Becoming Well With Liz Tafadzwa

Hello BW tribe. How has your week been? I’m coming back fresh from fall break and I’m hoping I have enough energy in my tank to last me through the last lap of my final fall semester as an undergrad. Unbelievable! If your week has been hard, be encouraged to know that this too shall pass and if it’s going great be fully present for all of it. To my new readers, welcome! You are already loved here and to my regulars welcome back tribe. 

Can you give a resounding yes if you were asked are you honest in your relationships? I am talking about family relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, church relationships, and work relationships. Is your yes a yes when you want to do something for someone or an internal no is an external yes? Are you honest when your relationships demand you to say or do something that contradicts your values? Can you stand tall ten toes deep about what you can or cannot do or do you go with the wind? Are you a chameleon who changes it’s shade based on the environment? 

These are questions that you and I are often afraid to ask ourselves and give honest answers. A lot of us are miserable in the different relationships we have, not because the other person is the problem but because we are the culprit. When a relationship explodes in our face we get upset and begin the journey of pointing fingers at the other person for not giving us the space to be our authentic selves. Here is what I have discovered: No human being, system, or thing has enough power to control you indefinitely. If you follow me on Instagram you have most likely heard me say this a million times. We give people and things too much power over our lives.

What about people who were highly controlled by their parents/guardians and had no power or say? What about the person trapped in a job they need and their boss is so dominating that they can’t be honest with them? What about the woman locked in an abusive relationship or marriage and has learned to pretend to stay alive or be provided for? What about people who were raised in times of genocide, apartheid, or slavery? These are real-life situations people find themselves in and if you are one of then my realization may have been hard to receive and you know what? I get it. 

But here is an alternative thought I want you to entertain: You still have the ability and power to break the stronghold of fear that’s holding you back. You see, what happened to you was heartbreaking, but would you believe me when I say that was likely not the most damaging part? It’s the fear it came with that ushered you into pretense. You and I have inherent needs of belonging, love, and acceptance. The interesting part is that all these needs are fully met only in a relationship with a person other than ourselves. You most likely wanted all or one of those three core needs met by the person that tried to control you so you gave in to living and showing up as a lie. It takes courage to tell the truth and show up in radical honesty because we run the risk of rejection. That is an emotion that scares a lot of people in the world because it is a deeply painful feeling. 

If you feel chained by the impact of how your past conditioned you to think, feel, and behave just like with almost every post I have written the first step is to admit you have a problem. Notice I didn’t say you are a problem. I said you have a problem. I had to admit that to myself too in front of the mirror. I also had to accept that getting free from the fear that came with abnormal control would come as a result of a changed mindset, not a location change. 

You can move out of your parent’s house and continue living with the fear of rejection you felt as a kid. You can leave one relationship and still live pretentious in your next one because of fear. You can cut off that unhealthy friend, only to fall victim to the newfound friendship because you are still not showing up authentically. Choosing truth over pretense in relationships starts with learning and embracing the truth found in God’s Word. You need to learn, understand, and believe that God’s love for you is unconditional and irrevocable. That nothing you will ever do will make him withdraw his invitation, love, and acceptance of you as a born-again child of God. 

You need to know that God wouldn’t merely desire for you to show up and be authentic in your relationship with him, yourself, and others, but he commands you to do so. These truths have serious implications. God does not honor nor bless dishonesty. Proverbs 12:22  says “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in those who tell the truth.” To delight is to be pleased or satisfied. So you displease God when you lie. 

Proverbs 11:3 also says “Honesty guides good people; dishonesty destroys treacherous people.” The word treacherous means to be guilty of or deceptive. I love this verse because I realized something as I was thinking about this verse. Most of us have become highly deceptive because we surrendered ourselves to pretense over truth. We internally feel like a fraud because we know we are not living in truth. That’s the destructive consequence of not telling and showing up in truth. I have personally wrestled with this my entire life.

