Doing Good Things for Ourselves

Five weeks ago, at a leadership retreat, I was doing an activity with a fellow participant that caused me a lot of fear. I was clearly out of my comfort zone and smack into one of my edges. One of the facilitators called out to my partner and said, “Tell her to get over herself.” I was embarrassed and angry, and probably swore at him, too.

Many of my conversations with people are about how we can take better care of ourselves. Eating well and exercising are always at the top of the list.  You would think, with all the resistance that we put up when we deprive ourselves of the cookie or wake up early for the run or the gym, that we are 5-year olds having temper tantrums. As if someone else were sailing our ship.

We want the magic wand to health and happiness. Doing the work is simply annoying. Who made us adults, anyway? Nuts to that we say, and procrastinate from beginning the filing we must do, for just one more day.

Fear doesn’t work.  So what if doing good things for ourselves is really is about getting over ourselves and seeing the bigger picture and bigger life that comes with that.

When we are obsessing about our flabby stomachs and thighs, we are not our best selves. We are not being creative, expansive and of service. No. We are simply obsessing and making our worlds small, unwilling to be seen, full of shame or regret, isolating from humankind and hunkering into our turtle-shell.

Will avoiding the cookie kill us? No. It will free us. We know what it’s like to live that obsessed life, and we want something better.

Let’s come out. Let’s get over ourselves and get into life. Let’s go for something so much bigger than how we look. Let’s feel great and make space inside our heads to reach for a big dream and allow ourselves the privilege of this wondrous and remarkable life. There is so little time left to sit in self-sabotage and complaint and victimhood.

We can take exquisite self-care and see what shines on the other side of that. For today, we can.