Do you remember the show Stranger Things?
Link here to Season 1 synopsis rapped by the 12 yr old main character, Elev😉
Probably not the question you would think to get from me, but I have a point! They refer to this secret world that exists as The Upside Down. Now, I could not tolerate watching past Season 1, got way to scary for me (my husband had to go on without me), and my analogy will break down very quickly from here, but that term "upside down" has stuck with me and I use it entirely differently, but as a way that makes sense to met of how God seems my problems.
His perspective is so different than mine because he's not limited by the confines and constructs of human thought, his thinking, to me, is Upside Down.
He, like in the delightful play of a toddler, will take something I think can only work one way and find an entirely new application.
This too, is what happens with our thinking when we allow him in. Last week, Fr. Mike touched on the super sticky and hard belief,
"I don't matter."
This is one of my own very heavy beliefs that I fall into to, less and less as I do this work, but still far more often than I would like it to, and it knocks the wind out of me, it takes the rug out from under my feet, my body...goes... limp.
If you listened to his homily last week, Fr. Mike tied this belief into the perception that "I have nothing to offer." Therefore in this scenario,
I have nothing to offer = I don't matter.
Now, you may not have the same cognitive association leading to your conclusion or vow that "you don't matter". Maybe yours is lack of recognition, not being listened to, or feeling misunderstood, however I will stick with this one for the sake of seeing the thinking through.
On the one hand we are told repeatedly that God loves us apart from what we do, we even learn of the heretical way of thinking that "I can somehow earn God's love." and are taught to let go of it, but we cling to it tight because it feels so true.
There's something so key here that torments so many lives:
How the world sees us vs How God sees us and somehow reconciling the two in our minds and hearts.
Often when we feel we have "nothing to offer" we may actually be wrong, so our first task in working through that initial statement or agreement is to challenge it.
Do you really have nothing to offer, or does it just feel like it's too little to offer, not what someone else is offering or not what you think you should be able to offer? Forcing our brain to answer these questions really helps titrate down how heavy that thought feels.
Let's say it is true that you don't have "enough" to offer to help assuage someone else's pain or correct the trajectory of a problematic situation, ask yourself,
"Why is that a problem?"
I'm not sure that God sees it as a problem the way you do, or he would have had things go differently. So ask Him.
Ask Him to help you see the situation how He sees it? Break your brain a little, and ask yourself, in His presence, why it is actually good that you don't have "enough" to offer in this moment and are left with feelings of inadequacy or insignificance.
I wonder if it's an opportunity for you to grow closer to God and challenge the conclusion that you have drawn that you "don't matter" and to reject it, or perhaps it's an opportunity for everyone in the situation to feel their own littleness as a grace-filled opportunity to lean on a great big God, or perhaps, it's a further opportunity to dig deep and do the work to uncover why your brain is so quick to conclude that "you don't matter" when you have nothing to offer because I guarantee you that is not every person's conclusion when they feel their lack, so why is it yours?
What if this situation is an opportunity a good God has allowed to land in your lap to uncover a hurting place in your heart that he is dying to meet you in? To have a conversion of heart and suddenly be convicted of your own value, or more likely, to start to feel His presence in your life, in your memories, in your story, and to start be able to weed out the true from the false until you can get to that place of saying in all integrity,
"I used to think that I mattered when I had something to offer."
Because we have been given the grace of an "upside down" way of thinking about ourselves and our place in the world.
Join me every other Tuesday in the Grateful Blessed Mess Patreon Commmunity as we dive into this work starting Tuesday August 27 from Noon - 1pm CST.
See you in there and God Bless,
Nora
Catholic Mindset and Interior Life Coach
Hi, I'm Nora :) Catholic mother, daughter, wife, poet, blogger, podcaster, avid reader, 12-Stepper, and Certified Catholic Mindset and Interior Life Coach. I help people who struggle to see their dignity and value amidst the hardships of life find hope and fulfillment by reworking limiting belief patterns and learning how to know themselves deeply in a way that invites compassion and understanding. I use the tools of Mindset Coaching through the lens of Internal Family Systems to help my clients see the Truth of the Goodness and Beauty of who they are and how they were Made.
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