Embracing Our Greatness

"Wow! You are amazing!"

What is the first thought that goes through your mind when somebody says that to you? Be honest now... I can tell you the first thought that goes through my mind is usually not very supportive. It usually runs somewhere between "If you only knew me", and "Are you sure?"

Why this reaction? Why the doubt? I know I am not alone in this. So many of us question the wisdom of fully embracing our greatness. Maybe, it's because we don't want to be seen as arrogant or pretentious. Or, maybe it's because somebody told us that we should not build ourselves up so much. Maybe our confidence was a threat to somebody who didn't feel so great about themselves.

Whatever the reason is, this not being willing to embrace our greatness is something that we can change. This is the good news. This doubting ourselves does not have to be a permanent condition. It is possible for us to believe in ourselves.

This is where the support of our friends comes in. I am grateful that I have people in my life who will remind me on a regular basis of my worth. In my life today I am surrounded by people who believe in me. Whenever I doubt myself I can always turn to them to remind me of the truth of who I am.

How do I know that I am a person of great worth? I was born. I exist.

And, this gets to the heart of this blog. It is that we are worthy of a beautiful life regardless of what we look like, what family we came from, what country we were born in, or what religion (or non religious activity) we practice. The mere fact that we are human beings makes us inherently worthy of love and respect. This is such an important point to emphasize that I could write it again. We are worthy. Just because we exist. That's it. Nothing else needs to happen. We don't need to do anything else.

Love is a choice. Loving ourselves is a choice. We can do it. Am I suggesting that it's always easy to love ourselves? No. Not for me anyways. Not every day. Some days it is easy. On some days it is hard. It just depends.  As with lots of things in life I'm going to react sometimes with love, and other times I will react with fear. But, I do at least recognize that I do have a choice.

I would invite you to look at how much you value yourself today. Do you see yourself as the beautiful child of the universe that you are. For some really good reason you were brought to life. Part of the excitement of life is discovering how much we can accept our good. It's truly exciting to go out and be the best version of ourselves that we can be. We will never be perfect at this, but we will respect ourselves for trying.

When we at least try to love ourselves we have gone a long way towards embracing our greatness.