You are good.

If I had to identify the #1 issue that stands between most of us and the ability to be happy, it is disbelief in our own inherent goodness. Nearly every thought, action, and yearning is immediately followed by a critique, a view of ourselves through a reverse lens: How is this playing out? How does this make me look? What would _______ say about this or think of me? From the most workaday impulses to our grandest, darkest, and most brilliant inclinations, we take one approach: judgment.

Of course judgment is useful and we each need to be observant, pragmatic, and sensible in the way we conduct ourselves, but I’m not talking about the kind of judgments that help us make good decisions about who to befriend or what job to take. I’m talking about the harsh inner critic who seems concerned with cataloging our every move.

My inner critic tracks me with a handheld camera and while “I” do what I do throughout the day: dress, eat, work, and so on, “she” faces me, camera in hand, gazing through the viewfinder, and with every step I take forward, she takes one back, capturing it. Then a third entity (sometimes an idealized me, sometimes my parents, sometimes Martha Stewart, sometimes the Buddha, sometimes the whole world) watches it in real time.

It does no good to try to please the cameraperson. It does no good to try to push her down and brush past. It does no good to bargain with or enter into any kind of dialog with the viewing audience (or audient, as the case may be).

The only thing to do is snap the camera off.

This is not as simple as it sounds.

It means letting go, first, of the idea that anyone is watching. No one is.

It means being who you are rather than who you thought you were supposed to be.

This is an act of love, not to mention authenticity, joy, daring, kindness. Vulnerability.

Belief in your own goodness is the ground, path, and fruition of such an attitude toward yourself–not the kind of belief that comes second, after it is “earned” through appropriate behaviors, accomplishments, or mindsets, but the kind that comes first, an a priori assumption that creates the outer and inner environments of your very existence; a proclamation of the goodness you naturally possess and need do nothing to come by. You were born with it.

We each have to figure out what this means exactly, but the innate expectation of and need for love is our biggest clue.

The love we can offer ourselves is simply this: opening to your experience again and again, seeing what you feel, think, want, abhor, adore, disdain, and allowing it all to be so. When you judge yourself positively or negatively, you allow that too. See it. Take an interest in it. How fascinating. Because it is.

What it is not, however, is the truth.

The truth of who you are has much more to do with the one who takes an interest than the one doing all these interesting things. She, this latter being, is constantly changing, a kaleidoscope of beautiful forms, pleasing sounds, deliciousness, mystery, and also of grasping, aggression, delusion, and all such things beyond all such things. The you who is reading this email will be gone by the time this sentence has been read and a new, equally fascinating you is taking shape. Dive into this stream. This is love.

This love is gentleness.

It creates itself.

It is your home.

You deserve it, right now.

And now.

And now.

And now.

Your meditation practice teaches you exactly how to do this, rather than how to believe in it. Through sitting with yourself as you are, you practice taking this attitude of gentleness, relaxation, and, yes, bravery–breath by breath and thought by thought.

How many times have you turned toward yourself with the love, care, and tenderheartedness that you would toward a child, a lover, best friend, or brother? The answer could be never or I can hardly recall. Maybe today will be the day you begin.

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categorized in: meditation, open heart project