How to “Be Yourself” as a Christian (and Figure out Who “Yourself” Really Is)

19 August, 201918 August, 2019Marissa

Today’s post is inspired by two comments I saw/heard last week. The first was a quote shared in a Christian group on Facebook. The quote is from Dale Partridge and it goes like this: “The motto ‘be yourself’ has become Satan’s counterfeit to God’s ‘be holy as I am holy’.”

Since the tagline for my blog is “Finding our true selves in the people God created us to be,” I don’t think it will surprise any of you that I have a different take on the advice to be yourself. Before we dive into that, though, I want to tell you about the other thing that prompted this post.

I listened to episode 45 of the Awaken With JP Sears Show, titled “Radical Self-Discovery with Jator Pierre.” In this episode, one of the key topics they discussed is the importance of being able to speak “your truth” and the dangers that PC culture poses to that idea. “Your truth” is part of who you are and what you have to offer the world. It’s neither healthy nor socially desirable to have people silence that.

While I loved the discussion, the idea of “your truth” is a bit problematic for Christians because it implies multiple versions of truth whereas God is very clear that He is the only source of truth. But when someone talks about the idea of having “your truth” as part of being an authentic weirdo is that really something followers of Jesus Christ should freak out about? Perhaps there is a way to be yourself and be an authentic Christian as well. Read more →

What If We Stopped Trying To Impress People?

27 March, 201926 March, 2019Marissa

I like to keep the people around me happy. I want harmony in all my relationships, and I hate conflict. Take all those (along with a few other personality traits and some insecurities) together, and you end up with someone who’s been a “people pleaser” for most of her life.

It’s normal for FJ personality types to act based on what will meet everyone’s needs and work to maintain harmonious relationships. That’s because they use Extroverted Feeling, or “Harmony,” as their decision-making process. But at some point in their personal growth journey, FJs need to realize that 1) you’re part of the “everyone” whose needs should be met, and 2) it’s impossible to please everyone.

Since writing my post “Are You Ready To Find Your Weirdness?” I’ve been thinking about what effect embracing authenticity will have on interpersonal relationships. One of the things I’ve realized is that instead of trying to adjust my presentation of myself to impress specific people, I need to focus more on bringing my best self to every conversation and interaction. If they’re impressed by that, cool, but if not it’s okay. Failing to please everyone isn’t really failure at all. It’s just something that happens.

We Can’t Please Everyone

It’s impossible to connect with everyone unless you’re adjusting yourself to please them. There’s far too much variety in human beings’ beliefs and preferences for your authentic self to resonate equally well with every person. In fact, if we’re being honest, I’m sure there are some types of people you don’t really want to resonate with. For example, you’d probably worry about yourself if a Klu Klux Klan member felt that you understood and agreed with them 100%. Read more →

Are You Ready To Find Your Weirdness?

20 February, 201921 February, 2019Marissa

What makes you weird?

Last week, I listened to a JP Sears podcast titled “You’re Weirder Than You Can Think,” which is all about discovering and expressing your weirdness. Now, maybe you think your weirdness is a bad/scary thing that you need to hide from others. Or maybe you think you’re normal and not weird at all. Why on earth would you want to discover and express your weirdness?

JP defines “weirdness” as the things that make you uniquely you. In other words, “weirdness” is the traits of your authentic self. It’s your personality, your quirks, your passions, your defining features, the things you love to talk about, and so much more. What makes you “weird” is what makes you “you,” and figuring out what that is can be a great step in your personal growth journey. With that framework, he challenged everyone to do a 4-step exercise:

Write down three things that make you weird.
Thank each of these things for making you uniquely you.
Find a way to express each of those weird traits in your life today.
Check-in at the end of the day to assess how you did on completing Step 3.

And then you do that each day for seven days in a row.

Journeying Into My Weirdness

I’m sharing this post on the last day of my weirdness journey. I thought for sure I’d have no problem coming up with 21 examples of my weirdness, but it was actually more challenging than I’d anticipated.

