John Jung, LPCC-S

Clinical Director, New Creation Counseling Center

28 April 2017

Have a life mission statement.

I believe that a mentally and emotionally healthy person has developed what I call a “life mission statement”. That is, why are we here on planet earth? A personal mission statement is based on the individual’s inherent God-given gifts and interests and their accumulated life experiences. All of us are very special creations, made for a purpose higher than ourselves. I believe that we are to make the world a better place than we found it. Even in little things, like leaving a room a little cleaner than we found it, or leaving a campsite a little cleaner than we found it. To the bigger things of leaving a community better for us having been there. So, we all must decide, what gifts and abilities do I have, along with certain life experiences, that allow me to make an impact on those around me?  What special job do I have that only I can do – such as loving my family, or being a special friend to someone in need. Perhaps it goes even into my community, where I can be an influence for good.

To thine own self be true.

This is an old line from Shakespeare. It means that we need to learn to trust ourselves. I think the definition of self esteem is the ability to keep promises to ourself. For example, if we say to ourselves that we are going to eat healthier, exercise, and lose weight, but we fail to have the discipline to do any of those things, we get discouraged, and we lose confidence in our ability to keep promises to ourself. We may think to ourselves that we cannot trust ourself, we begin to feel bad about who we are, and our self esteem goes down. If, on the other hand, we start to keep those little promises to ourself, we gradually feel more confident, and feel more like we can accomplish what we set out to do. We begin to see ourselves as trustworthy, and we then act like that. Behavior comes before feelings. We cannot wait to “feel better” before we start doing the things that will make us feel better. For example, when we are feeling lonely, we can actually do some things to make us feel better, (call a friend or family, go out to a park, etc.) rather than waiting to feel better before we take action.

If you don’t know who you are, you will become who others want you to be.

This is a truth that we may not like to look at. Sometimes, people are so unsure of themselves, they have such a need to get approval from others, that they will do almost anything for approval. There are two factors which cause us to behave in certain ways. The first factor is temperament. That is the way we are wired from birth, our genetic heritage. The second factor is the environment in which we are raised. The parenting that helps to shape us into responsible human beings. A good example of  temperament can be seen in this story about my daughter. When she was about 3 years old, we had Deb’s parents at our house and we were in the kitchen playing cards. Jennie, our 3 year old, was told to go into her room because it was time for bed. She was told that she did not need to go to sleep yet, but she must stay in her room because it was time for the adults to visit together. Jennie stood right on the threshold of the door of her room, looked out at all the adults and said in a loud voice, "You come take care of me, I’m your responsibility!" Right away we knew that we had what we would call a strong-willed child. The good part about having a child with a strong will is that she did not have as much need for the approval of her peers. She had a good idea of who she was from a young age, and she would not be pressured into many of the wrong behaviors that some of her peers got into. Knowing who we are and what we believe is a very important thing for our self esteem.

Know, explore and develop your gifts.

Each of us enters life with certain God-given talents and gifts. Some people have musical intelligence, like a Mozart who was a child prodigy. Some people have academic intelligence; some people have athletic ability, while some others may have artistic ability. Some have social intelligence, or the gift of being able to make friends easily, and the ability to put people at ease in social situations. It is our job to first of all recognize that we have been given certain gifts and strengths. Then we need to develop those gifts and strengths to the best of our ability. It has been said that the abilities we have been given are God’s gift to us, and using those gifts to serve other people is our gift back to God.

Determine your life passions.

I would hope that everyone in this room feels that they are pursuing their life passions. Often times though, people feel that they cannot pursue what they really want to do in life because they have to make a living, and their passion is not something which could support them financially. What you would do if you just won a lottery? Would you be doing basically the same things you are doing now? How would life be different?

Taking care of yourself- what does that mean?

What are the ways that we take care of ourselves? I believe that every person is made up of three basic dimensions: Physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual. We need to take care of each dimension of our life to be healthy. Physically, we need to eat right, exercise, and hopefully avoid lots of risky behaviors which can get us injured. Maybe some of you like to ride motorcycles. I am much too uncoordinated to ride a motorcycle, so for me, that would be very risky behavior! Mentally and emotionally, we need to stay mentally stimulated by reading and studying the world around us, and by pursuing relationships which renew us and encourage us. Finally, we need to develop and nurture our spiritual dimension- our need to reach out to God, a power higher than ourselves, in order to make sense of our place in the world. This actually answers the question “Why am I here?”

Know strengths and weaknesses.

As we had mentioned before, we all have strengths and weaknesses. In fact our strengths to an extreme become our weakness. For example, the person who is highly driven to succeed (the strength), and who drives himself very hard to prosper, may find it very hard to tolerate other people who are not as driven (weakness), and may be unable to slow down to enjoy life. Having a good and honest understanding of our strengths and weaknesses, and the willingness to accept both, is an important part of relationships, and the ability to set and adhere to healthy boundaries. 

Give and receive support.  

Know how to give and receive support, while taking responsibility for meeting our own needs. All of us will experience adversity- it is not a matter of “if” we will have adversity; it is a matter of “when” we will experience it. At those times of trouble, we need to know where to turn for help, and to have a support system of friends and family who will be available for us in the three dimensions we discussed- physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual. We also need to know how to help others out in their times of trouble. There is a certain balance that takes place where we need to be, at times on the receiving end of help, and at times on the giving end of help. The Dead Sea in the Middle East is called dead because it is highly concentrated with salt. In fact, if you jump into the Dead Sea, it is nearly impossible to drown, because the salt concentration makes bodies float automatically. The sea is “dead” because there is no outlet for the sea. It is fed by the Jordan River, but there is no real river outlet for the water. Consequently, the water stays put, and evaporation makes the water increasingly salty. Just like us, if we are always taking in, but we have no giving outlet, we can be slowly dying, just concentrating on ourselves.

See the bigger world outside of yourself.

When we are babies, we are the center of attention, and it needs to be that way. Babies need the close attention of others for their very survival. Everyone gathers around babies, and they quickly become the center of attention in a room. Have you noticed that? As babies grow older, their world gets a little bigger, and when they are 2 or 3 years old, they may need to share their space with playmates in child care, or perhaps with a younger baby brother or sister. Now they must share the spotlight of attention and the world does not “revolve around them” anymore like it used to. Gradually, as the child grows up, he or she finds that the world just gets bigger, and no longer are we the center of the world, expecting that other people will be meeting our needs. In Boundaries, we find that some people do not really grow with this concept, and they still tend to believe that other people are supposed to meet their needs. When boundaries are set upon these people who have not grown, they may rebel, just like a child who is denied his wishes.