Becoming Well With Liz Tafadzwa

Hello BW Community. It feels so good to be back with another Blog Post. I’m about to enter a busy month as it is my final full month of the semester so papers, presentations, and group assignments will be coming in left, right, and center. Nonetheless, I’m enjoying writing and sharing my nuggets of wisdom here because believe it or not it refreshes me. Proverbs 11:25 says “the generous will prosper, those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.” I think I’m beginning to see what King Solomon meant in this proverb. If you have been feeling overwhelmed, running on E or just hit a wall, i encourage you to step away from whatever it is that is overwhelming you and think of what you can give. Maybe it’s giving a compliment to someone, time, an opportunity, information/knowledge, a gift, money, or any else that is in your hands. God has a way of refreshing and refueling you when you decide to give away something even if you yourself are stretched. Now i am encouraging self-negligence and if you feel so stretched to the point of breaking, honor that cue and take of yourself. However, if you just have been feeling like a cloud is over you and you seem to be struggling with time management or finishing your tasks, you are the person I’m speaking to. God has a way of expanding your capacity to do what has been overwhelming you as soon as you decide to give away something as a response to his love for you.

But that’s not the topic of the day, today we are going to be talking about YOU. Yes, you are the focus and central point of this entire Blog Post. As 2023 has been a year of facing me in my raw state, it’s been hard, messy, painful and scary but as December fast approaches I can confidently say it has freed me. Many people including myself live most of their lives running away from themselves because their real self seems unbearable. We hide behind careers, perfect grades in school, the latest technological gadgets, branded clothing, online personas, unhealthy but picture-perfect relationships, children, titles, cars, social media followers, social groups, money, philanthropic work, service in church and community, etc. If you think I’m about to bash these things then that is the first thing we may need to address. We have been so conditioned to always defend ourselves,  walk around with our guard up because for many of us one attack, constructive correction, or helpful suggestion is enough for us to throw arrows at people who are meant to pull out arrows from our hearts. So, before I go too ahead of myself there is nothing inherently wrong with any of these things that we often fall victim to when they become our masks. The only problem is when those things become barriers to us meeting our whole, unique, and truest selves. 

“Where running ends healing has a chance to commence”

So what causes us to neglect our true selves because no one is born a fake or copycat. We are all born as original and unique individuals, but somewhere along the line we either consciously or unconsciously made a decision to betray who we truly were to survive the environment we were placed in. Survival perhaps meant you had to fit into the group at school or work, dress a certain way that made you uncomfortable, stop something that brought you joy because people thought it was weird, or maybe a narcissistic authority figure wanted you to be them that you had to kiss goodbye to who you truly were in order to get what you needed at the time. Traumatic experiences, an unmet need for belonging, a non-existent or weak relationship with God, self-hatred, and unmanaged insecurities are the main factors I have observed in my twenty-something years of life that change us. Naturally, I am a very observant person and ask layered questions to many different people all the time so I can better understand humans and I have noticed a common trend among these factors. 10 years from now I may have a different or expanded list but for right now at this moment I will settle on these factors.

Trauma is defined as an injury caused by an event, series of events, or a set of uncontrollable circumstances that often leave you with overwhelming shock. It changes how you see the person/people, yourself, and the world around you. For many people, their childlike innocence is taken away once they experience a traumatic experience. After the traumatic event occurred you may have stopped being as playful as you naturally ARE because that characteristic is still a part of you, it’s just buried, you became timid and kept to yourself instead of being assertive, you became controlling instead of trusting, you became impulsive instead of strategic, you started hating a certain gender because you were assaulted by a person with that gender, you starting struggling to obey authority because an authority figure abused you, you started repelling love when it was presented to you. Trauma is so destructive that it can change your emotional, psychological, physical, relational, financial, and spiritual makeup. It’s where the enemy traffics too because remember his plan is to still, kill, and destroy. God on the other hand traffics in healing, and restoration because he came to give you life and life in abundance in all areas of your life. 

Left unprocessed for a long time trauma changes you to someone you will one day wake up and not even recognize. If you may still be wondering what is classified as a traumatic event. Before I go any further I want to put it out there that everyone will experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime because we live in a fallen world. You will either fall victim to someone’s unprocessed trauma projected onto you or you will be a conduit of someone else’s trauma. However I don’t want you to feel discouraged or scared and say well Liz, I might as well stay guarded if someone will one day hurt me. For starters, trauma often finds all of us when we are most vulnerable or the least prepared. If you experienced childhood trauma, you were vulnerable as a child and didn’t know how to protect yourself and if trauma happens in your life it may occur when you didn’t see it coming. You lose a loved one unexpectedly, the spouse cheats or files for divorce, the company you helped build from the ground up takes you to court for false accusations, you find out your child has special needs, and you get sued for something that could have been avoided if you read the Terms and conditions, you are abused to the point of soul damage by the man who vowed to love and protect you till death do you apart, you file bankruptcy with a marriage hanging by a thread and a toddler and newborn, your child gets into an accident and is crippled for the rest of their life. These are the cards that many people around the world have been dealt with. Yes, you eventually come to terms with it, but the trauma still leaves an enduring mark.

