Comments on: Influence: Check Your Baggage at the Door

By: Darlene Collazo @ {In Pursuit}

Darlene Collazo @ {In Pursuit} — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:52:26 +0000

I understand this. Totally! “Virtual Fistpump”, oh yeah, I can do…
Stepping out and being the new girl… I guess it’s God’s way of humbling me. My dreams require total dependence on Him!

Thanks for sharing!

By: Amanda {at} Royal Daughter Designs

Amanda {at} Royal Daughter Designs — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 07:26:41 +0000

Now that Influence was what – 4 months ago? – I don’t remember if we met? Are you going to Blissdom (or Influence) this year? If so, I want to meat you, this time it will stick!

By: Alia Joy

Alia Joy — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:29:26 +0000

Kate, Don’t feel bad at all. I totally understand and honestly, there was so much going on between my own issues and God that I can’t pinpoint one thing that made me feel that way. And God really spoke to me that weekend about so many things beyond those issues, so be at peace. It wasn’t you, it was me. Ha! That sounds like such a cliche. But really, it was lovely to meet you even in my sleep deprived zombie form. And I’m so glad you got to catch up with your friends and be blessed. Believe me, I was too.

By: Alia Joy

Alia Joy — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:26:03 +0000

I’m a voracious reader of C.S. Lewis but I swear that doesn’t ring a bell. I would love to, though. Is it online somewhere? I think it’s just as you said, we can be concerned with being included so much that we unintentionally exclude and I think that’s some of where I was at. No one was rude or exclusive that I came across at all, but I know how I felt inside and it was just slightly on the fringe of things. I think that I am also an introvert so if the conversations are snippets without more depth, I don’t feel as connected. One way that was different at other conferences/meetings or things in the past, is that I had already connected online and so I had built a relationship and then I was meeting in person. With Influence, I was coming in but hadn’t really built that connection beforehand (totally my own doing) so I just didn’t feel as connected. Even now, after reading other’s blogs, emails, and comments, I feel way more depth of relationship and connection so I think it was a trifecta of insecurity, personality, and no forethought about how to really make those bridges ahead of time. God has been using it all anyway and I can honestly say that so far, Influence is the best conference on blogging and living for Christ that I’ve been to and I would go again in a heartbeat. And now that I wrote you a mini novel in the comments, I want to say that you were a gem at influence. Your warmth and smile were a welcome salve and I can’t wait to get to know you more.

By: Alia Joy

Alia Joy — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:15:44 +0000

Thanks Sarah, I agree that we can step into an identity and align ourselves with insecurity by claiming it in that way. I don’t want to be flippant about who God has made me, I don’t want to focus on things that are external and silly and I am practicing love. Truly trying to practice loving myself the way God does and remembering that my security comes from being His. I pray I remember as well. Thanks for sharing your experiences and heart here. We may not meet here, but someday… And I pray the same for you. Live beyond the label and the lies. Live in the light of His truth. Blessing to you.

By: Kate

Kate — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:32:43 +0000

I read this and my heart sunk inside. I can’t rock a top bun or ankle boots or skinny jeans, but I also dropped everything (including our conversation) the minute I ran into my friends. And I feel so sorry because I got caught up in the moment of reconnecting with my friends from Blog Sugar who I hadn’t seen in over a year that all my good manners just went right out the window and I feel HORRIBLE.

Especially because I know how it feels to have had those iPhone moments (I definitely had mine over the course of the weekend!) and want to reach out, but not really know how to “break into” a circle.

I am sorry. Thank you so much for sharing your heart.

