Good Advice

"Once during the day, think of who you are as living energy and not as a goal to be achieved or an obstacle to be overcome.  Feel yourself without inventory."  THE BOOK OF AWAKENING by Mark Nepo

Hmmm.  "Feel youself without inventory."  Once again this book, a gift from a sister-in-law, has me thinking.  Just what does he mean when he says, "Feel yourself without inventory"?  It's a phrase loaded with potential for discovery.  It didn't take me long to acknowledge that I am perpetually taking inventory of myself.  I live a "should" existence.  I should clean the house.  I should read this book.  I should call my mother.  I should contact my friend.  I should exercise more.  I should volunteer more.  I should eat healthy.  I should drink more water.  I should, I should, I should....  I've lived my life shoulding myself all over the place and as a result I have carried a lot of guilt along the way.

I also spend a lot of time judging myself, another kind of inventory.  Did I do my job well?  Am I a good student, teacher, friend, principal, wife, mother, person?  Have I served a purpose with my existence?  Again, the answers to these kinds of questions creates guilt as I almost always fall short of my own expectations.

And daily I take stock of my physical self.  I look in the mirror and see the wrinkles, the blemishes, the gray hair, the muffin top.  I stand on the scales and can't deny that I am not at my desired weight.  So what that it's only five pounds over, it's not good enough. 

Not good enough.  Now there's a phrase.  Not that long ago I went to see a therapist because the issues I was dealing with at the time, I could not resolve on my own.  I was caught in circular thinking and I needed someone to hear me and guide me to some kind of resolution.  She didn't exactly do that but what she did do was insightful.  She asked questions.   Pointed, directed, essential questions that forced me to look more carefully at some of the baggage I had been carrying around during my lifetime.  Some of that baggage, perhaps the heaviest, can be summed up in the phrase "not good enough".  I wasn't good enough for my father to not question now and again whether I was really his daughter.  I internalized that conclusion and thus found it easy to believe I wasn't good enough for others in my life.  I wasn't good enough for myself.  While it did result in my working harder to prove otherwise, no matter what I achieved or what accolades I received, in my own eyes I was never good enough.  The therapist didn't tell me what to do but acknowledging the power I had been letting "not good enough" exercise in my living led me to the resolution I sought.

And so being told to think of myself "as living energy and not as a goal to be achieved or an obstacle to be overcome, to feel myself without inventory", well, I find I like that concept.  It's worth experiencing.  If I can achieve that, I'm pretty sure I'll be happier, freer, and able to experience life more fully.  It's never too late to take good advice.