Identifying The Gold On The Inside Of You

Here is episode 11 of the Called Forth Podcast. Full Transcript below.

Video version here: https://youtu.be/kyupCwJs2MU

Sometimes our gold goes through a filtering process and the dirt and grime gets shaken away to reveal the beauty underneath. And that happens sometimes through trials and tribulations. We learn what we're made of, what we're capable of, the gold that rises up out of the hardest parts of our story. Hello and welcome to this episode of Called Forth.

Today we are going to be discussing how to find the gold on the in side of you. And sometimes it can feel really tough. But I have some strategies and tips that I believe will help you really evaluate and know and embody the gold that's on the inside of you. I think knowing your value and your worth and the gold that's on the inside of you is so important because oftentimes we can be our own worst critic.

We will easily recognize the gifts in other people and be able to identify the things that make them special and unique. But when it comes to ourselves, we really struggle to see what it is that we offer and bring to the world. And often we compare. We hold up somebody else's gifts and abilities and compare that against our own.

And we feel like we just don't measure on the scale of valuable talents and abilities or impact or influence. We feel like everybody else comes with greater skill, more value, all of the things. And so I think it's important to really know the gold on the inside of us. And it's not about being arrogant or prideful in seeing the ways that we're better, but it's really just recognizing that God has given you talents and abilities and gifts and he's he's made you amazing.

He made you and he loves you. You are valuable because you are you. And so really peeling back to the core of our identities that we're valuable because we're children of God. But to add a layer to that is where I really think we can start to talk about finding the gold on the inside of ourselves. So the first thing that I want you to do is look back on your life and the things that you've overcome, not necessarily from your perspective of looking back on your life, but from a biographer's perspective.

And I say this because sometimes we can look at our own story and we were like, Yeah, I overcame that. But, you know, everybody has to overcome challenges. What's the big deal about what I've overcome or what I've done? But if you were the biographer in somebody else's life, you would likely be able to highlight the things that they accomplished in their life.

You would be able to pinpoint and highlight the things that maybe for themselves they don't see are a big deal. And so I want you to think about your own story from a biographer's perspective. It look at what you've overcome from start to finish. It's so easy in life to look at how far we have yet to go, because oftentimes we're not, as far as we hoped, that we would be at this point.

But rather than doing that, I want you to look back at your life and what you have overcome, the challenges that you have come on the other side of. And I want you to recognize the gravity and the weight of what's been there and what you've survived. I think when you do that, it helps to paint a picture for yourself of realizing I'm not as weak as I thought I was.

When you start to think about the strength that you built through the challenges that you faced. You start to realize the grit and the stamina and the resiliency that you've built along the way, that maybe at this point you haven't even really recognized or appreciated. I think it's so good to do this, especially when we're coming up against a challenge or a trial or a struggle, because oftentimes we forget what we've walked through.

And if we go back and we start to recall, you know what, I have survived this thing back here, and if I can survive this thing back here, I can survive what's in front of me. It just helps to build your faith and get that grittiness, to rise up in your spirit, to decide, I'm going to survive this current challenge that I'm facing.

The other thing I want you to look at is asking yourself, What does God say about you? And this is going back to the identity conversation I started to have in the very beginning. What does God say about you? Would a scripture say about you? Ask God to show you how He sees you because when you do that, it really opens your eyes.

I was talking to a really good friend the other day. We were having a meeting with several other ladies and she brought up this visual of how Jesus closed us in white, and he's excited to bring us to the Father. And I realize if you don't have the context of this conversation, maybe it sounds a little funny, but the point of what she was getting to is that the way God sees us, the way Jesus Jesus is, that we are closed in white.

And so often we think about our past failures and the things that we've done wrong and the worst parts of our story. But that's not what God sees when he looks at us. He sees the beautiful, amazing person that he made. And so I think if we can recognize the way that God sees us, we would not be bogged down with the level of guilt and shame and condemnation that we keep on ourselves, but rather we would be filled with the perspective that God has when He looks at us.

And I know I've mentioned this before in previous episodes, you know, our stories shape us in so many ways, and all of us have gone through challenging things. And sometimes we can get caught up. And I wish my story hadn't unfolded this way or I wish I had done things differently. But the truth is, we don't live life in a bubble.

