Thrive and Awaken® Tip

We create much of our suffering by relentlessly criticizing ourselves. We judge some personal quality according to an ideal we’ve created. We know our ideal weight, ideal voice, ideal intelligence, ideal humor, etc.

Take a moment. Think of all the ways you have this sense of not being good enough as you are. 

The feeling you get from this judgment is exactly why self-compassion is absolutely essential for your personal development and conscious awakening. The more you judge yourself, the worse you will feel, and then you’ll judge yourself for feeling so badly about yourself. Self-Compassion helps you get off the merry-go-around of inadequacy.

Anything short of completely accepting yourself is still self-criticism. The only solution is to fully embrace yourself as you are, right now, in this moment. It is who and where you are.

I frequently hear, “if I embrace where I am, I won’t be motivated to change.” This is simply a fear-based assumption. Imagine saying the following to an eight-year-old getting ready for school…”you should be unhappy with yourself because you fall short all the time. You have to be really hard on yourself if you are going to make anything of your life.”  No! Don’t say it to a child and don’t say it to yourself.

As you embrace yourself as you are, you will feel more grounded, supported, confident and nourished. Think about how trees prosper when they are nurtured with the right support. They don’t stop growing because they have water, sun, and nutrients. It’s the opposite, they flourish.  And you will too.

Pick one way you have considered yourself as not enough. Embrace that about yourself without trying to improve anything for 3 days. Bring deep compassion and embrace for that quality as a growing edge.  See what happens when you love yourself as you are.