I just turned 30, and I forget what generation that puts me in, x, Millennial, the Peter Pan generation… But I feel like while growing up, “self-esteem” was all the rage. I remember learning in Mrs. Zangeri’s health class in 7th grade the risks of having a low self-esteem. We’d be more likely to give into peer pressure and do drugs. We’d be less likely to maintain happy relationships or succeed in life. So in order to ensure healthy concepts of ourselves we were encouraged to resort to Stewart Smalley-like tactics. For those of you who are younger than I, or weren’t watching Saturday Night Live at age 9, Stewart Smalley was an SNL character, a giant blue sweater wearing Pop-psychologist who started every self help show by smiling at himself in the mirror and saying "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!"
Now fast forward 20 years. I am not as good as I once was at keeping up on pop culture, so about a year ago, I finally decided to look up Lady Gaga to find out who she was. The first
thing that popped up on Google, was an interview she had on the Ellen
show. She spoke about her daily ritual
of spending 5 minutes to focus on compassionate thoughts
about… wait for it… herself. Don’t get me wrong, many of us really need to
cut ourselves some slack, and sometimes people who have suffered intense
emotional abuse could benefit from something like this. But the more she talked, the more worried I
got. The Lady explained, “Pop Culture is
our religion. And through self-worship,
in terms of your identity… you can have more faith and more hope in life, and
in the future.”
I couldn’t believe what I just heard. I had to replay it at least three times. It’s pretty obvious that our culture is self-absorbed
and worships pop culture, but I never thought I’d hear someone proclaim it
boldly as their faith. And I can hardly
imagine “self-worship” as a sustainable source of peace. Telling myself how fabulous I am makes me
feel good, but only for about 5 minutes before I prove myself wrong and do
something not-so fabulous.
It’s no surprise that narcissism is on the rise. Or at least that’s what one study found as researchers analyzed music written between 1980 and 2007.
Songs have gone from focusing on “we,” “us,” or “you,” to “me,” “my,”
and how great “I” am. Dr. Nathan Dewall,
the professor who led the study explains, “People who are very narcissistic,
they come off as very confident, but if you insult them or provoke them in any
way, it sort of breaks their bubble, and they're very fragile people.”
In other words, focusing on our greatness doesn’t diminishes
our insecurities, it just covers them up. So,
how can we feel peace and even joy in our own skin? How can we increase our confidence in who we
are?
In my experience, this is a three part process including, 1. knowing who you are, 2. knowing your real potential, and then 3. looking outside of
yourself to find confidence in something greater, specifically Jesus Christ.
Know Who You Are
This is where Mrs. Zangeri would have us all make a list of
how we identify. In middle school, this
would have looked like “I am a…dancer, singer, friend, sister, gingerbread
house maker…” All this is good to know,
but it doesn’t really get to the core of where you came from or where you’re
going.
In Romans 8:16 we learn that “we are the children of God.” Sure you have your biological parents, but
God is your Eternal Father. He not only
created your Spirit, but also your body.
And he created it in His image (Genisis 1:27). You are His.
Does this make you special?
Of course. Does this make you
valuable? Absolutely. Does this make you better than those around
you? No way.
For some reason, we are constantly trying to measure our
worth by comparing ourselves to others. “Am I prettier than her?” “How much money do I make compared to
him.” It’s like we believe we have to be
somehow better than others, in order to be worth our own self respect. Guess what? Chances
are, you are average in most ways. I
know I am! But after coming to this
realization I felt liberated to know that my worth is not dependent on where my
abilities and assets fall on a bell curve.
Every single one of us are spiritual siblings, and every one of us has
the same eternal potential. You don’t
have to be richer, better looking, have amazing social skills, or smarter, to
be worth infinite amounts in the eyes of God and have unimaginable amounts of
potential.
I remember looking at my first child a few days after he was
born, and feeling like someone could place a mountain of all the diamonds in
the world in front of me, and they would have seemed worthless compared to the
little person in my arms. And that is
just the capacity of my tiny human brain.
A loving Heavenly Father loves us more and finds more worth in us than
we can imagine. Even if we are not
better than others, we are even more special than Stewart Smalley could insist.
What is your potential?
Moses, the prophet, grew up in the palace of a worldly
king. Egypt, at the time, had a culture
of self worship, not unlike ours. He was
at the center of a great civilization that was revolutionizing architecture,
the arts, and politics. I imagine that
he was pretty pleased with the potential he saw in himself. I imagine that he grew up with a very high
self-esteem.
But when he received a vision of every single one of God’s
creations, he was left in complete awe.
He replied, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing
I never had supposed” (Moses 1:10.)
In the grand spectrum of the Universe, Moses suddenly felt like a microscopic
spec of dust. His previously great
confidence, and feeling of self importance was shot.
But then the Lord taught him an important truth. He said, “This is my work and my glory—to
bring to pass the immortality and
eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39.) In other words, all of God’s creations are
for the benefit of man, to help us one day live forever in His presence. We may feel like our lives are meaningless at times, but
this Earth and the entire Universe, was created by God, for us. His whole purpose is to help us progress
because He loves us infinitely. When
everything around us seems to tell us we are worthless, we should remember
that to Heavenly Father we are priceless.
