You've got to have a lot of self in life...
Thank you for inspiring me - a 7 year old participant from my mom’s unfinished masters project.
‘you’ve got to have a lot of ‘self’ in life’…
This was a sentence that resonated with me whilst having a 7pm phone call in the middle of a dark, cold evening in Bath. How did this 7 year old completely grasp what one’s self really does need? It’s yourself.
self - worth
self - love
self- awareness
self- ishness (yeah that is important too!).
Knowing your ’self’ is needed to get through the game of being the ultimate you.
You’ve got to have a lot of self in life.
For me this is achieving all the aspects of yourself from the different angles.
Firstly, self - worth. Your value is completely dependent on how much you like yourself. The worth of taking up your own time, would you give up time to look after yourself? If you’d make time to see a friend, would you feel the same about yourself. I think sometimes people wouldn’t have the same response to that question. I think we passively ignore the internal value and shuffle towards how much we want to feel worthy by others (through the mediums of liking/commenting/followers) the idea that a numerical value is a substantial way to know the notion of how much worth we have from others. Worth is so much more than just liking yourself. It’s feeling like you deserve the greatness, however that comes by. It’s owning the fact that you belong in the place you’re lucky enough to be in. Worth is wealth and I feel at times I can be the richest person, I appreciate that isn’t always the case. But that’s the great thing about self worth- we create the currency and exchange it between ourself and no one else!
Self - love. Oh how I still struggle with this one. Telling it how I feel, I’m not perfect and through that I still struggle to FULLY embrace all the self- love within me. Yet, I have a long life to have that discovery. I know it is within my reach, so I am still learning this. Yet so far, self -love is about seeing those flaws and just accepting that be. Self- love is sometimes about the already ‘in love’ aspects and heightening them even more. I love to dance, so I dance more. I love my smile, so I make sure I smile (even when I don’t feel like it). Radiating the energy from the inside out is FAR easier and honestly, more convincing with an actual belief when its coming from you first. The inner self is stronger and powerful when we just love that being we are.
Self - awareness is respecting the boundaries and not just lines to cross but you have carefully laid for purpose and not pressure. Let’s not be scared to have boundaries. I think the concept can come from a place of negativity and marginalising ourselves (I often think of teachers telling me not to run in the corridor). Awareness: it’s being whole. It’s writing you own book and knowing every word of every page and then some! Self- awareness is also so helpful with making good, meaningful connections. The empowerment to be able to seek others that value your boundaries, but also your open pages. They read and only then gain the knowledge because you’ve expressed it perfectly when writing the book of you! I appreciate my own self awareness maybe less than I should, but it’s because i’m so bloody aware that I don’t need to appreciate it- it’s because everyday I say thank you for the things I am and the things I am not in life - and I am self- content with *most of it. Of course, I am still learning this.
Selfishness is ESSETNIAL. Why would I embrace a quality that is deemed a flaw? Because selfishness is not a negative for YOURSELF! Putting yourself first and saying NO. For me, selfishness encompasses all the qualities of self into one. You need to put all those qualities above into a daily, weekly, life long practice. It’s all well and good to be told to do all those things, and be aware of them. Selfishness is the driver that actually encourages us to really DO them. To really BE them.
You’ve got to have a lot of self in life.
Self comes in more forms that just these. To nail them all is a lifelong task and one where the prize comes in the form of the never ending knowing point. Sounds sad? Maybe, if you think of it as sad. Self is a multi-layed approach and in turn is not discovered overnight, in a week, month or even on a gap yarrr. Self is a more complex and shape-shifting illusion. The creation of ourselves is the most powerful thing you will EVER work on in life. Fact.
The ‘self’ that we have today should be the one we value, love and aware of most.
First Love Yourself.
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