cost him more than he could ever have imagined. My heart ached for his broken spirit, and I remembered a Scripture I once read that states, “The human spirit can endure in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?” (Proverbs 18:14). The man I grew up admiring as the “exclamation mark” of strength and courage, was now a vivid picture of the emotional shackles a person sometimes acquires when he or she is demoralized by the opinions of others.
On the drive back to Ocean Side, California, where I was living at the time, I felt a bit melancholy. Journeying into Mr. Carlos’ pain had left its residue on me. I was happy to have met him, yet saddened by the lingering negativity that had devastated his life. I wondered if he had ever considered giving himself permission to learn from “it.” By “it” I mean the pain, regret, bitterness, or hostility we commit to our long-term memory after a major setback. If we’re not careful, “it” will ultimately restrict the effectiveness of our very existence. This is what I sensed was happening to John Carlos.
We Are Like Travelers
I didn’t find courage during the time I spent with John Carlos. What I did find, however, was another person like myself in some ways — living in the shadows of inhibition, fear, and a hurtful past. I’m not saying this to judge or criticize Carlos’ mental and emotional state of being at that time. I say it because he too is a traveler, like so many of us, longing for the inner freedom necessary to live out our full potential.
As I sit here years later writing this book, I am considering that maybe, just maybe, courage is not something you find or acquire from some external source; it’s innate. In other words, it’s something we just have. And if it’s innate, then maybe courage only shows up when we are actually doing the thing we are destined to do. Maybe we have to attempt something larger than our current abilities, faith, and resources before courage kicks in. Perhaps the real challenge is not in obtaining courage, but in disarming the years of learned inhibitions and emotional restrictions that suppress it.
Of all the things Carlos told me that day, one thing continues to echo in my spirit: he wasn’t really conscious of his actions or the far-reaching implications that would ensue. I now realize how important it is for each of us to be not only conscious, but also intentional, in our actions. We must be intentional in the choices we make, the paths we follow, and the people we choose to interact with most.
Of the many lessons I learned from him, however, the one I contribute most to my discovery of self-permission is the realization that I could no longer give people and circumstances power over my destiny. For most of my life, I had allowed the opinions of other people to have greater authority over my life than I did.
Regaining Your Authority
When we give something or someone authority in our lives, we give it or them permission to influence and control our decisions. Outside of God and ourselves, nothing and no one should have that type of power. God gives us free will and choice, so why do we allow others to take liberties over our lives that God Himself won’t violate. Think for a moment, who or what primarily has contributed to the choices you’ve made in life?
Ask yourself — do your thoughts and conversations still reflect pain, disappointment, or unusual stress? Do you start off talking about something that recently happened and end up talking about something negative that happened in your past? If you answered “yes” to either question, you have given something or someone else control over your destiny. It’s time to take back the authority you have given away.
In retrospect, I realize that as far back as childhood, I had given my authority to my mother. Not that we shouldn’t have respect for our parents in allowing them to guide us; that’s much of what parenting is about. What was unhealthy about my situation, however, was that I was being raised by a verbally and physically abusive mother who almost always made a point of letting me know that I did not live up to her expectations. Because of the rejection and mistreatment, I always found myself doing things to try and win her approval. Somehow, I was never quite good enough.
Most of the decisions I made about how I dressed, what I thought, or the things I attempted to excel in weren’t based on what I wanted. Instead, they were based on what I thought would make my mother proud, or, depending on her frame of mind — help me avoid her wrath.
Maybe you decided to pursue a certain career, live in a certain neighborhood, drive a certain car, or pick a life partner based solely on how it would influence other people’s thoughts about you, rather than making those choices because they would bring you fulfillment. If so, you’re probably not very happy. While pleasing others can in some way have its rewards, it can debilitate us if the things we do aren’t actually in line with our own purpose and desires.
By the age of 10, I had learned how to betray and dishonor myself, my dreams, my goals, and my ambitions because I feared rejection and desperately needed the approval of others. I became codependent on people at the expense of my own emotional and physical dignity. It’s been said that a girl’s knowledge of a man is established by the interaction she has with her father. I never knew my father, so I was clueless about men. At a very early age I began allowing men to take advantage of me. As I got into relationships, I thought a man was doing me a favor if he dated me. Therefore, I positioned myself to be the object of emotional or sexual manipulation.
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t just men who took advantage of me. It seemed that everyone did. For years, it was as if I had a neon sign across my forehead that read, “FOOL! Use me!” Anyone who could see my desperate need for acceptance and significance was able to benefit from my inability to have total authority over my life. Having the love and affection of a man just happened to be the devil’s greatest tool in keeping my potential on lockdown.
Maybe the pressures my mom experienced as a single parent of five children had taken its toll. But her abuse had gotten so bad that by the age of fifteen, I left my mother’s house to live on my own. At sixteen, I was pregnant and working at an upscale steak and seafood restaurant as a fry cook at night and cleaning an office building on the weekends to provide for my daughter and myself. When my daughter was born, I went back to school.
God blessed me to find a babysitter who lived across the street from the high school I was attending. She agreed to keep my daughter during the day while I was in class, and at night when I was at work. In many ways she became my daughter’s surrogate grandmother. Every day, I would get out of school, walk across the street to spend two hours with my daughter, then head to work.
I didn’t have a car, so I rode the city bus back and forth to work. I would get on the bus around 10 p.m. It was the last bus of the evening, and I was often the last passenger. I was also blessed to have a bus driver who would stop in front of my babysitter’s house, wait for me to get my daughter, and get back on the bus. The bus stop was a half block from my apartment, so when the driver let us off for the evening he would watch us to make sure we got in safely. I would turn the porch light on to signal that we were okay. This was my routine five days a week until I graduated from high school.
My pregnancy was the result of an older man (I’ll call him William) who saw an opportunity to exploit my desperate need for affection and approval. For me, the sexual touches and tender, yet manipulative, words fulfilled my longing for the love and approval my parents failed to give me. For William, it was just sex. And like a drug addict trying to recapture that first feeling of ecstasy, I became an addict, making every sexual encounter a fiendish pursuit of love and approval.
This warped sense of thinking devastated my life in a very unsuspecting way. Because my need for love was shaped by my brokenness, I never learned the true nature of love. I equated sex with love, and no one ever told me anything different. I never learned to give love, receive love, or trust love. I was too busy trying to satisfy my own brokenness.
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