Doing service at the Baha'i World Center is like a hammer, or so I've been told. It searches and finds your insecurities, your deepest fault lines and hammers until it hits the core. For some people, it may be physical, bugs in their flats or roommates that "borrow" your things. For others maybe spiritual, finding God, learning to speak the language of encouragement. For still others, it may be personal, being pushed beyond your comfort zone etc.
My deepest fault is that I don't trust myself. I don't have faith in myself. I don't believe in myself. I don't love myself.
It's the worst possible fault because I don't love myself enough to understand how to change, but I don't trust anyone else enough to tell them how I feel. I over analyze every nuance of what people say to me. I'm afraid. Afraid to speak up in a deep discussion with a large group because I'm afraid that my comments won't be good enough. Afraid to get to know anyone deeply for fear that they will find something about me they do not like and will only end up hurting me. And I put down all of my strengths, "yeah I have a good voice, but a good voice alone means nothing" "yeah I can write lyrics, but they aren't worth crap without music" "yeah I'm great with kids, but how will that help me here, right now?" I don't believe in myself.
I'm spiraling back into a person who I thought disappeared a long time ago and I don't like it. And my biggest problem, is that I pretend I'm not this person. I thought that if I pretended enough, that I would become that person. But it seems as though, once I bring singing back into my life, all of these insecurities come with it. I don't know how to be proud of my gifts, without judging myself for not having others. I don't trust my own ability in comparison to other people. I won't share who I am with anyone because I know they'll make fun of me when they get to know me better.
They make fun of my deep love of Alaska (because the stupid governor there completely marred the world's view of my favorite place on earth), they make fun of the music I love (because I tend to love music for the lyrics regardless of whether it's popular or not, meaning that a lot of what I love is what older people make fun of), and my problem is that I can't disconnect these things from myself. Someone makes a nasty comment about Alaska and I feel as though they are attacking my best friend, someone finds out that I really like Taylor Swift or the High School Musical Movies and start tearing them apart and it's as though I'm being torn apart.
I'm hoping that writing this all out on a blog that no one reads will help. I'm sure the only remedy is time, and probably getting to know more people. But I just feel so inferior. I feel like I'm not good enough and I'm just waiting for the people here to realize it.