It’s not that I don’t have unique traits or perspectives. Rather, I was getting hung-up on Step 3 before I wrote anything down for Step 1. I didn’t want to write something in the first step that would end up being hard, uncomfortable, or impossible to express that day.

Of course, avoiding an aspect of my weirdness because I find it uncomfortable probably misses the point of this whole exercise. Read more →

5 Crucial Tips For Standing Up For Yourself As An INFJ

4 February, 201910 December, 2019Marissa

For many INFJs, the feeling that we don’t stand up for ourselves well enough is a frequent one. We find ourselves in uncomfortable conversations that we don’t know how to leave, or we let people cross our boundaries because we’re not sure what to say, or we don’t speak up when someone assumes something about us that isn’t true. And then we feel guilty about it, but we aren’t sure how to change.

5 Crucial Tips For Standing Up For Yourself As An INFJ | LikeAnAnchor.com — Photo credit: lavnatalia via Pixabay

For this post, we’re going to define “standing up for yourself” as sharing your ideas, choices, and opinions with others and not compromising on your personal standards, morals, or beliefs. You’re not obnoxious or dismissive of others when you “stand up for yourself” in this way, but you are honest and upfront about who you are, what you believe, and where your boundaries are.

Some people reading this, including some INFJs, already live their lives in the way I just described. If that’s you, then wonderful! Keep doing what you’re doing (and maybe share some tips for the rest of us in the comments). For others, standing up for yourself is a real challenge.

INFJs aren’t the only ones who deal with this either — any personality type can struggle with asserting themselves and practicing authenticity. Today, though, we’ll be focusing on INFJ-specific tips for getting comfortable with standing up for yourself. Other IN types (like INTJ or INFP) and FJ types (like ENFJ and ISFJ) might also find these tips helpful. Read more →

God Wants The Real You

15 September, 201814 September, 2018Marissa

Unless you’re listening to a branch of Christianity that teaches God doesn’t expect anything from you, Christians talk about change quite a bit. We change our lives when we commit to leaving sin behind and following Jesus. We change how we think as we put on the mind of Christ. We change from being outside the faith to being grafted into God’s chosen people.

There are some things, though, that God doesn’t want to change about you. Or at least, that’s not quite the best way to describe what He’s doing. Rather, He wants to reveal the “you” that He created you to be. He doesn’t want us to get rid of our individuality, our gifts, or our true personalities (though it might feel that way at times).

The way God transforms us often involved quite a bit of change. But it’s not about turning you into someone you’re not. It’s more of a revelation of the truest, best version of you.

He Sees All Of You

God wants a relationship with the real you. I’ve been reading Captivating by John and Stasi

Eldrege, and this quote caught my eye:

He wants your deep heart, that center place within that is the truest you. He is not interested in intimacy with the woman you think you are supposed to be. He wants intimacy with the real you (p. 123)

Though this book is specifically written to women, what I just quoted applies to both genders. Throughout the ages, God calls to our hearts. He longs for a relationship with people who aren’t going to hide themselves from Him. Read more →

How To Communicate More Comfortably As An Introvert

11 September, 201810 September, 2018Marissa

Talking can be hard for introverts. Get us in just the right setting and you might have trouble making us shut up, but in most everyday conversations we struggle to come up with anything to talk about. As I wrote about last week, many introverts struggle to talk about personal things. Beyond that, we struggle with knowing what to talk about at all.

We often assume most people don’t want to hear about the things we care about. We think it sounds boring to answer, “What did you do last weekend?” by saying “Stayed home with my cat and watched Netflix.” Or we worry that we sound uninteresting if we answer, “What do you like to do?” with “Read, contemplate life, hide in a blanket fort … you know, exciting stuff like that.”

The Kind Of Talking We Don’t Like

About 50% of the population is introverted so there’s actually a good chance of you finding other people who think what you enjoy is perfectly normal because they also enjoy similar things. But for those of us in the United States, and other cultures that tend to have more “extroverted” values, we might still feel pressure to not be “weird” and stick with “normal” topics of conversation. Read more →