“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” Buddha
Do you love yourself? Do you accept your failings and forgive yourself when you don’t live up to the standards you set? Do you accept who you really are, including your limitations?
Struggling With Not Knowing
I’ll admit it. I’ve been pretty judgmental about myself lately. I set higher standards for myself than I do for others and am disappointed when I don’t live up to my expectations. Lately, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been learning about social media and online marketing. Now, after ten years writing my spiritual memoir, I have decided to e-publish it. In addition, I’ve set up a blog and learned to navigate that technology. This has been exhilarating and exhausting because computer technology is a huge challenge for me.
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. Everyday, it seems there are ten new questions I can’t answer. Even when more savvy people answer my questions, I don’t always understand the answers. Because of this, my greatest challenge is how inadequate I feel on a daily basis. Even after researching information on the internet, I often have to ask the same question again.
Understanding the Fear Beneath Our Inadequacy
When we feel stressed and inadequate, it is worthwhile to ask, “What is really causing this discomfort. Frequently, it’s fear. We are afraid we won’t succeed at this challenge. We’re afraid we won’t do it well enough, or we’re afraid we will disappoint others. When what we are doing becomes too difficult, we may give up and run away. Eliminating this source of discomfort seems like a simple solution. But is it?
Refusing to face the challenge and solve the problem rarely gives us any lasting satisfaction. What we really want is not to escape, but to feel capable of solving the problem or to feel all right about not knowing how. At these times, more than any other, we need to remember to accept and love ourselves.
Taking the Time to Love Ourselves
When we feel loved, we feel more capable. We can do anything. So perhaps, in these moments of doubt, what we most need to do is love ourselves. What does that look like? For me, I think it means accepting my difficulty understanding technology and telling myself it’s all right. It means letting go of my ego’s need to handle all the challenges by myself. It means congratulating myself each time I have the self-confidence to admit I don’t know what to do next and am willing ask for help.
We are each precious spiritual beings. We must accept and love who we are in order to feel peaceful. If we feel inadequate or are self-judging, we need to raise our vibration. One way to do that is to turn inward, quiet ourselves, and release our fears and expectations. Then we may be able to hear that voice within that is so much wiser than ego. Breathing deeply, and with each breath, directing our minds to release the fear, we create a space where peace and new solutions can come through to us.
Doing what we enjoy, such as walking in the forest or by the seashore, eating a really nice meal, visiting with a good friend, or dancing, will also raise our vibration. Taking our attention away from the fear and stress clears the mind. Doing the things we enjoy nurtures us at the soul level and is a way of loving ourselves. If we tend to take better care of others than ourselves, we need to do for ourselves what we do for others.
In the end, we need to accept we are fine the way we are. Life will continue to offer opportunities to grow and become more of who we are. When we stop feeling bad about our lack, we will be able to see the good we have done and the courage it took to do it.
What do you like most about yourself and what you’ve learned or done recently? What lifts your vibration?
Please comment. If there are topics you would like for me to discuss, please let me know by leaving a comment. I’d love to respond to your interests.
© 2012 Georganne Spruce
Related Articles: Forgive Yourself-Powerful Self-Help, Accepting Oneself (A Buddhist view), Forgive Yourself (Wayne Dyer)
Awakening to the Dance 
Thank you for this post Georganne. I too have struggled with the technical side of setting up a blog and keeping up with all the social media things. I’m looking to do an ebook at some stage, but one step at a time. I know how you feel. It’s great to have the reminder to be kind to ourselves. I also think you make a great point about doing things we enjoy to raise our vibration.
I compliment you on your courage to embrace the new and thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Georganne, I really appreciated your thoughtful blog today and I certainly can relate to the inadequacy feelings of learning something new. I struggle with this also. On the other hand, it is growth and to learn is to grow. As someone wise said, “if not now, when?”
I guess it is good that we think enough of ourselves to feel capable of beginning new endeavors.
I wish you great success with all your endeavors. As always, thanks for your comment.
A very thought provoking post Georganne. As I read, I could relate to your fears of succeeding. Like you, I am attempting to take my aspirations (my art) more public; creating the blog, and now an online store. It is intimidating. My fear is failure. But as I read your words and I touched upon what I’ve always believed deep inside my soul…there is no failure that really exists. Only our perception of failure. Thank you for reminding me of that deeper place inside of me where fear and failure does not exist.