The Unloveable Self

I just assigned a friend the exercise of writing down three nice things about herself daily, before she does anything else. See, it is easy to love good things; it is easy to love those things that we can makes pros and cons lists of in which the pros blow the cons out of the water. It is easy to love things that are lovable. Thus, the assignment is one of creating a perception of self that is just this, lovable.

While I wouldn't argue with the idea that women generally have a tougher time with this than men, the Unloveable Self is not gender specific. It is about being human in a world that seems to require super-humanity. It is about a finite, yet fluid, set of standards about our minds, our bodies and our souls that makes living with ourselves a crusade against ourselves. It is about our perceptions of others - our comparisons - that make us unable to see ourselves for what we really are.

The Unlovable Self is positioned to be the scapegoat for why things don't go the way we want them to. It is because we are too dumb, too ugly, too fat, too needy that we haven't found what we are looking for. The Unlovable Self is dangerous because it is paralyzing. It kills our imaginations by setting those things in our life that we don't like in stone, making us unable to envision life any better. But the one thing we should be protecting is our imagination as it allows us to understand ourselves in the 'here and now' and see the potential for greatness there.

So, let's do ourselves a favor. Let's make ourself easier to love. Let's feed that imagination. Three nice things...

Here are mine for today:

1. I am a genuine and caring person

2. I am a keeper of my word

3. I look damn good in these jeans ;-)

..The Capricious Devotee..