Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined a belief which makes us humans compare ourselves and our lives with others and in the process I also pointed out that we may actually think that us and our lives are not good enough yet and as a result we may spend entire lifetimes improving ourselves and our lives so that it can match how we think we should be and how our lives should be! And in doing that we actually think that when we are able to ‘improve’ ourselves or maybe achieve our goals, we will finally be able to accept ourselves and our lives and will have a reason to be happy! So, here is my belief for this week.
Belief: I don’t feel my life and I are good enough just yet so I need to keep working very hard to make myself and my life better and I will be satisfied and happy once I accomplish that.
Does this belief resonate with you? Are you one of those people who thinks you need to work on improving yourself and your life because you both are not good enough just yet and unless you improve yourself and your life, you won’t be able to accept both and love both? And in your attempts to improve yourself and your life, do you think you need to buy those expensive beauty products because you don’t feel beautiful enough yet? Do you think you have to get another degree, maybe from one of the best colleges in your country because you don’t think you are accomplished enough yet? Do you think you need to wear certain brands because you don’t think the clothes you wear today make you feel hip enough yet? And who do you think you want to impress by doing all this hard work – you or the people around you? I think you already know where I am going with this 🙂
So, let’s examine why it is that you and your life is not good enough just yet? And let’s start with you first – the most important character in this drama that’s your life. Let me ask you a few questions and if you answer yes to most of them or maybe all of them, you may have just found the biggest block in being happy because I did just a few years back!
So, let’s explore this further. Is it at all possible that when you think you are not good enough yet, you think that way because you are unable to meet other people’s expectations? Is it possible that someone made a comment about the clothes you wear and that they look crappy; or did your parents point out how someone else’s kids are so accomplished because they just completed their degree from one of the best colleges; or did a family member point to your cousin and how beautiful she is because she is so fair-skinned? Alternatively, maybe you work outside of your home in a job or choose to stay home and work inside your home and in both instances you are unable to meet expectations of someone else like for e.g. your boss or your spouse or your family members or maybe even your own kids. So the point I am trying to make is, do you think you are not good enough because other people in your life, your family members or friends or just acquaintances don’t like the way you talk, the way you behave, the way you eat, the way you laugh, the way you don’t choose to believe in what they believe in, the way you do things? And this list goes on and on. If you answered yes to all or most of the questions, chances are you are human! And because you are human, you have this need for approval from everyone else that you are in a relationship with. And because you have this need for approval, you try so very hard to meet others expectations and try to make them happy. You want others to understand you, to like you, to accept you, to approve you, to love you, to trust you and again the list goes on and on. But just a few years ago, the biggest question that I came across personally really is, do YOU actually accept yourself, love yourself, trust yourself and approve yourself? And you may say that you do, however, if you do, do you do all this unconditionally or do you only love and trust and accept and approve yourself when you think others love you and trust you and accept you and approve you? Do you sometimes even judge yourself when you are unable to meet other people’s expectations and feel badly about not being able to meet their expectations? And when you are unable to meet their expectations and these others don’t show the love, the acceptance, the trust and the approval that you so very much crave, do you still feel good about yourself? If you answered ‘No’, do you realize that your loving, trusting, accepting and approving yourself is totally dependent upon how other people respond to you, view you, treat you and interact with you? If you do realize this, I am going to now let you know that you will never be happy! You will never be happy because there will always be that someone who you may work with, be friends with, a family member or just an acquaintance, who will not agree with you, love you, trust you, accept you and approve you. And because your believing in yourself, loving yourself, accepting yourself and trusting yourself is directly tied to how others treat you and view you, chances are you will never be happy!
So, I know I just painted a very grim picture but a grim picture which has an amazing silver lining. And that silver lining is, YOU! You who is this beautiful person, this bright soul that chose to come to earth knowing how special you really are. But as we started to grow up, we lost all that knowledge. We started to lose trust in ourselves, we stopped accepting ourselves, we stopped loving ourselves, we stopped believing in our magnificence as Anita Moorjani, the author of ‘Dying to be me’ puts it. And we stopped doing all this because even as a very tiny kid, we always wanted to make others happy because we wanted their approval. And this pleasing and need for approval from others actually started with our own parents and because neither our parents nor other adults around us ever told us in the growing up process that instead of trying to please others and seek their approval, including trying to please our own parents, we should focus on pleasing and approving ourselves. We should focus on everything that makes us the amazing human beings that we already are, the things that we already are capable of doing and achieving, the things that make us happy. And as I have said this many times already, our parents or other adults around us didn’t tell us all these things because chances are they themselves didn’t know anything about this!
So, now that you know what you know, are you ready to at least open your hearts and minds to loving yourself, accepting yourself, trusting yourself and approving yourself no matter what others think of you and how they treat you because how others treat you is their path but how you treat yourself is your own!
Here is a poem I wrote for myself when I had the realization that how beautiful I already am even though I may not be making everyone I know happy. But I have to let you know one thing – all this learning is a gradual process and it doesn’t happen overnight. But in order to even begin any learning, you have to first become aware of the need to learn and this blog that I write is an attempt to make you aware. That’s all!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
It doesn’t matter whether others believe in you
What matters is whether you believe in yourself
It doesn’t matter whether others trust you
What matters is whether you trust yourself
It doesn’t matter whether others accept you
What matters is whether you accept yourself
It doesn’t matter what others think of you
What matters is what you think of yourself
It doesn’t matter whether others love you
What matters is whether you love yourself
This life belongs to you, you are the most important character in it
Even if you have not lived this way before
You can make this choice today
Don’t give away your power to another human
Who is exactly like you are because we are all the same
We come from the same source and go back to the same source
So start believing in yourself, trusting yourself, accepting yourself and loving yourself
And no matter how much fear you feel when you are trying to take that first step
Keep trying because you will get better at it
And gradually one day, you will come to realize that you by practicing this,
You are already LIVING FEARLESSLY!