“Unprocessed trauma kept for a long time changes us for the worse”

Our need for belonging is so strong that in the Bible God time and time again commands us to worship him, fulfill his vision for our lives, heal, and live in community. He designed us that way and I don’t care how much you don’t like people, but you do need people. If you live in isolation long enough the enemy will attack you aggressively because you are a weak link and there my friend is a place you never want to be in. However, this is not to say just because you are not in the community right now it means you don’t want to be in the community. Maybe you grew up excluded by your family, a friend group at school or church, at work, or at camp. That feeling of being left out intentionally or unintentionally done repeatedly will sting enough to a point that it will change you. You either change to be what you think the group wants you to be so you can fit in and not feel like the odd one who is easy to subtly attack or you can decide to do life alone. Both extremes are destructive and change who God really you to be. All of us thrive when we do life in a safe, loving, and healthy community of 6-12 people max. I am still on a journey of finding a community that fits me best so don’t lose heart if you are in the same position as i am. The important thing is you are trying your best to try different communal groups to see what feels and works best for what and who God made you to be. It will also benefit you to ask God in prayer to lead you into the community he is preparing for you.

My third factor was an absent or strained relationship with God. This is one factor I was quite surprised by or at least did not see the correlation right away, but once you establish a healthy intimate relationship with God you will understand what I mean. A relationship with him will inevitably enable you to let your guard down and be yourself. You will start to see how ridiculous it is to come to him with a  mask because he already knows the truth anywhere. An aha moment finally clicks that if God can stand, accept, and love my messy, and sometimes crazy self but authentic self then who is to tell me that I’m not good enough? It’s not pride, but freedom. Even when God begins his maturity journey in you his love and acceptance of you don’t not change one bit. He loved you before you were born and will continue to love you even in heaven and his acceptance of you is not based on your “good behavior” but solely on what Jesus did on the cross for you. So when you don’t have a relationship with God as is the case with unbelievers or a strained relationship because you have been struggling to nurture it which by the way is normal and happens to all of us as our spiritual maturity develops, it is easy to stay in the never ending treadmill of other people’s expectations, love, and acceptance. I don’t know about you but trying to gain acceptance and love from a person who already doesn’t value and appreciate you is incredibly exhausting and tormenting. The beautiful thing is the more you learn about who God is by spending quality time with him, he simultaneously starts showing you who you really are. It’s a beautiful, healing and freeing experience.

The last two were self-hatred and unmanaged insecurities. Myles Munroe said it best, “self-hatred is a result of lack of self-discovery. ” When you discover who you were made to be self-love is an inevitable consequence. I also said UNMANAGED insecurities because I used to think if you just have faith and believe once what God says about you then you shouldn’t have insecurities. I quickly realized that to not the reality for many people including myself. Insecurities are often birthed from what we were picked up when we were growing up or something in us that is so different from what pop culture or society says it should be eg a big stomach as a non-pregnant young woman, short height as a man, big forehead or slow grasp of concepts in class. However, i still believe God can completely eliminate insecurities, while others may be lifelong subtle thorns in our flesh that we have to manage with the help of the Holy Spirit. 

“Self discovery breeds self love”- Myles Munroe

Practical Steps to Begin The Process of Self Discovery

• Address your trauma. Identification is the first step
• Consider investing in therapy or utilizing free therapy information by following the right social media accounts, researching and if you are in school making use of free counseling services available on campus or at church. A start is better than nothing.
• Spend weekly quality solitude time
• When you respond in a way you don’t like ask prompting questions instead of crucifying yourself eg why did that make me angry, why was I offended by that, why didn’t i speak up for myself in that moment, why did that person’s gesture rub me the wrong way
• Observe your behavior and how your body feels when interacting with people and compare that with how you behave and feel when you are alone
• Write down what your gift/s, passions, and hobbies are
• Take yourself on a solo date and observe how you feel when you do so
• Think back and write down how you were before something changed who you authentically were
• Where do your interests naturally gravitate towards?
• When do you feel most alive, yourself, and integrated?
• Ask yourself what you really want out of life?
• Ask yourself what is your definition of success
• Establish or strengthen your relationship with God by prioritizing it
• Are you a morning or evening person
• What’s your fashion style
• What is your favorite music genre
• What kind of learner are you?
• Go on a 90-day social media sabbatical to unpack your past traumas
• Read books or listen to audiobooks 
• Offer and ask for forgiveness
• Learn your money language and relationship
• What are your love languages and could some of them be an indication of what you didn’t receive as a child?
• Be honest about your vices(the things you turn to, to cope with your triggers) 

These exercises may take months or years for you to fully implement because the same way the factors that changed you took years to sink into your system, it will also take a while to unlearn those things and begin embracing healthier alternatives so you can return to who God made you to be. Whatever the case may be, know that healing is messy and often lonely but if you stay the course you will be glad you did at the end of it all. Again, remember healing is not trying to fix yourself but allowing yourself to return back to who you were authentically made to be. The pain, effort and time it will demand is worth it because we all need the REAL YOU. You will be the most fulfilled, effective, loving and growing version of you when you are in your natural form.

Ponder this one for the next week or two. I will be doing my inner work too and on days where you feel lonely and feel like maybe im just being too deep because noone seems to be doing their work, let me be the one to remind you that you are not alone. Kingsley Okonkwo always says, “you harvest where you invest.” Your future self will thank you for the investment into your healing and healthy you are making today. You matter and are deeply loved.

“You harvest where you invest”- Kinglsey Okonkwo

Be sure to engage, but if not i pray something stood out to you and you can take way and do something with it. See you on the next one!