Friday, September 02, 2011

Delight in Yourself

Do you sometimes feel that you're too hard on yourself?  I do. 

We get frustrated with our humanness.  But......we are human.  Why is it so easy for us to embrace negative judgment of ourselves the way we do?  We act as though there is something wrong with being human. 

There is nothing wrong with us, except our perceptions of ourselves.  How can we take a more accurate look at our amazing selves and be grateful for every blemish that we can call our own?  How can we once and for all stop looking for someone else in the mirror to look back at us? How do we surrender to being human and quit being dissatisfied with how we look, what we do, and how we stand up to what is expected of us?

Now that I'm older, I find that I no longer am fighting to change myself, but rather am getting to know myself.  My mind has spent many a warring hour questioning my appearance, my education and location in life.  Then, one day out of nowhere I decided that, hey, I am me.  I quit the drama of trying to make myself into something that I was not.   

When we make our first scream at birth, life starts to happen. We grow to think that life happens "to" us, but it doesn't.  Life just happens.  It's our perception that makes it difficult to take what comes to us and accept what doesn't.

Psychologists say we should enhance our good physical attributes. Choose one thing and have fun with it.  If you have cute feet, then get your toenails painted, wear toe rings and sandals.  If you have sweet hands, doll up your wrists and fingers.  If your hair is thick and gorgeous, then play with all sorts of styles that will boost your self-esteem.  Learn to love yourself a little bit at a time.

I think we're all a little ornery about taking advice, but I do know that my life would have been a whole lot more carefree if I would have had the good sense to take myself as I was and not struggled to be more.

"People are like stained-glass windows. 
They sparkle and shine when the sun is out,
but when the darkness sets in
their true beauty is revealed
only if there is light from within." 
 ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross