There seems to be nothing better than a good book. One you just cannot put down. One which inspires you to achieve more, to go someplace you never thought you could, or to understand and feel what the characters do. Our lives are one big story. With our main character as us. Are we cheering us on? Or do we take our story and dismiss it as nothing. Do you wish your story was over and you can have a re-do? Nail biting page turners where we can see the character is going the wrong way, but we cheer them on anyway hoping for the best ending. Why can we not cheer ourselves on? Take our stories and use them to propel us forward, to understand our stories, and know we are not done.

In a story, there are parts: beginning, middle, end. You have heroes, support characters, protagonists, and people who come into the story for a short time. And there is always a new chapter to turn to. With our own lives, we can also find different people playing a part. Sometimes these people help direct us and show up at the right time. Others are protagonists and do not seem to be doing anything for us. But, I think they teach us a lesson we may not yet see. The best part of our lives is until we reach our end, we can continue to turn to a new chapter.

 

Here is the link to the Brene Brown article we discussed in this podcast:

http://brenebrown.com/blog/2015/06/18/own-our-history-change-the-story/

What does it mean to be enough? In our lives we tend to treat ourselves in a negative way. Most of us would never be so critical of another individual as we are of ourselves. We criticize our appearance, we criticize our career aptitude, we criticize our choice of partners, we criticize our parenting skills, we criticize our financial choices, we criticize our time management skills, and we criticize our health choices like exercise and meal choices. That is a lot of negativity. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if we berated ourselves and moved on, but no, we dwell on these so called poor choices. Why are we so critical of ourselves, why do we strive for perfection?

I’ve often heard the term service to others and have witnessed many individuals who have thrown themselves into helping their fellow man. I admit, I always admired their self sacrifice and dedication to doing good. But when speaking with these individuals they are just as self critical as anyone else. These good works are done in a sort of sacrificial way in order to balance out their perceived wrongs. When we observe these ‘saints’ and see their love for their fellow man we rarely see their lack of love for themselves. What we commonly forget is that service to others includes ourselves. The only person we can truly change is ourselves. I can be the helicopter parent and control my kids lives, Heather can make suggestions to her clients in therapy, and we can give advice in a podcast or blog but the only people we can effectively change is ourselves. So, why are we not enough? Has society led us to believe we are not? Has something happened in our past to shape us into feeling this way?

This is the purpose of starting this podcast and blog will be sharing our journey of self acceptance and love in hopes to inspire others to start their own journeys. By learning to love ourselves and cut the self negativity we find ourselves happier and happiness is contagious. Don’t fool yourself though this is a process and being self critical is a habit that takes time to break. We bring our individual experiences and differences to this journey but the goal is the same, self acceptance and love.  What are your thoughts?

Check out the article below:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/20/health/what-people-talk-about-before-dying-kerry-egan/index.html

Remember: You are enough, love yourself, making a better you!