You Are The Best

image credit: Corey Leopold

Christopher Robin wondered out loud what Winnie the Pooh was doing, walking around the copse of trees so many times with his friend piglet. It dawned on Winnie that he himself was making the tracks that he was following. It wasn’t a woozle or a scary thing in the vicinity after all. Winnie said, “I have been Foolish and Deluded. I am a Bear of No Brain at All.” Christopher Robin in a soothing voice said, “You’re the Best Bear in All the World.” Pooh said hopefully, “Am I?” Then he brightened up suddenly. Christopher Robin in showing love and kindness to Pooh in his moment of low self-esteem helped him to restore faith in himself.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of beating ourselves up whenever we make a mistake or mess up. You know, like calling ourselves names, saying things like “I can’t believe I did that.” etc. Remembering to love ourselves anyway in those moments must be practiced until it becomes a habit. What does “love yourself” mean? We hear that a lot: “You need to love yourself more.” What does that look like? For me it means most of all, self –acceptance, an acceptance for the stage I am at in any learning situation. I work at this as I always want to know how to do something already and I am impatient with the learning process.

When we begin to learn self-acceptance, we make a space within ourselves to create something new. We are not resisting ourselves anymore and there is a willingness to be shown the next step in our healing journey. In Is It A Woozle?, I mentioned how noticing our thought patterns is an important part to changing our reality. It means the willingness to die to the old familiar part of ourselves and to change our thought patterns in alignment with the new reality that we want to create. This is not an easy task to undertake. There is a lot of kicking and screaming in the dying part of the ego and fear of the unknown in the new way of being. Self-acceptance is the saving grace at this stage. Self-acceptance allows love in, making us feel more safe and able to trust the process of change.

Self-acceptance or self love is saying to ourselves, “Right here, right now, I am doing the best I can for who I am.” Whether we are at the kindergarten or the university stage of our growth process, this attitude gives us permission to make mistakes, to learn at our own pace, to forgive our foibles. We are not looking to compare ourselves with others and we are content with our own learning process. Making change with this outlook makes the journey to the path of wholeness a beautiful experience. As we accept ourselves as we are, we accept others as they are. Our openness is comforting to others and our simple presence can be a joy to be around. Go ahead, it’s OK to say to yourself, “You are the best!”