I started writing this blog in August 2021, it appears that I am a slow learner or simply did not get it at that time.
I have come to the conclusion that the season I am in is the process of “Unlearning” things. I was actually not even aware that this is a real and legitimate season in our lives.
Did I come to this conclusion without fighting it? Heck no. I have been fighting for the past 3 years, desperately trying to figure out the what, the why and the how’s that fit together as pieces of my life. I have been wanting and craving: “going back to what I know, to where I came from.”
Turns out, I am exactly like the Israelites wandering in the desert after they had been rescued from Egypt. They at first were relieved but then it became “hard”, and they wanted to go back, even if it meant abuse and slavery. What was wrong with them? What is wrong with me?
I heard this awesome podcast by Jerry Flowers on “Therapy Thursday”, I mean the guy has been anointed by God with some huge messages. This one is called “Unlearning Survival Tactics”. He says: “The survival tactics you have learned in your now will not serve you to thrive when God gives you your next.”
I am not sure how many times I have listened to this podcast, it has been wrecking me but in a good way. (link at the bottom)
When I think about it, everything that has been taught to me, and to you for that matter, has been taught to us by other people. Our parents, our siblings, our school friends, our teachers, our spouses. When did you or I actually get to figure out who we were by ourselves? There was no course in school, no one ever sat me down to discuss it.
If I asked you to describe the “real” you, could you do it? Or would you give me the version that was created by the people who have been around you, the one that they helped shape you as and that you now think of as your personality?
We all have mechanisms built into ourselves that we designed so that we could be a survivor. Start looking at yourself and your answers to other people. When someone asks you, “How are you?”
Do you say, “Fine,” when you are really not? That is a system you put into place so you would not have to feel your answer. Consider how would you answer if you were being real, truthful and authentic?
When someone starts to pick a fight with you, or starts an argument, how do you react?
1) You back off and get quiet because confronting is not your thing? That is a system you built into you so that you would not have to feel the other person’s negative emotions. You set up that system to protect yourself. It allowed you to put up walls around you so you would not feel. It worked for a time, but it is not healthy now.
2) Or are you one to feel the heat and anger rise inside of you and you meet that person head on and the conflict gets fired up? That is a system you built into you, telling yourself perhaps that, no one is going to push you around. It is simply another tool in your survival toolkit again that builds walls around you.
Have we ever asked God, “when you created me, before I was even in the womb, who did you create me to be?” God’s purpose for you has never changed. Have you ever taken the time to ask Him what that is?
I am unlearning not to be or feel guilty. Those of us with “need to”, “should”, “ought to” and “have to” thoughts, need to unlearn the guilt factor or the guilt idol. An idol because it rules us. Life has taught us that if we do not measure up to someone else’s expected standards that we need to feel guilty. Who says?
I am unlearning the fact that resting or even napping in the day is “lazy or wrong” – who says? It is wonderful! We should all try it.
I had a friend explain to me that when she started to home school her children – she had to “unlearn” everything. When I asked what she meant she put it this way:
“When I came to my kids as the “teacher” who had all the answers they resented me. When I came along side of them and said, ‘let’s learn this math together,’ it was so much easier!”
Could it be possible that if we ask God to show us, teach us who we are and who He created us to be, if we learned as He comes alongside us, we would find it much easier than being “told” who we are? Could it be that the person we think we are, the things we consider are our personality, are not really us?
Unlearning. Not every situation in life is meant to teach us something – somethings we have to unlearn, a lot of us have a wrong view of many things. Things that were enforced by our families, our culture, our schooling, our prejudices, even our church.
For me, this is the time to unlearn a great many things and it is kind of freeing actually.
Jerry Flowers says that he gets very upset on how most preachers teach on the wilderness and the promise land. He says they miss some very important steps, he has four.
1) Get rescued out of Egypt 2) Remove Pharoh 3) Wilderness 4) Promise Land
#1 We get rescued and leave Egypt. Egypt is that thing that held you captive, a person, place, think of the thing(s) that made us a slave. Things we could not quit or leave or had to have. (think people, abuse, money, addictions, guilt…)
#2 God brought you out of Egypt but now He has to remove Egypt out of you. Just because you do not live there, does not mean you do not crave it anymore. It has to be supernaturally removed or you will end up wanting or going back.
#3 Wilderness is God’s loving design to help you unlearn, relearn and transform into who He created you to be but He does it in a tender and cared for spot, the wilderness.
#4 Promise Land – the place where God is taking you.
What kind of things am I having to unlearn? If I am honest, I do not think I have the “big” things sorted out yet, but God is kind and we are starting slow….
I need to unlearn how not to grab food to comfort me. I learned the pattern many years ago to grab comfort food when life was not “fun” or I was unsure of things. I often would bake something when I was anxious.
I have to unlearn waiting for the next thing to happen instead of enjoying the moment even if nothing is happening, to enjoy the present. Life is often lived with this thought in mind: “when I get………………older, out of school, retired, married, have kids, get my ministry, travel, get my dream job…” whatever it is that we think is the next “thing” we often miss the journey to get there because we are so “end” focused.
I have already unlearned many fallacies. The biggest thing that I have had to unlearn is that I have to be “good enough” to please God. Unlearn all those names that roam around in your head: “failure, dummy, stupid, not good enough, not worthy, not pretty, too fat, too skinny, too tall, too short……” Unlearn them because again, who says?
Newsflash – none of us, not me, not you will ever be perfect. God loved us when we were a mess and as far as I know, we will continue to be messy until the day we die and He will not love us any less then or now.
Unlearning is the way to transform our mind, by unlearning, kind of detoxifying, we make room and space for learning new ways, new methods of survival, new thoughts from God. By unlearning we can be saved from ourselves and others.
Unlearning might just be the new way to find out who you are going to be when you grow up.
Link to podcast: Jerry Flowers, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqt3-ZYd81c&t=816s
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