What’s Playing On Your Mind
Back in the day, groups of teens “partied” round the D.J. as he scratched the vinyl to quicken the shaking hips and body twisting in incredible styles called “break” dancing. Why “break” dancing? This kind of dancing “broke” the formalized ideal of what dancing was supposed to be setting new standards of the art form.
As time went on, hip-hop sounds found themselves bounding off cassette tapes blasted from a “boom box”. Eventually techno-pop reached the era of the compact disc where more music could be stored for hours of sensual pleasure. And today, we’re engrossed in the digital era from podcasts even up into the “cloud” where the raps of wordsmiths can be downloaded all around the world at the single touch of a button.
Yes, technology progressed from scratching vinyl to downloading, but what’s playing on the minds of adolescents (people between 10 and 24) has remained the same. There is a culture of security and a cult of insecurity floating over the minds of young people.
Culture is a way a group of people act and speak based on what they collectively think and has been developed over a long period of time.
Cult is a thing or idea that is popular or fashionable among a particular group or section of society often forming into a deep veneration wherein an object or person is ‘worshipped’ and can change within a short time.
The culture of security releases the real “picture” of you. The cult of insecurity snaps a false “picture” of what others tell you how you should be. Young minds often make the move toward being accepted by peers, often rejecting the encouraging voice of parents and elders, and begin defining themselves by the norms of “what’s hot” or “what’s cool” or “what’s in” or “what’s out”. What’s what?
The beauty of innocence and loving who you are as a child regrettably gets thrown away at adolescence in the thirst for being accepted among peer groups who compare themselves, never realizing that even the best sports player or the most gorgeous girl both struggle with their own bouts of defining who they are. Everyone idolizes the “hot jock” and the “pretty beauty queen” forgetting that inside each and every one of us, there is a superstar and a beauty that makes you uniquely special.
What do you allow to play on your mind, young one? In this series, The Art of Love, we will delve deep down into defining who you are and lift you up into the clouds of self-love. The journey won’t be easy, but you’ll love the ending.
Step One is you’ve got to make a choice to take that step. This step requires you to throw away the images in your head about “What is beauty?” or “What makes a real man?” and put a pause on all the stereotypes vibrating on the strings of your mind. Let’s get to the heart of the matter. Loving yourself means “you being you” (especially when no one praises you) because the joy of self-expression is more than enough to make you live on a ‘high.’
Self-love is the restoration of something you lost. That something is self-worth. Do you feel worthy of having what’s good in life? Or do you feel you’re not good enough to have kindness, love, encouragement, and fond attention from others who want nothing from you, but really appreciate who you are—just as you are, flaws and all?
Since you were made so special by the hands of a loving Father, should you allow human negativity to pull down your sense of self-worth to the bottom with belittling thoughts of “I am not good enough”? Please, dear ones, do not confuse narcissism with loving yourself. Narcissism is a disorder of the soul in which a person has an inflated sense of self-importance. Doctors who study the functions of the mind by observing behavior (psychologists) conclude that there is no cure for narcissism; that it’s chronic and can last for years or be lifelong.
As affirmed in the previous blog series, Growing Sexually Mature, the spiritual warfare afflicting the souls (and mindset) of young people is waging in the spiritual realm, against the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2). There is a cure for lack of self-esteem or low self-esteem (which is the root cause of narcissism). You just have to go to the Person who holds it.
Loving yourself also requires inner courage, conviction, and fearlessness to piece yourself together as a “picture of perfection”. We get these superstar powers from the likeness of our Father who created us in His image. You are not alone. There are adults who have not yet mastered loving themselves because they didn’t take this journey, and, as a result, have passed on their insecurity to your generation. Therefore, this journey toward loving yourself completely while living in a world so full of hatred, is for all of us who suffer from a sense of “I am not worthy.”
YOU ARE WORTHY. YOU ARE IMPORTANT. YOU ARE NOT A MISTAKE. YOUR LIFE IS NOT A MISTAKE.
The Art of Love opposes the Art of War in varying critical ways, but both do have some traits in common: self-discipline, time, and application. This week, your assignment is to meditate on the word, “love”. Write down what this word means to you and honestly answer this question: “What is love?”
© 2021 by Patience Osei-Anyamesem. All rights reserved. Published by The Light In Me Enterprise. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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