Magic

I have been thinking lately that I am in possession of some kind of magic.  It isn't world changing, I can't fly through the air, or lift cars over my head kind of thing.  But maybe, depending on the situation, it can be life changing.

I might be blowing this out of proportion.  I don't want to make this sound like I am lifting myself above others.  Truthfully, I'm not even sure how powerful this magic is.  Because this magic only works inside other people.  Often I don't even realize I'm using the magic, which baffles me the most.  I'll just be going along, being myself, and somehow, something I do or say changes a person's outlook for good.  The only times I realize this magic even exists is when they mention it to me.  It makes me wonder how many times it happened and I'll never even know the impact I had on someone.  Sometimes it makes people want to hang out with me and I'll never know what it was that first made them want to spend time with me.  Some people search me out when they are having a bad day.

My kids and husband cling to me - which makes sense.  But when that same level of clingyness comes from outside my family, it makes me start to wonder, especially when I didn't specifically try to help them.

Of course when I can, I try to use this magic on command.  If ever a good friend is struggling or something, I'll go to them and try to lift them up and help them if I can.  Most times I never know if I've done what I could, or if I even did any good at all.  But when I do this, I've noticed recently that something happens that I never really expected.

Often, it seems, that my good friends struggle with the same problems I have - self-worth.  It seems to be a much more common disease than I thought.  I won't let myself be stronger for myself.  But when I find myself in a position where I need to help a friend, I grow stronger.  Whether I grow stronger because I'm helping someone else, or I grow stronger so that I have the capacity to help them, I don't know.  It could also be that I had already grown before I tried to help them, but I didn't notice the growth until I tried to help.  I've just noticed that I'll grow during those times.

People have said that when you serve someone, you gain more blessings than they do.  If this weird growth is that, I never expected it that way, but I suppose it could be possible.

All this comes down to this:

Not only do I not hate myself anymore, but I also think that I'm starting to accept myself.  I'm starting to like myself and understand, maybe a little bit, why people would like me.  I'm starting to wonder - maybe I do think that I have worth as a person.  I don't know how much.  And it also has surprised me that I'm not basing my worth on anything other than myself.  I'm not basing it on what I can or can't do, or my accomplishments.  I'm basing it on me - my personality - my desire to do good and help others - or maybe just the fact that I'm a living, breathing person.

I was talking the other day to someone about how he feels like his life is so boring and uninteresting that even if he did want to write about something, it wouldn't be interesting.  That's something that I could have said (or may have said) even months ago.  In fact, I did.  I had a huge writers block - I couldn't get myself to write anything because whenever I started trying to write something, I started to think, "This doesn't matter, who would read this?  This is so not interesting at all."  It likely lasted a month or more.  I could write in my fictional novel - but I couldn't write anything about my life, even though I really wanted to, because I would start worrying about what others would think of it.

Funnily enough, I got myself out of that pit by torturing myself.  Not literally - but the next writer's group meeting was coming up, and I didn't want to go and say, once again, "I don't have anything to read..." so what did I do?  I started writing something.  I went to the library and just wrote.  The meeting started at 6:30 - I got to the library at 5.  And I wrote.  And I was determined to read it, no matter how crappy or uninteresting I thought it would be.  I didn't finish it before 6:30.  Mr. President asked me at the beginning of the meeting if I had anything to read.  I responded by hesitating.  I fumbled on saying, "Yes - well, kinda... I'm still working on it."  And he said, "Well then I'll put you down for now and you can let us know later."

Well, I did it.  I read that brand new piece to a group of excellent writers.  I was terrified.  But once it was over, once the torture of trying to get a short piece written in an hour and a half and reading that freshly new first draft to them, my writer's block was gone.  I felt free.  Especially after they critiqued it the next meeting and didn't say that it was crap and I should give up on it.  In fact, some of them said that they wanted to see it again once I had a chance to revise it.  It made me feel that my silly stupid little anecdotes that I have in my life, that feel boring and uninteresting to me, might just be interesting to other people.  And once I realized that, the writer's block lifted, and my worth grew.

I feel I should also mention, now that we are talking about worth, that none of this budding worth is coming from anything gospel related.  It is coming from kempo, and coming from my writer's group.  I won't deny that maybe God put me in these places, in this position to be able to find my worth, because I have no clue if that is or isn't true.  But when it comes down to it - as a child, I was told I had worth because I was a child of God.  Or if I wasn't told specifically that, it is how I connected it all together.  Problem with that is this: I never fully believed or felt like I was a child of God, hence, I had no worth.  I still don't feel that I am a child of God.  But these past months or maybe year, I realized that I need to not base my worth on anything, other than myself.  Just simply being who I am gives me worth.

Whether I'm a child or God or not, whether I am just another Joe-shmo living on the planet Earth, whether or not I have been abused, stepped on, have lost a child, no matter the trials and things I've had to go through, no matter what color my skin is.  None of that matters.  I am a person.  So I have worth.  Simple as that.  I don't know how kempo has been able to help me with this.  I just know it has.  For the first time in 28 years, I feel like I do have worth (no matter how small), that I am someone who deserves love, for the simple reason that I'm a person of worth.