Until you make peace with yourself and your current condition, you’re powerless to change. Until you say yes to what your life experience is right now, you’ll continually find yourself in a state of conflict, wanting things to be different. How can you be in harmony if you’re at war within, hurting yourself with your thoughts and behaviors? How can you effect lasting change in your life if you’re spending so much energy hating and judging yourself?
Do you believe that you and the people around you need to be perfect in order for you to be happy? The beauty and harmony that you seek in the outer world is actually within you. When you accept all aspects of yourself, you’ll discover that this includes the part of you that wants to “pig out” at lunchtime or that seeks fulfillment through food.
If you can’t come to terms with (and give love and redirection to) all the parts of you that aren’t currently on board with your goal, you’re going to hit a wall of frustration or emptiness over and over. Like a child clamoring for his mother’s attention, any part of you that you reject can take on a life of its own and act out in very destructive ways, such as out-of-control eating.
We all tend to separate and judge parts of ourselves, creating an inner environment of separation and angst. Well, you can choose to stop doing this, even if it feels unfamiliar to be at peace inside. Be merciful and love yourself, even as you’re perceiving your weaknesses.
All too often, you may forget to have compassion for your own humanity and the difficulties and challenges you face. Even if you feel disconnected from your sense of kindness and are much more in touch with cynicism and judgment, you still have the capacity to return to your true, innate attribute of love.
When you’re forgiving toward yourself, it doesn’t mean that you condone actions that hurt you or sabotage your plans. You won’t say, “Oh well, I binge on an entire bag of chips almost every night and that’s okay, so I’m not going to do anything about it.” What you’ll do is stop spending time beating yourself up and instead focus your energy on looking at some of your motivations, discovering where you’re going wrong, and figuring out strategies that can help you fulfill your own needs and achieve your heart’s true desire.
You may think that if you’re hard enough on yourself, you can force yourself to change. In fact, the opposite is true: Berating yourself gets you feeling so miserable that you give up any motivation to persevere toward your goals. When you truly honor and accept yourself exactly as you are right now, however, it’s much easier to transform your thoughts and behaviors.
~Rena Greenberg
~Rena Greenberg
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