Section 1: Embracing Your Individuality
In the last unit, we began exploring embracing the “less favorable” aspects of ourselves and trusting and believing our Creator’s truth about us. The truth is, embracing individuality is a process. There will be days that you are full of confidence and others you will need to rely on the promises of The Most High, as well as those around you that love and truly believe in you, a little more.
Just like any process there are steps that you can take to better manage and adapt to who you are and who you are becoming. There are eight core factors that you should anchor yourself in to help you embrace and lean confidently into your individuality, no matter what culture, society or other influences around you may say or how they may make you feel.
To truly embrace individuality you should:
Be confident in your beliefs and your source
Develop self-love & self-confidence
Develop your talents
Develop your character
Practice self-awareness & accept feedback
Protect & take personal time for rest, rejuvenation and personal growth and reflection
Learn from your personal failures
Feel free to be yourself.
You were fearfully and wonderfully made by Our Father. Your individuality, uniqueness and all you have faced are key elements in fulfilling your purpose.
Exploring The Keys to Embracing Individuality
Be confident in your beliefs & your source- Embracing individuality requires strong belief in a power higher and stronger than yourself. Knowing that you have a source that is light, truth and unchanging, erects a firm foundation in your life on which everything else can stand. Knowing that your Creator has set you apart from your mother’s womb builds faith and confidence. Having confidence in a strong belief system and knowing your source protects you from the crippling urge to seek external validation.
Self-love & Self-confidence- Loving yourself and having the courage to believe that all you are promised is truly yours (confidence) is essential in embracing your individuality. Self-love is and self-confidence is a daily choice. Self-love and self-confidence must go beyond the fluctuations of your emotions and be anchored in something much more stable and permanent which is your faith. Self-love and self-confidence also protects you from the thief of comparison to others which is a great threat to your individual purpose.
Develop your talents- You were born with natural talent and ability, but the pursuit of purpose calls for you to seek to perfect and build on those talents and abilities. By disciplining yourself and commuting to developing your talents you gain more insight into your larger purpose and receive more direction and clarity. Further, developing your talents feeds into the last key and builds your confidence and faith in the significance of your individuality and individual purpose.
Develop your character- Your gifts will make room for you but, your character will not only open doors for you but keep you there. Attitude determines your attitude, and by investing time and energy into character development, you strengthen many facets of your being like your will, compassion, patience and other fruits of the spirit. Character is what you can rely on during difficult times and difficult times are guaranteed to come.
Practice Self-Awareness & Receive Feedback- No individual is perfect and being self-aware allows for you to adapt and grow and become a better person. Being self-aware helps you to recognize your strengths and weaknesses and team up with those people that fill in your gaps. Teamwork allows for you to operate above and beyond your limitations. When you are self-aware you are more attuned to your growth edges and more willing to accept feedback. Feedback from those who have your best interest in mind can be critical. You never know when or how the Creator may choose to speak through someone else.
Take Personal Time & Protect It- To truly understand who you are you have to spend time with yourself. You also need time alone to pray, meditate and wait to hear from the Creator. Protecting this time allows for you to invest time into your character and personal development as well as to recharge and find direction and guidance for your life.
Know that you will fail & learn from your failures- Embracing your individuality means embracing your humanity and as a human being you are guaranteed to fail. Yet, just like the Creator’s original intention for death, failure is truly meant to be a blessing. In failure, we learn lessons for success. Failure is an essential by-product of success. True success does not come without failure and the fulfillment of your purpose is the truest measure of success there is. Therefore, recognizing the usefulness of failure and conditioning yourself to not only expect but to welcome failure as an opportunity for growth strengthens you as an individual and supports your purposes. The Creator would not have allowed the challenge to happen if it could keep you from your destiny.
Embrace the Responsibility of Freedom & Feel Free to Be Yourself- Freedom is a responsibility because true freedom requires trust in you and your individuality. Freedom. To be yourself is KEY to truly embracing your individuality.