 Even though I had and still have a decent amount of quality friends and have the best twin sister on planet Earth, I have always felt like a misfit. I have never fully felt like I fit in anywhere. I think differently, am interested in things that most people my age and younger find too serious.I’m naturally a challenger and a wisdom fanatic. I value delayed gratification and will happily stay indoors for as long as I can reading books or watching educational content non-stop. You will likely never find me at any party(they are too loud and over-stimulating for me).  If you haven’t already read between the lines, I am not the most exciting person to be around. I am the person my close friends and family always come to for wise guidance when making life-altering decisions, a voice of reason when emotions are clouding their thoughts, the one who stresses the application of biblical principles, will often leave you with a business plan or vision to think about and certainly speak to the gift inside of you. I had to accept that this is how God wired me and it’s beautiful that way. I want you to get to that point as well no matter how weird you may think you are. 

For a long time, I felt the pressure to conform and pretend to be someone I’m not. Just like you, I didn’t like the feeling of being left out until the desire to be myself was greater than being included. I accepted that I’m an old soul and why it works so well with my natural gifts and personality. I’m still on the journey to full freedom, but I’m slowly making peace with being different. It’s more liberating than it is painful. When you are fake in relationships, you also become alarmingly inconsistent. Why? Because it’s exhausting to not be yourself.

Now, before this turns into a real slippery slope, truth outside of love is a sin. So, I am not encouraging you to start saying hurtful things to people or becoming judgemental and prideful in your relationships. What I am advocating is for you to embrace the risk that comes with truth. Embrace the reality that you may lose some people in your life when you decide to be honest in your relationships. Why would you want to keep people within proximity if it requires you to not be yourself to keep them? As Christians, we are commanded to love people but also guard our hearts because the issues of life flow from it. In other words, we are called to live balanced lives and refrain from extremist thinking and approaches.

You will get screams and cold shoulders from people who thrived from your lack of boundaries. You may face false accusations because you are no longer easy to manipulate. You may have people use Scripture out of context to guilt trip you. People may attempt to bully you back into the mold of phoniness. Endure those groaning pains and resist the pressure to give up until you are fully free. God will always love and see you even when those you thought loved you reject you. If you can find a few safe people who you trust, inform them of the journey you are about to embark on. That will help you have a hedge of protection from isolation. If you don’t have any person, but God I can be that person for you. (email/DM me) because I know the importance of having at least one safe person in addition to God.

 People pleasing is often a symptom of a deeper issue which is fear. 1 John 4:18 says “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.”  When you are not fully convinced someone loves you unconditionally, you will automatically function from a place of fear when you are around them. We all do it with God and people. Pleasing people is our way of keeping the fear at bay because somehow we think if we can perform for them then maybe they will love us enough to fully accept us for who we are. In the process of pleasing, we also lose ourselves and become chronically pretentious because it feels like a hedge of protection.

Until you are fully convinced God loves you unconditionally, with your mess, addictions, disorders, brokenness, annoying quirks, etc no human being will fill that innate void. We carry this void into our different relationships and demand people to meet that void without first letting the only one capable of loving us perfectly fill it. People who have been awakened to God’s unconditional love for them are the most authentic and healthiest individuals in relationships.

Back in 2022, Jimmy Rollins was speaking at my local church at the time and he said “Be honest with many and vulnerable with a few,” and it stuck with me. The people who get to experience your vulnerability have to earn it, but you MUST be honest with everyone. That’s the only way to stay healthy and authentic in relationships. Proverbs 27:5-6 says “An open rebuke is better than hidden love! Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.” People might not like to hear the truth in the moment, but the truth will eventually prove itself right in their lives. Culture pushes the rhetoric that emotions trump truth, but that will leave many of us feeling validated but stuck. I want you to feel seen and understood, but also freed. I love you and I will see you on the next one.

“Be honest with many and vulnerable with a few”- Jimmy and Irene Rollins