What is wrong with being full of ourselves?
A teacher who I respect greatly once told me that true personal power is the ability to take a compliment or an insult equally:
Both are the opinion of someone outside ourselves. As a result, neither really matters.
It stuck with me because I, like many people, learned when I was young that other peoples’ opinions mattered. As a result I spent many years of my life feeling batted about by other peoples opinions.
The way I see it now, though, is that each of these areas that we allow other people to bolster or deflate us are areas where we are essentially giving other people the power to determine our self-worth.
***
When it comes to areas in which we feel particularly unworthy, or insecure, it is easy to be bolstered or deflated by other peoples’ comments. If we are complimented, then it feels great! If we are insulted, then it confirms our worst fears about ourselves.
These places are arrows pointing towards places inside us that we don’t fill ourselves up:
-Each time a person’s compliment can shift how we feel about ourselves (raise our feelings of worthiness), it's like we're handing them the power over our self-esteem. This is completely different to simply reveling in something that feels good (more on that below!).
-Or there’s the opposite: where we reject a genuine compliment because we feel unworthy of it. No, no, this old thing? No, no it’s not a big deal, I don’t deserve praise. I am nothing. A smudge on the window. A blot of ink on a page. Stahhp, really, before I disappear completely.
For those of us who are socialised as female, there’s an extra layer where we are taught to be grateful that someone has complimented us (usually on our appearance). I am not alone in having not responded to a compliment eagerly enough, and subsequently being told that I’m full of myself. Because I didn’t fall over and kiss somebody’s feet for saying I had a nice [insert body part]. Because I was not polite enough, humble enough, grateful enough. Because I was already full, and therefore didn’t *need* what was being offered.
Which brings me to a big and important question:
What is wrong with being full of yourself?
Because I would rather be full of myself, than be full of everyone else.
***
To not be 'full of ourselves' is seen as a modest ideal.
But… what if that’s not right? What if it’s even possibly harmful? To strive for humility in a way that makes us feel less than means that we spend our lives comparing ourselves to the world around us.
If we are giving other people the power to fill us, or deflate us, then how can we ever get out of our own heads enough to truly be present, or connect with, the world around us. It’s like that feeling when you go to a party wearing a pair of jeans that’s a little too tight, and spend the entire night so aware of your too-tight pants that they become the glasses through which you see the party:
-Are people noticing my pants?
-Have my pants split yet?
-Can I eat anything or will that be coup de grasse for the [only so mighty] top button?
You can’t fully immerse yourself in the experience, because you’re conscious of yourself and the pants. Whereas, when you’re comfortable, you don’t even think about your pants. You’re just experiencing the party, and enjoying other peoples’ company.
When we are full of ourselves, we are so comfortable that we don’t think about ourselves: being around other people doesn’t reflect back on us in any way.
-A person can be beautiful without it meaning anything about us.
-A person can be rude without it meaning anything about us.
-A person can be distracted and it means nothing about us.
-A person can be the most confident, big, shiny, and powerful person in a room, and we can hang out with them, because we aren’t thinking about how we look or feel in relation.
When you’re full, you don’t even think about your self.
****
A dear friend of mine, upon receiving compliments, says 'I know, thank you'.
It allows someone else to revel in something lovely about her, without them being responsible for her self esteem. She doesn’t try to bat it back to them, or feign humility, she just lets it in, says thank you, and shines.
I know. Thank you.
Try it. In yourself right now. Receive a compliment (an imaginary one works), and just say 'I know, thank you.'
What happens? Does stuff come up?
“No I couldn't be”, or “I’m not possibly worthy enough of that”, or “Maybe on another day when I DO more but not today.”
Receiving. Being worthy as you are. Simply saying 'thank you' and accepting that your worthiness is inherent. This is why stuff comes up when we sink into it, because our stories about ourselves that we pick up over the course of our lives often contradict the inherent truth: I know. Thank you.
The beautiful thing is that when we are able to receive in this way: to see our inherent value, we start to see the extent of our influence. I don't mean 'I put a photo of my arse on Instagram and now I have 65,000 followers' influence, but simply in the way we touch the people who we interact with.
In being full of ourselves, we stop CARING so much about ourselves.
We stop reflecting upon ourselves often, because we are no longer needing to be lovable to others, in order to be filled up by them. We are able to truly be. To perceive the world around us with more clarity, because we are not consumed with ourselves first. In fact, the self starts to disappear a little. This is, actually, the bulk of what the middle section of The Wonder Sessions does: after the first section, which is about receiving and worthiness, the middle part helps you fill yourself with yourself, so that you can then turn outwards and start really deeply perceiving and interacting with the outside world. To sync up with the world, become coherent with it, communicate with it, without the Self getting in the way.
When we let go of the small Self that needs to be filled by others, the deep Self starts to shine so brightly that it is like its own little sun.
The difference is in how we perceive ourselves: if we need to see ourselves as important and good and beautiful and talented, or whatever the compliments that fill us up are. If we need to judge ourselves in comparison to the people around us like some sort of ladder of worthiness. Those times when we feel insecure in comparison to another person, but then start to look for their faults to feel better about ourselves, or turn our gaze to someone we deem less worthy than us, to balance ourselves out.
What if we step out of this ladder-type perspective completely?
What if we could just be quietly content within our own energy?
It's such an incredible thing, to be able to be happy someone compliments you, but not act as if they are giving us something bigger than that. To revel in someone else’s thriving, without making it about us.
***
I can't think of a better way to live in devotion to the earth, and the vastness of the cycle of life, than to start with the simple step of filling ourselves with ourselves. In the same way as the trees are full of themselves, and the rocks are full of themselves, and the hawthorns shine with the entirety of their being, and the hawks circle overhead being so FULL. So. Full.
I recently did a session trade with a talented healer. I don't really talk about healing work much anymore, because I don't do it much anymore.
But, she gave me an amazing session.
Then I gave her a session.
Afterwards, she sat up and looked at me in shock.
"You're good." she said.
"I know.
"No, you don't understand, you're really good."
I paused.
Then, I looked her in the eye, and said "I know. Thank you.“
She smiled back. Calm. Full.
“Good,” she said. “That’s good“.
Big hugs,
Rebecca
Ps. I recently accidentally deleted the waitlist for The Wonder Sessions. Tech wiz I am not— I thought I was deleting an old, defunct email list. There were a few hundred people on it who are now *not* on it anymore. If you’d like to be back on the waitlist, please email me (rebecca at wonder botanica dot com), and I’ll send you the link to re-join. The waitlist is the way to get first dibs on the limited spaces in the course, and to have access to a pre-registration discount, should you want to secure your space in advance.