Knowing who we are and what we can become can be a great
source of confidence, but it still isn’t enough. Sometimes our talents, abilities, and possessions
just aren’t enough for us to succeed at a specific task. What then?
Unless we look outside ourselves for a source of greater strength, we
will be left facing our own inadequacies and that poor little self-esteem
monitor is going to wobble right back to zero.
Confidence in Christ
I served as a Missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, and if you don’t know what that’s like, imagine being an
inexperienced 21 year old girl, moving thousands of miles away from family and friends, to
spend all day, every day doing what you believes is the most important thing in
the world: preaching the gospel. It was
extremely fun, but also stressful and exhausting at times.
Typically a missionary spends his or her first 3 months with
a trainer, learning the ropes. Then
maybe after another year of learning from more experienced missionaries, he or
she may have the opportunity to train a brand new missionary. But in my mission, there was a shortage of
trainers, and after 3 months, my mission President called to tell me that I
would be training a new Sister missionary.
I was shocked. How? I didn’t have the information or skills to do
the job. I felt completely inadequate.
After about a week of anticipatory stress, I got my new companion,
and we worked hard. I can’t think of a
time in my life I worked harder. I was constantly
finding new ways to improve and stretch, and tried to be perfectly obedient to
God’s commandments. I told myself that I
could do this! Friends tried boosting my self-esteem by telling me what a great job
I was doing. We were even having a
significant amount of success. Surprisingly
though, I felt little peace. Actually, it
felt like there was screaming in my head constantly. I was completely overwhelmed.
About 3 weeks in to this emotional fiasco, I had an interview with my
Mission President. I just wept, and said
something about not knowing what I was doing, and feeling burdened. Expecting President to tell me how to fill
out the paper work the right way, or how to knock on someone’s door with suave,
he simply said, “Sister Ellsworth, you are promised to have the Gift of the
Holy Ghost with you at all times.” This
is all he said, before he went on to ask how my companion was doing.
At first I had wondered if he was really paying attention to
my concerns, but as I pondered his words, I got a very clear impression that
sounded something like this: “Stop relying on yourself! You can't do this by yourself, and even
though you’ve been preaching all day every day about Christ’s grace, you don’t
really believe in your heart that his grace applies to you. But it does!
You don’t need confidence in yourself.
You need to have confidence in the Lord, and that He has the power to
use someone like you to do great things.”
Later that day, I read in the missionary guide, that some
people “feel confident that they know how to be successful. Others lack such confidence. Remember, however, that your confidence and
faith should be in Christ, not in yourself.
Rely on the Spirit rather than your own talents and abilities” (Preach
My Gospel, page 97.)
My mission and my life changed. I
learned what it really meant to trust in God.
There was no way I had enough talent, smarts, or charisma to accomplish
what I needed to, but I realized that it didn’t matter. Christ can do anything he wants with
imperfect people.
There are beautiful examples of Prophets learning this same
lesson as God calls them to do his work.
Often their confidence in their own abilities are minimal. When Enoch was called to preach, “he bowed himself
to the earth, before the Lord, and spake before the Lord, saying: Why is it
that I have found favor in thy sight, and am but a lad, and all the
people hate me;
for I am slow of
speech; wherefore am I thy servant?” The
Lord's reply is beautiful. “Go forth and
do as I have commanded thee, and no man shall pierce thee. Open thy mouth, and it
shall be filled, and I will give thee utterance, for all flesh is in my hands,
and I will do as seemeth me good (Moses 6:32-33.)
I love that last line: “All flesh is in my hands, and I will
do as seemeth me good.” Enoch became
such a powerful speaker that people traveled from miles around to hear his
words, and trembled and fell when they heard his words. Why?
Because he wasn’t speaking his own words. He said what God told him to. If our desire is to obey God, it doesn’t
really matter what our current talents are. He
can use us to move mountains if he wants to.
We are warned throughout the scriptures of trusting in “the
arm of flesh,” “princes,” our “own
understanding,” in “riches.” These things just aren’t lasting. They can only take us so far.
What is it that we’d like more confidence in? Our ability to make friends? To speak publicly? To find our dream
job? To find someone who loves us? Sometimes our goals can be skewed by the
praise of those around us. But if we are
setting goals that are aligned with God’s will, and if we depend on him to help
us complete our goals, we can do anything He wants us to.
Christians often refer to the story of Christ feeding the
5,000 with only a few scraps of food, as an impressive depiction of his
abilities to perform miracles. But what
strikes me most about this story is the source of food. When the apostles told Christ that they
didn’t have enough money to feed His congregation Andrew reported, “There is a
lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are
they among so many?” (John 6:9). The answer was rhetorical.
It obviously wasn’t enough.
But
what that boy did inspires me. He didn’t
hold back, and he gave all that he had to the Lord. It’s wasn’t nearly enough to make a dent on
the hunger of 5,000 people, but when he turned it all over to Christ, a miracle
happened. Not only was everyone filled,
but 12 baskets of food were left over!
We may not have many talents as we’d like, and what we have
may feel like nothing compared to the task at hand. But I know that if we give all that we have
to the Lord, than he can work miracles with us. As we depend on the Savior and the sacrifice
He’s made for us, we can find peace in who we are. As we focus on His strength and not our own,
we can find confidence in who we are as children of God.