There's things that happen that we can't control. And I truly believe that God makes us better on the other side of the struggle than we ever would have been had it never happened. And so I think if we look at our life from, you know, I don't know if you would want to call it a God filter or a grace filter or whatever you would label this.

I think it would really help you to evaluate your life for a more fair perspective to yourself, or what I would call like an elevated perspective, meaning you can look at the things that you've been through. And I actually did this recently and a Facebook post or a social media post. I, I titled it like a duotone filter where I described the things that I had been through and then what they actually meant.

So I described, you know, I went through five years of depression. If I choose to look at that five years of depression from the filter of five years of my life, that's wasted that perspective isn't going to serve me. But if I look at that five years of my life from the filter and the perspective and the lens of I've gained so much wisdom and clarity and I know how to handle depressing thoughts when they come.

I know how to take more control in my mind because of what I've been through and the contrasting perspective that I was able to list were all positive things. I learned wisdom. I learned strength and resiliency and stamina and grit. And so not to digress from my original intention of finding the golden you, I want to just really give you the opportunity to reflect on your life and realize these things that have happened to you can serve you, and the perspective that you hold with them is really going to make a difference on whether you can pull the gold out of those situations.

The next thing I want you to do is think about what would you tell the younger you? What would you what would you tell yourself? Ten years ago, 20 years ago, what would you tell the younger you? And I say this because I know I can think back to my life. And I was so stressed and worried about things, about whether different things would work out in my life.

And if I could go back and tell myself anything, one of the things would be like, chill out, just relax. Like it's going to work out. Just take a deep breath. Have faith, trust. Don't be filled with such doubt or insecurity. In the end, as life happens, we get through some of the toughest things and we never think we're going to overcome.

So I'm sure you can think back on your own life. Two things that you have faced that you didn't know if you would come out on the other side. And so if you could write the younger you and tell her or him, you're going to be okay. It's going to be challenging. You're going to face some really tough stuff, but you're going to make it.

I want you to think about that for from the perspective of what if what were the 20 year down the road? Write to you right now. What would they say to you? And then think about how can I adopt this attitude of knowing that I am going to be okay? Just envision what the 20 year later version of you would tell you and then reflect on that.

There is this saying in brand builders where they say you are most powerfully position to serve the person you once were. Actually, I think it's Rory Vaden that says this quote, and it was really powerful the first time I heard it. And so if you think that you don't have gold, I want to tell you, you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person that you once were.

You have gold to offer that person. You have wisdom and perspective to offer the person that's struggling with some of the same battles that you once struggled with. And when you recognize that you have gold on the inside of you, you can more confidently reach out to those in need and approach people that are hurting and struggling. So many times we think we don't have anything to give or we don't have anything to offer.

And that's just not true. This world is filled with hurting people. I mean, look at ourselves. We are we hurt from time to time. And there is something that you can give people who are coming up behind you facing those same struggles you once did. And I think it's so valuable to give back and offer a helping hand to those in need.

I know for me, as a you know, somebody who got married at 17 and had a baby at 18 when I moved to Connecticut, my husband is in the military. One of the things I did was I volunteered at a crisis pregnancy center while I was there. And although my situation was different, I ended up getting married. So I had that support system.

I still knew that I wanted to help other moms because I wanted to offer a helping hand to other young women who found themselves on a completely life altering path. And really, it's a reason why I help out with the nonprofit Passport to Purpose, because this is a girls youth mentorship program. And I often think and say, you know, I wish I would have had that type of mentorship when I was their age.

And so you can think about for you, you have gold and wisdom to offer the world. There is so much value in finding an organization that you can volunteer with or seeking out opportunities to be a bright light in someone's life. You are most powerfully positioned to serve the person that you once were. Another thing that I would mention in discovering the gold that's on the inside of you is to be willing to step out and pursue your passions and interests.

Sometimes we have it in our minds that our purpose and the things we're actually gifted at just come flowing out of us are just like, so easy, you know? If I'm naturally gifted at it, doesn't it just, like, flow out of me? And it happens and I'm naturally gifted, but often, like, what I tell my kids, like Picasso didn't come out of the womb knowing how to paint this amazing masterpiece.

Mozart didn't, at the age of six months, a year, even two years, just know without hours of practice how to make a classical piece of music. It took time, it took effort, it took energy, it took hours of work towards their skill set that brought them to the level that they became known for. And so if you're wanting to know what's on the inside of you, what you're capable of, I encourage you to step out in your passions and interests and be willing to put in that time and that effort and that energy to develop your skill set in a particular area that you find interesting.

