Finding Your Center
In one of my favorite animated movies, Rise of the Guardians, Santa tells Jack Frost that he (Jack) feels so lost and confused because he doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t know what’s at his center, or core, that defines his identity and purpose.
Using a Russian doll, Santa successively uncovers the layers of who he is—unveiling wonder as his core trait. Everything Santa does comes from that place of seeing the world through large eyes full of wonder.
The question for Jack—and for all of us—is “What’s at your center?”
It’s taken me a long time to identify my center. I am good at adapting to the need of the moment. From a young age, I taught myself to be good with details and administrative tasks. For many years I thought that ability was a significant part of me. I didn’t realize how much the details drain me instead of giving me life. (Adapting is good and helpful and often necessary, of course, but for me it has been out of place. I tried to live as though my adaptive self is my real self, because it was more acceptable and practical.)
Not long ago, I read about a fellow poet and editor’s journey of realizing that she’d become an adaptive version of herself (editor/administrator) to pay the bills, but along the way, that had muffled her creative core. Her words hit me hard. I saw myself in her story. I too had adapted, as we so often must, to make a profession out of my passion. But in the process, I had lost sight of my core.
It’s easy to do when your environment tells you what you should be. When a religious culture tells you what a godly woman or man looks like, and the picture doesn’t fit who you actually are.
About a year ago, I took the DISC personality test. In the DISC test, the four letters represent four broad personality types: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance. The first two are typically oriented toward leadership, and the second two more typically take support roles. I’ve taken this test probably five times throughout my life, and I always got the same result (SC)—until now.
When I saw my most recent score, I told my husband, “I’m becoming myself!”
See, I grew up in a church culture that told me that being a godly woman meant being submissive, passive, agreeable, adaptive. Even though theologically I have not agreed with that for many years, I have still struggled to be assertive. I have questioned whether my voice really mattered, and I have often defaulted into passivity. Truthfully, I was so struck in who I was “supposed to be” that I didn’t know who God had made me to be.
During the painful and difficult season we walked through with our daughter, so much in me got broken and stripped away (for more on that, read my book). On the other side of that, I felt like I wasn’t sure who I was. But I knew I needed to step up and become who God made me to be. No more hiding or conforming.
About a year and a half ago, I asked a friend and pastor to pray over me and bless me, as a woman, to have a voice. He did, and within just a few months, I wrote my book. It’s been quite the journey since then, and then I landed firmly at IS on the DISC personality test. For the first time, I felt like I could own the gifts God has put in me. I didn’t have to silence or adapt who I am to be accepted. And I felt free.
Becoming is scary. But God didn’t make us to fit into any mold (other than to be like Jesus). He didn’t make us to be voiceless or afraid of the fight. He made us to be fierce, and he gave us a voice so that, like him, we can speak truth and light and love into the darkest places.
On this journey of owning my voice and shaking off religious expectations, I finally discovered my center: beauty. My love of beauty in art, in people, in nature, in the divine, drives everything I do. Discovering this has helped me align my heart and priorities more properly. I now know that I need to make space for beauty, because it makes me better. It informs and enables everything else I do. It aligns me to the heart of God, because he is the origin of all beauty. That is how God made me.
What about you? Do you know your center?
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