Suppressing or Pruning and Reconnecting?

 How many of your default and dominating beliefs and behaviours have you just accepted as yours and who you are, after ​years of repeating these same patterns?

We could call this a program, just like software is programming that predicts the paths ​in which different platforms and systems will automatically operate and not venture away from, unless the hidden paths are changed. ​How often are you aware of the fact that it is possible to change and reframe your inner ​programming and mindsets?

To renew your mind?

To be freed from unproductive ​emotional states?

We needed to conform to certain beliefs during our formative years in order to fit into and ​belong in our nurturing homes, to be kept safe by our loved ones when we couldn’t do ​anything for ourselves and when we were defenseless. We adopted beliefs and ​mindsets and behaviours that were understood and accepted as the norm, and for each of us - your ​world that you became accustomed to - also became THE world and you accepted it as the way in which life works for ​everyone out there as well. The opinions that were shared about you have become the ​opinions you believed of yourself as well. These beliefs have become automated after ​years of accepting it as the norm and not exploring your deeper reality. Could it be something else? Could it be more than the labels our surface realities have placed on us?

I have received beautiful traits from my parents whom I love dearly, and memories I will always ​treasure. In the same way, I have passed on healthy values to my children in my deep love for ​them. I have also hurt my children through my own brokenness and shaped their ​outlook. After 19 years, I can clearly see how I have had an unmistakable influence on how they see life and respond to life, the thing called perspective. There are some of those beliefs, behaviours and outcomes that they hold about life we are challenging now as they are on their way to leave ​the nest. I would love for them to be confident, secure, significant adults that will bless their ​world. In the same way, my parents have hurt me in their brokenness, not on purpose and often without ​knowing. But, for the sake of transparency and authenticity, and in the same way I did to my children, my parents also shaped my outlook in ways where I need to let go of insecurities and ​worries that I am not enough. My hopes for myself is also that I will fully take up my space and honour the One who ​created me to become everything He speaks over my destiny on earth.

Transformation over conformity

Do not conform to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Can I ​be raw and real with you here? Raw for uncooked and not processed and real for being ​vulnerable, genuine and sincere. I had to navigate a few concrete losses in my adult life and bitterness was a dear friend for a long time. I have struggled a lot with ​people who have abandoned me, who have taken things from me, who didn't show any intention to work towards restoration but who disappeared instead. Recovering wholeness has become a fairytale in my world and blaming external realities, so much easier.

When I met Jesus, it slowly started changing my perspective as it dawned on me that he has cancelled my debt and instead ​gave me his undeserved favour that prospers my life. The fact that my broken state MOVED him with compassion so that he came all this way to show me his mercy that comes to me ​with unwavering and unconditional love, started breaking through to the icy hurt in my heart. When I read how he asked on the ​cross, while he was hurting for my brokenness and after I abandoned him - "forgive them for they know not what they do" ​- I knew he asked for that mercy over my life too. Often, I don’t know what I am doing. Regularly, we're not aware of the marks our lives leave or the consequences of our own choices. The ​people I love most on this planet are my children and I have hurt them when I definitely ​never wanted to. In the same way that I have hurt others, I have also been hurt.

Because of the unprecedented pardon I have received from Jesus while I didn't know what I was doing, I can also ​now see how others hurt me because they didn’t know what they were doing either. ​Countless times in my own life, but only very recently, have I been convinced of the ​accuracy of Jesus teaching when He asked us not to look at the speck of sawdust in our ​brother’s eye while we pay no attention to the plank in our own eye.

This is just one example of how reframing our beliefs, changing our perspective, and ​shifting our perceptions can make our world a better place and relief us for crippling ​emotional burdens. Setting us free to grow into everything we were made to be. ​Leaving restrictive, debilitating mindsets behind and opening the windows of our souls ​to the bright, warm sunlight of - 'what else can it be'?  Which beliefs and responses  - which perspectives can lead to significant shifts in how we perceive others and experience reality?

Suppressing

Suppressing involves pushing away unwanted thoughts, feelings, or memories, attempting to keep them out of our conscious awareness. This approach might provide temporary relief or make you feel like you're maintaining control, but often counterproductive in the long term. Suppression doesn't address the root cause of these emotions or thoughts; it merely sets them aside. Over time, suppressed emotions can build up, leading to increased stress, anxiety, and even physical health issues. It's like pressing down on a spring; the more you push, the more force it accumulates, eventually snapping back with even greater intensity.

Recovering Wholeness

We all know what pruning means when it comes to gardening, how difficult at first but then the benefits that follows after, where pruning away unhealthy or unwanted parts of a plant helps redirect its energy towards healthy growth. In personal development pruning and reconnecting, while requiring more effort and introspection, leads to genuine growth, healing, and a stronger, more resilient approach. It's about facing what's within you, learning from it, and making conscious choices that align with your deepest values and aspirations.

How can we become part of recovering wholeness, of healing, of authentic living and life giving relationships? What will it take? How can we inspire each other to get over ourselves and be fully secure and confident - even if at first our security is only in "Whose we are?" I am searching because I am in no position to judge, just keen to see restoration, a recovering of wholeness. To experience and understand the great and mighty, guarded secrets we never could have known - Jeremiah 33:3.