Julianna Zobrist - Pull It Off: Removing Your Fears and Putting On Confidence

Copyright 2018 by Julianna Zobrist

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First Edition: September 2018

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Zobrist, Julianna, author.
Title: Pull it off : removing your fears and putting on confidence / Julianna
Zobrist.
Description: first [edition].. | New York : Faith Words, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018011703| ISBN 9781546025924 (hardcover) | ISBN
9781549142024 (audio download) | ISBN 9781546025948 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Self-confidence--Religious aspects--Christianity.
Classification: LCC BV4598.23 .Z63 2018 | DDC 248.4--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011703

ISBNs: 978-1-5460-2592-4 (hardcover), 978-1-5460-2594-8 (ebook), 978-1-5460-3514-5 (B&N Black Friday Signed Edition), 978-5460-3513-8 (BN.com Signed Edition)

E3-20190325-PDJ-PC-AMZ

For Ben, Zion, Kruse, Blaise, and all the Color Kids

Anyone who follows me on social media knows Im obsessed with my husband, Ben. Something about that baseball butt and kind heart just gets me every time. Sure, some days arent so great and we bicker about the dumbest things, but most days (and the ones I choose to hold on to) feel easy and uncontrived. When its just us, we arent trying too hard and were not overthinking the little things. When its just us, we are not trying to make the other person someone they are not, and in turn, we are not putting pressure on our own selves to be something we arent. When its just us, it feels uncomplicated and sincere.

Ironically, the day when we decided to get hitched and make it just us forever felt like anything but that.

Those weeks leading up to the wedding should have been filled with days of excitement and anticipation. But, alas, they were filled with lets-get-this-over-with, cant-we-just-elope, dont-touch-me, youre-annoying days instead. Planning an out-of-state wedding while taking twenty-one credits a semester for college was a little intense, so we occasionally dreamed of throwing the bird to the world and running away to Montana. To be honest, Im not really sure why we selected that stateneither of us had been, and, in fact, we still havent gonebut for some reason, it still seems ideal.

The big day for just us ended by being a day for everybody else and their dog-sitters second cousins mom.

The main characters in the actual wedding day were simply pawnsglorified party plannersgiven the task of throwing everyone in the universe a party that would be worth the plane flight and money it cost to buy the ugly bridesmaid dress. In fact, the bride and groom are virtually the last people a wedding day is for. Who cares if your favorite kind of cake is carrot? Someone might be allergic. Cancel the carrot. Who cares if you like pop jams blaring out on the dance floor? Someone might be offended by that kind of music. Cancel the DJ. Who cares if you just really, really love pink and want to wear a pink wedding dress? Someone might question the purity of your marriage. Go buy a white one, dummy.

Lest you think that I did not succumb to any of this nonsense, let me tell you something. I bought two wedding dresses. Two. I was so terrified by feeling sexy in dress number one that I took it back and bought dress number two.

It didnt stop there. I decided against the music I love to dance to because Aunt Bertha would complain it was too loud and aggressive (when her disappointment was truly because she wouldnt be able to hear all the gossip at the other end of the table). I decided to not do a champagne toast even though I think of champagne as basically a more enjoyable sparkling water. Why refuse the bubbly, you ask? Because someone might be offended. To be fair, no one had raised a concern, but I was worried that maybe in the sea of 400 faces who attended our wedding, there might just maybe be someone who would get miffed.

Talk about walking on eggshells. Its a miracle anyone ends up getting married at the end of an engagement, because death by engagement is probably a thing. Thank the good Lord for my mother, who made the wedding day come together seamlessly. She could legitimately run the world with her brains and fortitude.

Heres the thing about living to make everyone else around you happy: It will never happen.

That Disney princess fantasy you have in your head that everyone must like you and you must never offend anyone or piss anyone off? Its a fairy tale. Thats right. Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Atlantis, Santa Claus, Pleasing All of Humanity = Not Real Life.

So why do we live our lives as if the ability to please every living male and female at any given moment is even a possibility? How can we be people who are gracious and kind, not because we live in a bunker, but because we are confident and secure and unapologetic?

Good question.

We are humans in desperate need of the One who not only exposes the reality of who we are but also opens our eyes and lovingly makes us His. He changes the beat to our song; instead of hiding or trying to become something we cannot, we sing of our humanness. After all, He made us this way. When we know that, we can let our transparency and vulnerability take their appropriate role as the common ground between each of us. This knowledge of acceptance by God amidst vulnerability will be the soil out of which grows a confident, aware, and free person. The you of yous.