avatarCharisse Tyson

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Did You Know January Is National Thank You Month?

How about thanking your younger you?

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January is National Thank You Month. I headed out on my walk this morning and asked God to give me something to share with people they could be thankful for. I was be-bopping along to my Mercy Me Pandora channel, and “Dear Younger Me” came on. I’m sharing the lyrics with you in this fabulous YouTube video. The music is excellent, but I want you to pay attention to the lyrics.

If you are like me, you’ve spent plenty of time beating up your younger self and haven’t considered thanking the younger you. We all regret things our “younger me” did and said. I could fill volumes with the stupid stuff that came out of my mouth before I ran it past my brain.

I’m grateful that God did work in me regarding my mouth. With the help of fabulous books like Me and My Big Mouth by Joyce Meyer and Keep It Shut by Karen Ehman, I’ve come a long way in my “foot in mouth” journey.

I’ll share a story about my younger self from living with my grandparents. My grandmother came from a well-to-do, southern background, and she had many prejudices. She was a product of her upbringing and didn’t see anything wrong with her attitudes and beliefs. But even as a very young girl, I knew that there was something wrong with those beliefs.

God blessed me with a heart of compassion, and as soon as I got into school, I was drawn to the outcast and hurting. I befriended a mentally retarded girl in kindergarten. I’m not sure it is okay to say that today without offending someone. Now, I would say she was autistic. But back then, my grandmother told me I couldn’t bring my mentally retarded friend to our house. She told me that I shouldn’t be hanging around people like her.

As a five-year-old, I didn’t understand why she would say that. Chrissy was very sweet and very lonely. It amazes me that I still remember her name today when I can’t remember the names of the people I met yesterday. I digress; the other kids at school teased her relentlessly and didn’t pick her to do projects with or play with her on the playground.

I felt it was my duty to befriend her and help her to be happy. When kids made fun of her, I made fun of them and told them that they were stupid. And I ignored my grandmother’s instructions not to hang around with my little friend.

God planted something in my younger me that I am very thankful for. He placed a desire in my heart to help people and be there for the downtrodden. Sadly, due to my dysfunctional background, I took the desire to help others to an extreme as I grew older. It caused me plenty of problems and pain. Not to mention, I hurt those close to me because of the imbalanced way that I went about “helping” them.

I became an enabling people pleaser. I derived all my value from what I could do for others, not my identity. It was an exhausting way to live, and I missed out on many blessings. I worked my way through every party I threw. And I could put on a party. I reveled in it. But I spent so much time ensuring everything was going perfectly that I didn’t bother to enjoy my guests. I would run around picking up trash or washing dishes, and people would say, “Aren’t you going to come and join us, Cat?” “I’ll be right there,” I’d say. Then I’d find something else to clean up.

By the time my guests left, I didn’t even like them, much less enjoy them. 😖

Today, I’m thankful for the younger me who was nice to people whom others treated poorly. I’m also grateful God showed me it was my who, and not my do, that I should be proud of. Now when I have a party, dishes be damned. We are enjoying each other’s company.

I learned that people enjoy you more when you let them help pick up the mess instead of spending all your time serving them. Don’t get me wrong, my care-taking, get-er-done personality served me well as a bar and restaurant owner, but mellowing out and enjoying my peeps made me much more fun to be around and a much happier person. 😺

What do you have to thank your younger self for? If you struggle to be thankful for the younger you, you may be holding a grudge against yourself. When you identify the “why” behind your self-sacrificing behaviors, you can enjoy a life of peace and joy, even in the middle of this chaotic world. Lots of soul searching, prayer, and sometimes therapy is needed to get on the right track.

You can’t give away what you don’t have. You need to have a healthy love for yourself in order to love others truly. Even your younger self, who did some pretty stupid things. 🙄

Be thankful for the person God made you to be.

Thank you for reading. Here’s another post I wrote about being thankful.

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