By: Darcy Wiley

Darcy Wiley — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 20:18:51 +0000

Alia, I love your tender heart and honesty in the reflection here. It’s interesting to get the inside story here, because every time I came across your path, you were so warm, friendly, approachable and ready for good conversation. And yet you knew you weren’t acting in full confidence and freedom, that you “wasted precious opportunities to step out of my comfort zone and risk it all to be known and to know”. I too am usually the one on the lookout for the overlooked. I especially resonated with your words: “My heart aches for the new girl, the one who stands on the fringe of conversations while everyone else’s backs turn inward, often without knowing that they have closed the circle.” Even here you are gracious to the ones who don’t even realize they’ve closed the circle. And we can be sure that when that happens, it too stems from their own insecurity and wanting to belong so badly that their attention is only on the inner circle and no one beyond it. P.S. Have you read “The Inner Ring,” a speech by C.S. Lewis? Lisa Jo Baker shared bits of it online once and then sent the rest of it my way. You’ll love it.

By: Sarah S

Sarah S — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 17:08:48 +0000

Hi, I found your blog through going through the link-ups at sarahmae.com
Thankyou for your honesty, and bravery, and beauty.
I wasn’t at the conference, I’m not in the country and you’ll probably never meet me (tho that is just God’s sense of humur isn’t it?!) but I felt like you were me writing.
I went to a women’s confernence in UK organised by a very special lady called Nancy Goudie of ngm and felt so much like that. Even though I knew for a fact that every single woman in the room most likely felt exactlly the same way – that was the whole point of hurting women meeting to support each of. It felt like school again, like church as a teen again, like first jobs with girls who were so much more everything than me. Just reading your post brings it all churning up inside.
But I learnt something a while ago I have finally started to believe – I used to describe myself as a person with insecurities, to excuse myself with it, to identify myself as one of those women who everyone else thought had it sussed but couldn’t see it myself. I made it my label, because that was easier than the added guilt of feeling I had no right to feel this way, and that therefore was something else wrong with me to cringe and hide away. I might KNOW this about myself, KNOW that I am every bit as worthy as the others, but until I can BELIEVE it nothing will change.
I cannot change it, the very nature of “KNOWing” you’re not good enough ties you down before you even start. But the heartfelt words of those women I admire, whilst building me up, loving me and speaking truth; cannot change the root, the core lie (to borrow from Sarahmae’s ebook) I have founded myself upon.
I finally learnt, that as long as I excused myself with that label, it would always be true.
But it is not true. I do not have to be that person I fear myself to be, I can throw of the label, rub it ut, write a new one – or better yet, ask Him to write a new one.
For you are right, it is all about Him, and not me. But for Him, it is all about me. (*Or rather, us, His people, His children collectively).
It’s hard to stop identifying myself with that label, and be myself unlimited especially as I don’t know what He has written on it (like that game with the sticky label on your forehead).
In the movie the Princess Diaries, a normal girl discovers she is the heir to the smallest kingdom in the world as her father is it’s Prince regent and just discovered he can’t have any more children. There is a moment when she is picked up in her limo by her new bodyguard, and the school girls who made her life hell previously say something that cuts her to the quick. The bodyguard says something amazing, “when did you give them permission to make you feel that way?” God himself has not given anyone permission to make me feel this way, including myself! (That movie makes me cry, even now).
I think I’m trying to say that, until we stop identifying ourselves by how we feel, we open up the path to seeing the beautiful creature hiding behind the label.
Thankyou Alia, I pray you will remember the things God is telling you now, when next these things try to overwhealm. And the same for me
Sx

By: Alia Joy

Alia Joy — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 07:26:50 +0000

Me too! You were so warm and welcoming in the sea of women at Blissdom and absolutely just as lovely at Influence. And yes, it is Always about Him. He is so good to remind me, when I (often) forget. Thanks for your encouragement and beautiful smile. Blessed by you, friend.

By: Jessica W

Jessica W — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 02:12:17 +0000

Alia, this is beautiful and so are you! I really enjoyed spending a little time with you after our quick meeting at Blissom. I’m so glad to have reconnected and look forward to getting to know you and your heart. Thank you for this brave post. I felt the same way going to Influence (I can NOT rock skinny jeans or a top knot). But I was so blessed by the amazingly warm and welcoming women there. The weekend was truly encouraging. It IS always about Him! Love!