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Today's
Meditation:
"This
is who I am." For better or for worse, for
richer or for poorer, I accept who I am, and I'd much
appreciate it if you would accept who I am, too.
After all, I'm just like you-- trying to make the best of
my life in a world that sometimes makes it difficult for
me to do so. And if you're unable to accept me for
who I am, well then-- it sounds to me like the problem is
yours, and I'm not going to spend any time or energy
worrying about why you won't accept me for exactly who and
what I am.
If
I worry about what other people think about me and about
how I do things and what kinds of actions I take, then am
I not letting that worry determine to some extent how I
act in the future? When Oprah was afraid that people
would say "Who does she think she is?," don't
you think that many of her decisions involved trying to
avoid that kind of response? And if she made her
decision based on that criterion-- other people's
responses-- could her actions have been genuine and fully
unique?
When
we reach a point at which we're able to do what we feel is
right, without apology and without explanation, then we're
living our authentic lives. If we don't need to
reply, and don't even care, when someone else says
"Who does that person think he or she is?," then
we're living our authentic lives, being led by the spirit
within and not by the voices without.
The
voices without are very powerful, and almost all of us
want to be in other people's good graces. But it's
much more important to be true to ourselves and who we
are, for then we'll attract people to our lives who don't
judge us, but who appreciate the fact that we're willing
to live authentically and to love ourselves as we
are.
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