships – with God, other people and myself – were driven by fear and insecurity. In the process, I allowed both my denial and ignorance and the denial and ignorance of family, friends and society as a whole to paint me into the corner of a box – in which I felt trapped. In my experience, when I became sick and tired of being sick and tired I made changes.
In my experience, I found that I needed to address – and continue to need to address – my fear (s) and insecurity(ices) to guard myself against slipping back into my own denial and ignorance. Consequently, I found that I needed to take ownership of my fear and insecurity lest I find my relationships being driven by my fear and insecurity. With my awareness, I came to realize that I could be empowered by my fear and insecurity, instead of being driven by my fear and insecurity. I discovered that by examining my denial and ignorance I could slowly break free from my fear, insecurity, denial and ignorance.
I discovered that I could break free from the fear and insecurity projected on me by the denial and ignorance of family, friends and society as a whole. In my process, I discovered that I had been given wings that I could use to fly from the confines of the box in which I felt trapped for such a very long time. In my process, I discovered that I could explore beyond the confines of the box imposed on me by denial and ignorance. In my process, I discovered this reality…
Although I may break free from the affects of my own denial and ignorance, my family, friends and society — as a whole — may never be able to break free from their denial and ignorance. Although these individuals may never be able to celebrate who I am in my reality, I have found – and continue to realize – what is most important. I need to stay committed to addressing and working on overcoming my fear(s) and insecurity(ices), lest I be drawn back into my own denial system and again be enslaved in a box of my fears and insecurities. I need to stay committed my process, whether anyone else accepts or gets my reality.
“If you advance in the direction of your dreams and endeavor to live the life that you imagined…you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau
“Insist on yourself, never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half-possession…Do that which is assigned to you, and you can not hope too much or dare too much.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Please read Part 2 and final part of this series by clicking here. Thank you.
If you have any questions or would like to make a comment please use my Contact Information Page.
You may receive more articles like this one by Subscribing to Second Chance to Live
Bookmark and Share Second Chance to Live with your friends Subscribe in a Feed Reader
All material presented on Second Chance to Live is copyright and cannot be, copied, reproduced, or distributed in any way without the express, written consent of Craig J. Phillips, MRC, BA Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND
Leave a Reply