Mary O’Malley – One of the most radical and revolutionary things you can do is to accept yourself as you are; to become your own best friend.

But you, like all of us, have been trained in the exact opposite. You have been told you need to different than what you are in order to be okay. This can sometimes be so subtle you hardly notice it, but it runs us all from underneath our everyday awareness.

When you were very young, messages came from all around you that what your body looked like was not okay.  It was too tall, too short, too big, too small, too plump, too skinny.  You were also told that a lot of what you experienced was not okay.  It was not okay to be sad, to be angry, to be vulnerable, to be exuberant, to be afraid, or even to have sexual feelings. And if you did express these, you were often punished, and for some of us, even to the point of being called sinful.

Because you were conditioned to be ashamed of yourself at the deepest level, you learned to hide what was deemed unacceptable. This became necessary for survival. You also learned to create a persona, a mask, to show the world and, at times, this would feed the heartache of feeling like a fake.

This always trying to make yourself better or different takes energy.  It keeps you tight and small, always trying to be okay. It also reaffirms the core belief that you’re not okay as you are. Can you feel the heartache of that?

The truth is you are absolutely beautiful and acceptable just as you are. Now notice what your mind did with that. If your mind resisted it, know this is just the brainwashing that you have taken on, that we all have taken on. I’m going to say it again. The truth is you are absolutely beautiful and acceptable just as you are! You are unrepeatable. You are a unique creation of life. You are a work of art. Let this in. It is so essential for your basic wholeness to know how uniquely spectacular you are!

Yes, this is scary. Carl Jung said, “The most terrifying thing is to accept ourselves completely.” We are scared to become our authentic self because we are so used to struggle. It is like a dust storm that follows us everywhere. But the growing pains that come as we take the scab off our wounds, in order to heal them, are so well worth it. For as you discover how to bring home to your heart all the formerly unacceptable parts of yourself, you not only become whole, you become so much more alive and rediscover the joy of being alive. And, as you rediscover how to live from your heart, you become a healing presence in the world.

Is this easy? No! The brainwashing we have all experienced that you need to be different than what you are to be okay is very strong. But the invitation is to take a moment now and really let in what is being offered here. You are okay as you are. You are perfectly imperfect. You are beautifully flawed and that’s okay.  Let these words become like seeds planted inside of you so that you can know the joy of meeting and accepting yourself as you are.

SF Source Mary O’Malley Jun 2018