When feeling badly about ourselves, we often try on other skins rather than understand and care for our own. How much time is spent comparing ourselves to others, dead or alive? When wounded and troubled, we sometimes feel compelled to puff ourselves up. For in our pain, it seems to make sense that if we were larger, we would be harder to miss. If we were larger, we’d have a better chance of being loved. It is not surprising then that others need to be made smaller so we can maintain our illusion of seeming bigger than our pain. But being human, we are often troubled and blocked by insecurity and a feeling of unworthiness. The truth is the corrective story of how we return to who we are and compassion is the never ending story of how we embrace each other and forgive ourselves for not accepting our beautifully particular place in this life.
FROM: THE BOOK OF AWAKENING Having The Life You Want By Being Present To The Life You Have by Mark Nepo
REFLECTION:
- Do you try to make yourself larger by making others feel smaller?
- Is there a wound underneath that puffed up sense of self?
- How can you tell the truth of what you are feeling and have compassion?
- Can you forgive yourself?
