Authentic Humility

"[A]uthentic humility is simply an attempt to see ourselves as we really are. Applied to our thinking, this means an uncompromisingly honest appraisal of the capacities and limitations of our minds against the standard of an all-knowing, infinitely intelligent and always true God. This reality check can be simultaneously heartening and sobering.

According to the Bible, we are created in God's image. This means that we are born as rational and creative beings with capacity to find and apply truth. This should be a source of immense encouragement to us. However, Scripture and reality both teach that our minds are also finite and tainted by the effects of sin, giving us good reason to approach both out own reasoning and the knowledge of others with a healthy degree of skepticism."

Philip E. Dow, Virtuous Minds: Intellectual Character Development

Jesus is my Redeemer

"But is Jesus my therapist or my Redeemer? If he is my therapist, then he meets my needs as I define them. If he is my Redeemer, he defines my true needs and addresses them in ways far more glorious than I could have anticipated.
If Jesus is my therapist, he is the One who comes to affirm me. Instead of trying to love ourselves, we think about how much Jesus loves us. This approach is deceptive because it latches onto a very powerful aspect of the gospel: God does shower his love upon us in Christ! Everyone who reads the Bible knows this. But this approach subtly turns Jesus into the One who meets my needs and fills my emptiness--as I define them. It turns God's love into something that only serves me. Repentance for our rebellion and sin against God is minimized or even ignored while God's love for us is maximized. We turn Jesus into someone whose goal in life is to make us feel good about ourselves."

How People Change Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp

Identity

"[E]ach of us lives out of some sense of identity, and our gospel identity amnesia will always lead to some form of identity replacement. That is, if who I am in Christ does not shape the way I think about myself and the things I face, then I will live out of some other identity.
Often in our blindness, we take on our problems as identities."

How People Change Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp

Hiding behind Masks

Behind my hands

my face lurks

tentative, scared, scarred.

Laughter is its shield

quivering in the silence,

every nerve jangling, shaking.

True expression is dangerous;

it is too real, too exposing,

too naked me:

one should never be without clothes (it's unnatural).

Childhood freedom?

Gone with every don't and shouldn't.

I have my faces

each used on different occasions,

some serving more than one purpose:

Not all truth.

I confess that I have a problem with perfectionism. I never really realized/admitted it until just recently.

I am loathe to put anything out into the world that is not perfectly crafted and complete. I'd rather abandon something if I can't do it right. I'd rather not even try if I'm just going to fail. If I'm going to put something out there, I'm definitely not going to leave holes for people to poke their fingers into, places where they can poke and prod at my self-worth.

That is what perfectionism is about a lot of the time. It's about maintaining my armour, keeping up the facade, wearing the "everything is okay" mask. Don't show weakness. Don't give an opportunity for people to hurt you, the real you, the one you hide behind the perfectionism. Our outside self is so carefully crafted. If we don't find this out in childhood, we find out soon afterwards. It only takes one bad experience to start us hiding.

It has taken me a long time to get to the point where I am willing to take risks with my self. When I enter into a relationship, it's a risk. When I publish a blog post, it's a risk. When I share something important to me, it's a risk. And all these risks affect my self-confidence, self-worth, self-acceptance. They shouldn't make such a difference, but they do. My first impulse is always to hide. I'll hide behind a mask of self-confidence if I don't have anything else. The problem is, if that mask is challenged, it will become harder and harder to maintain the facade. Behind it, I get more and more paranoid about keeping the mask intact. But you can't really live fully behind the mask. Eventually it will crack and crumble, or else you will. . .

Fake it till you make it doesn't really work in the long term, not if involves denial of self and identity. And who then am I apart from these masks I hide behind?