You and something that I want to remind you of. If you think about like the gold rush and all of the people that were in the foothills of all of these communities in the West that were mining for gold. And if you can just envision what that look like as a pioneer, I'm not a gold rush expert. You know, I don't know the whole process of mining for gold from start to finish.

So you'll have to forgive my immature analogy here, but I think it's powerful if you envision those pioneers putting the dirt filled with specks of gold on top of their filter that they would shake and the dirt would fall out and it would reveal the gold pieces, the gold specks, the gold nuggets. I want you to think about the gold on the inside of you is the same thing in the sense of sometimes our gold goes through a filtering process and the dirt and the grime gets shaken away to reveal the beauty underneath.

And that happens sometimes through trials and tribulations. We learn what we're made of, what we're capable of, the gold that rises up out of the hardest parts of our story. Sometimes our gold has to be polished off. Like you can have this gold nugget and you polish all the dirt and grime off of it. But once it's polished off, it reveals this beautiful, valuable material substance component.

So just because you don't feel like you shine like a diamond, as Rihanna says, or you might feel like you don't glimmer gold, there might be a few things that you need to shake off. There might be a few things that you need to polish up. Maybe you need to polish off in your mindset because you don't see your own gold because of what you've been through.

Maybe there's limiting beliefs and belief structures that you operate out of that don't even allow you to see your own gold because of things that you've been through. And it might take some time and a counseling office with a coach or a mentor to polish off those mindsets and get rid of some of the grit and the grime that you have built up over time because of hurt and wounds and trauma, spending time with the Lord to do this as well.

Oftentimes we think of self-care as external going to get a pedicure, going to go get a facial, going to work out. You know, we think of how it affects our external bodies, but really self-care is also internal. And this is where I think all of these pieces come together. We take time to Deep Dove and reflect with God and we ask him, God, do you have any blindspots that you want to reveal to me?

Do I have any hurt or trauma that you want to bring me to a deeper level of healing on? Do I have any belief systems that Lord that you need to deconstruct in me? Because I've just been operating from a place of being wounded or paralyzed in fear. When we take this time to deep dove and reflect and really evaluate, we're doing that internal self-care work that is so valuable and so important.

The last thing that you could do in discovering the goal that's on the inside of you is ask the people closest to you. Because sometimes the people that are closest to us know us the best. And if we are operating at a flawed belief systems and hurt and trauma, we don't see our own goal. I would encourage you to ask those people closest to you, what do you see in me?

Now, I'm not saying to ask this question of your worst enemy, but really the people closest to you that love you. I know for our family we have family meetings and at the end of our family meetings I always like to go around in our circle and we are supposed to tell each other the things that we love about each other.

So like, I'll approach my oldest or my youngest and I'll say, I want you to tell me something you love about Dad, about mom, about your sister, about your brothers. And then I do this to each person. So we go around and we get to hear from everybody the thing that that person loves about us. And it's really a bonding experience and is a fresh reminder of the goal that's on the inside of them.

Maybe it's the way you show up so positively in your life. No matter what you're facing, you show up with a positive attitude that is gold. Maybe it's your grittiness and your resiliency and your determination, because no matter how many times you get knocked down, you still keep getting up and trying again and again. That is gold. Maybe for you.

You were an encourager and it doesn't matter what's going wrong in your life, you still find time to encourage other people and cheer someone else on and root for someone else. That is gold. I don't want you to discredit the things in your life, the gold that you have on you, in you, as not as valuable somebody as somebody else.

Because sometimes we look at other people and their hard skills, meaning like their application skills, like this person can do technology, they know how to solve computer problems or that person knows how to do the DIY thing on the weekend and make this like masterpiece in 8 hours or level their home and make it look like an HGTV cover or a Pinterest album.

And we look at those skill sets, the applicable skill sets as the only thing that is of value and worse, and the only goal that you can claim is gold. But that's not the only thing that gold is. It's those things that I just mentioned as well. So I hope this discussion today on finding the gold on the inside of you has really helped you to evaluate and consider things in a way that maybe you didn't before.

If there's something in this episode that stood out, particularly strong to you, I would love it if you would tag me in your stories and let me know what you love most about this episode until next time.