Accepting Lies and Acknowledging Truth

Accepting the Lies

One thing that I’ve always struggled with is expressing myself. I did fine in the first few years of elementary school, but in the later years, I felt ostracized by my peers, like a victim.  On a few occasions, I remember being hurt by them, being bullied and being teased. I made a couple friends at the end of my fifth grade year, and the beginning of my sixth grade year. But I felt like they weren’t the right group. In all honesty, I wasn’t fair to them, and I probably hurt them when I said that I didn’t want to be in their friend group.

In Jr. High, I wanted to leave who I was behind, and not associate myself with the peers that I felt had treated me wrongly. I wanted to find people who thought as I did, and make new friends. I found a couple people who were odd, and at the time awkward. I didn’t want that again.

But by the end of Jr High I was able to socialize, even with the peers I had thought had done me wrong. One of the things that helped me was Ballroom. It had given me a social outlet, and frankly, saved me from going onto a darker path.

High School is where things became different again. One of the main people that I had gotten to know pretended like I didn’t exist. It hurt. But I still was able to get to know new people and gain more ‘friends at school’. But something that hurt more is that I didn’t get invited to hang out with people. But then I had made two amazing friends, and I ended up hanging out with them. I had found a social group that I felt accepted me. But the problem that arose was that these two were seniors. So come Jr. year, I was in the state of just having ‘friends at school’ again. It sucked, to be honest. I found some more friends that I hung out with a few times over the next two years, but nothing ever happened besides that.

Throughout my childhood I’ve always been blaming others rather than accepting it myself. Thinking that I was subject to their actions, and that I suffered and was hurt by them. And when I look back, I was hurt. I sought friendship from those with the same standards as me, and also that were even in the same religion. Did I continue my efforts? No. I stopped, and I turned away from them. I was filled with a type of resentment towards those people too, because I was not part of their clique or group. I was just an acquaintance. But I never expressed this resentment, hoping that things would change.

Recently, I discovered that I get anxious around the people I had tried to become a part of their groups. I still feel that resentment, I still feel like I was a victim.

Acknowledging the Truth

Something that I’ve learned in the last couple years is that I am in control of what I do. I have the agency to choose things as I would want them to be, and if the situation doesn’t pan out, I still have the agency to act according to what I believe.

I believe that I am a son of God. I believe that He and His Son love me, and that they will never stop loving me. Have they been disappointed with some of my actions, I’m certain, but Their love is unconditional, and never ending.

I have learned that all of the feelings of insecurity, inferiority, victimization and doubt have come from one source. Satan. He has prodded me with thoughts of how these people that I grew up with have wronged me. I let him convince me that I wasn’t worthy of their friendship, and that I wasn’t wanted. But that’s not true.

The biggest lie that I have ever accepted is that I need others approval above all else. But that’s not a divine quality or characteristic. It implies that others make my decisions for me, that others are responsible for my character and beliefs. But this is incorrect. People don’t decide who I am. They might have control over what happens to me, but I decide how to act. I decide how I work through my feelings.

The only approval that I need is that of my Heavenly Father and my Savior. I know that I can align myself with their teachings, and work to understand that they know all, and they know best.

I am not inferior. I may be a victimized, but I decide if I am a victim. I am full of divine potential, and because of this, I have the ability to develop interdependence. I can make my own decisions. I can take responsibility for myself. I can fight Satan, and bring to light all of his lies and deceptions. I a not worthless. I am not a coward.

I am powerful. I am brave. I am intelligent. I can work out my course through my faith in my Heavenly Father. I can work towards perfection, and while I won’t be able to achieve it in this life, I know that in Eternity, through Christ’s Atonement, I will be rewarded for my efforts. I will be rewarded for not giving up the fight.

The truth is that we are berated every day, and have been our entire lives, by Satan. We have been presented with trials and tasks, but what we make of them is up to us. How we rely on our Heavenly Father and our Savior is our choice. They will never abandon us, They will never let us down. They desire that all of us will return to Them.

I know that I can achieve great things. I know that I am meant for greater things than I can even dream of. I know that every situation does not happen to us, but for us. (Joel Osteen) Because of this, I have been and am being prepared for something great, as all of us are. I can either hold onto the resentment, or I can let go, and become greater than I am now.

We all have divine potential. We define our character by our approach to our situation. We can let go. We can move on.