I had the pleasure of a conversation with a delightful young man....he is smart, handsome, talented in many areas, has a wonderful career and a beautiful fiance....YET he has a disease....
He has this internal need to please people and for people to like him. The disease is literally stealing his life from him. I know to many people (myself included) who suffer from this disease....it is crippling and debilitating...it is stealing our joy and the precious moments that we could be living a more confident life. Over the last few years I have often I thought I was cured. Sometimes I could care less what anyone thinks of me...than all of a sudden, I am whisked back into the conundrum of caring way to much what the world thinks about me and my thoughts and actions.....WHY do I share this? Shouldn't we care what others think to a degree? Because our actions REALLY DO say who we are as people....don't we want our message to be a positive one? Don't we want at the end of our days to have the memories of our life to be inspiring and noble, not...whew..glad that one is gone. I think it comes back to one word....BALANCE. We should care about what we project into the world, but we don't have to get wrapped up in what others think of us...because often those critics don't even really know us, they get a slighted view into our lives, little snap shots of our reality. In a few short hours I have grown to love this young man. I could list all of his awesome qualities, and make him an award...and that might be good for his soul, but the reality is..... it dose not matter what anyone says about us. I have had my own fair share of fan fair and praise and it did not matter, I still felt somewhat NOT GOOD ENOUGH....what mattered is how I saw myself. How did I get to that often sought after SELF LOVE? Well, it is actually more simple than you realize. I started to take care of myself. I started eating a little better, I started going for walks. I started saying NO when I didn't want to do something and I started saying YES to things that scared me a little but in reality I knew were good for me. When those seeds of doubt came knocking at my door...I realized those were the the days I forgot to take care of myself. How quickly those fears and doubts come flooding back. Now....I could share this wealth of information with my new found young friend...BUT in reality this might not be his answer, he might have a whole other remedy for his disease. We all have to get quiet enough to hear what we are saying....we are talking all the time, internal dialog going at lightening speeds....there is an answer out there for all of us....we just need to shut out the other voices and listen to SELF.
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