There’s this quote in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat, Pray, Love that just bowls me over every time I read it.
She tells the story of how one day she’s running to catch an elevator and after she gets in, she looks up, sees someone looking at her and smiles – then she realizes that it’s her reflection in the mirror.
Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.
These are my questions: What if you welcomed yourself as a friend? What if you treated yourself with all the care that you show to your loved ones? What if you looked at yourself as an ally instead of an enemy?
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How often do you pick yourself apart, either by feature or emotion or belief or dream, and find yourself lacking?
We’re inundated with images of women who “have it all” and “have it all together” and because we think that we don’t measure up to that, there’s something wrong with us. And it’s not just women on TV, in movies, entertainers. How often do you compare yourself to someone you see online – on a blog, Facebook, Twitter, whatever – and immediately measure yourself against her?
She has it all together, she’s making things happen so quickly devolve into I don’t have it together, I’ll never make anything happen.
Self-doubt, fear of failure or rejection, negative self-talk, beating ourselves up, tearing ourselves apart.
Nobody has it together, we’re all a beautiful mess, you know?
We all wake up with sleep lines on our faces and crusties in our eyes.
We all leave dishes unwashed and laundry sitting in a pile. (And we all do the sniff test from time-to-time.)
We all lose our tempers and snap at our partners, kids, lovers, friends, parents.
We all forget to respond to emails or pick things up at the store.
We all feel grumpy and whiny and pissy and PMS-y sometimes.
We all get runs in stockings or miss a row of hair when we shave our legs.
We are all gorgeous, vibrantly, vitally human.
Your essence, the root of who you are, allows you to shine so brightly.
Just let yourself shine, love.
Roots of She is a collection of true stories & tender wisdom — for women, by women.
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That is my second favorite part of “Eat, Pray, Love” (my first is, “Go to bed, Liz,” because God is always having to tell me that!). I love the idea that when we let down our guard and stop comparing our worst with every else’s best, we can give ourselves the same level of love and compassion and acceptance that we so naturally and easily give our best friend.
Thanks for this reminder.
[...] fixate, we hyper-focus on our supposed flaws, and think other people are just better than as. But what if you started viewing yourself as your ally, your good friend? I also love what Jenn Gibson has to say about comparison-making in the same post: We all wake up [...]
Thank you for this post, it brought tears to my eyes. We oftentimes forget we are all more alike than different.