Quick, tell me.
How do you see yourself?
Do you look at yourself with critical eyes, noticing shortcomings, failures, and missteps? Do you focus on the not-good-enoughs?
Or, do you see yourself with kind eyes? Do you focus on your best qualities and accomplishments?
Can you hold both together, accepting who you are: a work in progress, on a journey, not-quite-there-yet, but doing-the-best-you-can?
You are enough. You are a work of art, a precious treasure.
photo credit Molly Page
Here’s the thing, at least the way I see it:
We’re all much harder on ourselves than others are. At least, I’m much harder on myself than others are.
When I stop to listen to what others say about me, I sometimes find myself rejecting and discounting their kind words and praise, because all I can see are the not-good-enoughs, my flaws and imperfections.
While talking to a friend this week, I found myself discounting a compliment. She said to me, “Say you’re welcome.”
I stopped. I did that. I said “You’re welcome.”
And when I did that, something special happened. I started to see myself the way she was seeing me because I listened to what she was saying about me.
And sometimes that’s what we need. We need to see ourselves the way others see us by listening to what they say about us.
We need to do this with the wise and kind people in our lives.
And I need to do that, too, with God.
For example, this:
“The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17
That God sings over me, rejoices about me, and takes delight in me is a far better measure than my own inner critic.
Tell me something! How do you see yourself? How do you measure your worth? What wise words, sayings, or truth helps you silent your inner critic?
I am the founder/CEO of the Weaving Influence team, the author of Reach: Creating the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause, and the host of the Book Marketing Action Podcast. I’m a wife and mom of three kids, and I enjoy running, reading, writing, coffee, and dark chocolate.
For years I had a problem with not accepting compliments with open arms. I’m not quite there yet, though I’ve come a long way.
I hope you enjoy my biggest learning moment on this very subject. https://endgamebusiness.com/blog/so-you-think-you-cant-dance/
True wisdom here. Saying thank you to compliments is not just polite. It is self-affirming and loving. I often wonder why we are so unable to give ourselves this small gift, this acknowledgement that in this moment we are enough, we have done enough, we are appreciated.
Thank you for this post today. It has helped me remember the good in my life, and I am rededicated to paying to forward as always.
How I see myself depends on the day, the hour, the minute. Today I see myself as capable & amazing & ready to conquer the world! (or, at least my day!) I recently read the book, Who Switched Off My Brain, controlling Toxic Thought and Emotions (Dr. Caroline Leaf). Reinforced that it’s not a simple process to reverse your thought patterns but can be done. Did you know that NO memory is stagnant? Every time you remember someone saying something negative (or positive) it either becomes GREATER or LESSER. You make it bigger & more impactful, or you make it lesser, simply in how you frame the memory… every single time. Biologically explained. Learning that reality definitely has helped me understand and make some changes.
I see myself as someone who can get a whole lot of joy out of the smallest things. I am VERY grateful for that. Here’s a short post I wrote on a day I fished a baby squirrel out of our pool when he was trying to get a drink… Saving Squirrels – https://stuck-in-indiana.blogspot.com/2012/06/saving-squirrels.html
I’ve been known to brush off compliments too. It’s not always easy to accept a compliment. But, when we don’t we are devaluing the other person’s opinion.