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Today's
quotation:
Over the years, I have come to realize that the
greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but
self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a
great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way
they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we
have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and
unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as
attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As
soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected,
left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that
proves once again, that I am a nobody."
Henri Nouwen
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Today's
Meditation:
You
are somebody. You are lovable. You are
worthwhile and you belong here just as much as any other
human being who's ever walked the face of this planet.
How
I wish that I had heard more words such as these as I was
growing up. If I had, then I probably wouldn't have
spent so much of my life feeling completely unloved and
unlovable. I've been very fortunate because I've
been able to make my way through this problem fairly well,
though the feelings of being unlovable still haunt me from
time to time. Perhaps I've been lucky because I've
never seen success, popularity, or power as true solutions
to my problem--these aspects of life never have held any
sort of magic for me. I've always known inside that
success is what I determine it to be on my own terms, that
power is a fleeting illusion, and that popularity is
pretty useless--the "popular" people that I've
known are usually among the least happy of all the people
I've known.
My
good fortune has come in my ability to see my own
value--to accept it completely and not to doubt it.
I value my thoughts and my ideas, for I know they tend to
be pretty good. I value my opinions because I know
that I don't take them lightly and come up with them off
the cuff.
I
also follow a very simple rule: if this person is
rude or unjust enough to want to hurt me by insulting me
or rejecting me, then that person isn't someone who I want
affecting the way I feel about myself. I love
honest, constructive criticism, but I have no tolerance
for blind, thoughtless criticism that's given in a spirit
of meanness. I've been through enough in life--I'm
not going to make myself miserable just because someone
else is mean-spirited and wants to make a victim of me.
You
are valuable. You are a beautiful work of art.
You should never, ever reject yourself, for you are the
best friend you'll ever have. Be true to yourself,
and love the person you are. You deserve it.
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| Questions to
consider:
What kinds of things make you want to reject yourself?
What kinds of things make you feel much better about
yourself?
Which of these things do you actively search out on a
regular basis? |
| For further
thought:
Self-esteem
stems from positive beliefs about yourself;
it does not depend upon the approval of another person.
Anonymous |
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Living
Life Fully's Daily Meditations, Year One
now
available in a Kindle edition!
After many years of sending out the daily meditations via
e-mail, we've decided to make the first year's worth of
them available as a Kindle edition. Now you can have
the entire year of insightful and inspiring meditations
available on your Amazon Kindle or Barnes and Noble Nook
(coming soon). For the Kindle edition, just click on
the link to the left, and you'll be on your way to a
consistently uplifting reading experience! |
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