If you’ve had any experience at all, you’ve made mistakes (some huge) and you’ve embarrassed yourself publicly and you’ve felt humiliated. You may have hated yourself for being so stupid or making such poor decisions or using bad judgment repeatedly. At one point you may have even spoken to yourself abusively, not the way you would speak to anyone else.
Now it’s time to grow past all that. Our challenge is to be on our own side. It’s easy to disparage ourselves. We can recount the disappointments without thinking. But saying, “Yes, whatever I do and however it turns out, I believe in myself”. . . well, now, that’s another matter.
The truth is we can’t afford any more self-hate. We can’t criticize ourselves, we can’t be any less than our best friend and supporter. That’s our responsibility. It’s not easy and it’s not self-indulgent. It’s reflective and considered and sustaining and it’s our primary job. No matter what we have done or been in the past, today we face the job of loving ourselves, regardless of the details of our lives.
The commitment we make to ourselves is deeper than a marriage commitment and longer lasting. Saying Yes to ourselves means “I will never berate myself or say hurtful things to myself. I will always be on my own side.” When we care about a young person who is floundering, we sit with him and say, “Let’s look at this situation and chat about our choices.” We don’t yell at him or hurt him and we always end with a big hug and a promise of ongoing love. We need to treat ourselves the same way.
Are there some things you don’t want to experience? Most of us would say homelessness, extreme poverty, and physical unease. But there are feeling places inside we don’t want to go, either. Some of us don’t want to feel anything extreme—anger, hurt, frustration, sadness. We like our comfort. And we want to think of ourselves as respectable. We don’t want to think that we would cause someone to suffer. We want to think that we contribute to peace in the world, not diminish it.
But the truth is we’re everything. We’re kind and we’re cruel. We’re mean and we’re loving. We’d all like to identify with the socially acceptable parts and be known only that way. We even convince ourselves that, truly, we’re essentially nice people. We are, but we’re much more.
We’re in this lifetime to learn and our primary life lesson is self acceptance. Many of us say, “I’m proud of what I’ve done and I loved being a parent and my grandchildren are great so, of course, I accept myself.” But that’s not self acceptance at all. That’s looking socially appropriate.
Self acceptance is about moving into those shadowy places in our hearts which no one else sees and saying Yes. Yes to the fear which lives there and yes to the doubt and yes to the confusion and yes to the hopelessness. Yes, I will be on my side and I will stay present to any feelings that live in me. Yes, I will always love myself even when others ridicule and criticize me. I am the friend and support I need. I am always here for myself.
We acknowledge without flinching the truth about our inner worlds. We see our pettiness and our vindictiveness and our self righteousness and we don’t turn away. We are curious about what lies behind our choices. We don’t let ourselves off the hook for our words or deeds but we don’t beat up on ourselves, either. We look behind our behaviors and our words and our thoughts. We practice presence and self acceptance, and always we say, Yes.
We say Yes to who we are this lifetime because that’s our job. We play the hand we’re dealt. We can’t be proprietary about our lives. We suspect that Life is much larger than we had ever dreamed and that we are much larger. We can’t be contained by definitions—mother, homemaker, CPA, attorney, nurse, criminal, drug addict. In fact, we don’t know how to describe ourselves. Labels prove insufficient. It is our responsibility to accept our own divinity.
I call this radical self acceptance. We look at every tiny detail of what exists inside us, we stay present, we’re curious, and we say yes. We always look behind and look behind and we discover our God consciousness at our core. We see power and movement and coincidence every day so we say, Yes. We’re being carried, so we surrender and we trust.
In the 1970s we talked about being in the flow. I had an experience of being in the flow on 2-22 this year. It was a Monday and in the 8 am meditation group we had a great 45 minute guided meditation. After that I did an hour of psychotherapy which also brought blessings. I felt terrific, gliding a few inches above the ground. I had spent two hours practicing attention and availability.
And I was ready to do something, to be active and accomplish some goals. I had a short to-do list, dependent upon the cooperation of others. And I ran into one obstacle after another. My frustration grew into irritation and I accelerated to anger within an hour. Two near misses in traffic told me I needed to stop and look at what was going on inside me.
I went to a small park and walked and enjoyed the sun and the breeze and the other walkers with their dogs. I appreciated the opportunity to be there walking on a Monday morning and I walked two miles. This may not sound impressive but I have had serious health challenges for almost five years. I haven’t been able to walk more than a block or two without severe pain.
I have prayed daily for five years to be able to walk two miles again as I have done almost every day for the past twenty years. I didn’t even realize I was receiving the gift I had wanted most. It truly was a miracle for me. I had slipped into my Controller and was given a very clear choice between my Controller and God. When I chose to be available to God, God was right there for me.
We all push God away in our own way. Staying busy is one way to push God away. “Helping” is another. Minding someone else’s business is another. Constant talking is another. Giving in to recurrent depression instead of choosing to stay present to God is another.
When we say yes to God we maintain our stillness and move our awareness to the very deepest place in our center. We rest there, we breathe, we pay attention, and we practice availability. That’s all God asks—our availability.