How often are you dissatisfied with yourself? If never, keep reading to make yourself feel good that you are on the right track. If any more than never- keep reading to gather some thoughts and ideas to help you to see yourself more clearly.
There are many reasons we can get down on ourselves- but most of it is not real. Maybe none of it is real. My classic reason “not productive enough” or “not doing enough”. We are also filled with programming from younger years when we didn’t know any better yet. We are filled with programming from people and experiences we trusted that reflected something about ourselves that we came to believe as true. Have you ever had someone tell you someone said something negative about you and then you consider this news to somehow be true?
We are not perfect, nor do we have to tell ourselves that we are, pretend that we are or in any way strive toward perfectionism. Being our best selves is the goal and since we are human, even our best self has traits we would deem to be flaws.
We dishonor ourselves when we spend the bulk of our time thinking about our perceived flaws. Because we are human, we will not stop considering what we think are our downfalls, but we can stem the tide and spend more time thinking about what is good about us, what we can appreciate about ourselves. Even our “flaws” as we see them can be super powers when considered in another light.
I recently wrote that willingness has a big part in seeing ourselves in a healthy, clear and balanced way. Are you willing to practice thinking about things that are positive more than the negative. You may find you have a habit of doing it the other way around and it may be hard work to unwind it, but you CAN unwind it. When we hold things against ourselves, talk ourselves down, think badly about ourselves (sometimes even saying these things out loud) we create resistance and resistance takes a whole bunch of energy to withstand. The gift you can receive when you let go of these unsupportive beliefs and stories you hold about yourself is freedom. Freedom and energy to go toward living your beautiful life.
Try this exercise and if you’ve done it before, take out your last attempt and re-do or add to it. Take 15 minutes with a notebook and pen to write a What’s Good About Me List. This could be a few things or pages long, though I encourage you to shoot for pages. It may be challenging or it may be easy. After you do it, keep adding to it, keeping it nearby for the next week.
Once you have done this and you feel strong about yourself and what’s good about you, you can consider listing out your perceived flaws. You might even share them with someone you trust who cares about you.
Look at each thing on the list and ask:
-Is it true? What is my proof?
-What can I do about it?
-What am I willing to do about it?
-What is my first step?
-What of all of these is the most important to focus on changing first? and How will it positively impact me when I am successful in changing this belief or trait?
Take some time to think about all of this- and keep going back to add more thoughts as you really dig down in to befriend your authentic self. My wish is that you begin to be even kinder than ever to yourself- even when, especially when, you make a human foible.
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