23 Mar You Choose: Cultivate your Best Self or Your Perennial Problem?
Every one of us has a problem.
John Gottman calls it a Perennial Problem.
We’ve got something we’re dealing with that seems to be there … ALWAYS.
No matter how much we work on it.
That’s true.
There’s a pattern laid down in us from so early … that shapes how we see, feel, experience the world.
But we CAN affect it. Shift it.
Find ways to live with it easier.
AND … there’s always going to be something.
Take for example: So many of us are so hard on ourselves.
We strive to do better. Be better.
We beat ourselves up for not taking the biggest most advanced step. Or being stuck.
At the same time, we also have a hard time taking in good things.
How come?
How come we block good things, kind things, and compassionate flows coming to us?
What would happen if we took in more good?
Some say: they’ll be disappointed if they believe the good.
Or they’ll become narcissistic.
What if, instead, when we receive more goodness, we actually ALSO make more room for others to feel good about themselves?
When we’re full of ourselves in the very best way (as my mentor Daniel Brown, PhD always said) we delight in others even as they delight in us.
Yet, somewhere (from a mix of cultural, familial, and societal sources), sometime we learned that we have to be psychologically enlightened in order to be respected, valued, delighted in, or celebrated.
Being humble somehow came to mean dismissing all that’s good in us.
Or denying everything it took to get to where we are.
Those old patterns, our Internal Working Model, changes in the small, steady, consistent steps we take to open up, find the good in everyday moments, cultivating compassion.
Maybe, when we’re right here, right now, the very small step we’re taking is exactly what is building a solid inner foundation for the very best in us to flourish?
Discover yourself in this moment.
Delight in yourself in this moment.
This moment might then be so much more satisfying than striving and fighting to be who we’re “supposed” to be.
Maybe this video will help?