It’s really easy to get stuck in the “How can I be better?” mindset and forget to celebrate the beautiful, wonderful things about you that make you…well, YOU! As a chronic self-improver, I am guilty of this most days. But today is different.
Why today? Because I just finished reading Gay Hendricks’ The Big Leap, recommended by the inspiring Marie Forleo.
I devoured Gay’s book; he offers so many useful tips about finding your strengths and purpose necessary to living in your “Zone of Genius” that I had multiple “Aha!” moments. Now, I understand that that isn’t anything new to us who collect Don Miguel Ruiz, Deepak Chopra, Steven Pressfield, and Dale Carnegie books like they’re cute little plush toys with beady black eyes, but something clicked in a way that’s never clicked before.
I already possess that magical talent or unique gift that I’ve been thinking I’ll find when I ‘get better.’
My special-ness been a part of me since I was a child. It was even cultivated because of the hardships that I endured, not despite them. Now, that’s a tough one to admit.
One of the most profound moments of my life was at six or seven years old (?) when my mother caught me chanting in the mirror, “Who do we love? Angela! Angela! Angela!,” and proceeded to kick the chair out from under me with her response of “Stop being so vain.” Um, what?! I was a baby!
That nano-second of a rejection has whispered in the back of my mind for thirty-plus years. “Don’t love yourself. Don’t think your pretty or smart, or any other thing that is good, because you’re being vain,” slips in every time I start to feel good about myself.
Gay Hendricks helped me see that that experience (among countless others) created a glass ceiling for my level of acceptable success, love, and abundance. It caused me to perceive myself as weak; to feel as if I had to get better, be better…but not too much better.
I’m not going to lie, the journey is going to be difficult, fraught with hair-triggers and landmines decades old, but I’m going to start celebrating the aspects of me that are strong and beautiful. I’m going to embrace the fully human, connected Angela who believes that she is worthy.
I want to share this tiny, amazing revelation with anyone who, like me, gets caught in the feeling that you’re not good enough as you are…Heck! Not just “good enough,” but awesome, inspirational, powerful, and abundantly capable of having your wildest dreams come true!
There is tremendous worth in striving to be a kinder, more loving, healthier, more successful, etc. person, but don’t follow that road with a map that leaves out the pit-stops of self-love and recognition.
Celebrating who you are isn’t vanity – it’s expressing the perfect interconnectedness of all of us. So, I say, be vain! Love yourself!
Who do we love?…
I love that book so much! It’s a life changer for sure. Congratulations on experiencing this amazing revelation of your supreme awesomeness! Glad to hear you are loving yourself up as you deserve to!!