Who would you be without your accomplishments (or failures), your degrees (or lack thereof), your bank accounts, your experiences, your title, your home, your status?      

After having had a year of disengaged time to think about, well, anything and nothing really, I have to admit I’d still like to be able to accomplish some of those things. They are important to me, actually valuable to my way of thinking, but alack and alas – they are not the key to who I am. They really have nothing to do with my inner idea of a self-identity and have, simply and always, been the pretty face of external manifestations of a little wisdom and good use of the gifts I arrived with at birth – which we're all equipped with and draw on throughout our lives (such as they are).

I freely admit to having overlooked my own quivered arrows and moral compass at a few critical junctures, and in their stead, gave preference to the pretentions of others to feed and guide me, but I suppose that's what that 'free will' stuff is all about. (I never said I was smart!)

Having failed to accomplish many of the things I set out to do early in life, I'm now feeling pressure to more fully address the question of ‘What makes me valuable, if just being the way I am right now isn’t good enough’? Can I be satisfied and happy in an unfulfilled state? Especially knowing there is so much more that is important to me that I’ve yet to even begin to achieve? What if I never get there? How valuable will my life have been with so much unfulfilled desire at the end? Do my feelings of ‘not enough’ rob me of day-to-day comfort and fulfillment in the here and now (the only place we can ever really be as humans, right)?

I’ve come away with a number of answers, but time and recent experience has taught that after all the things are gone, ‘I’ am all that is left. Scary. Especially if you're me.

What I seem to have discovered is that so much of the suffering, stress, insecurity and worry that come as handouts as we enter the door to life on the planet here, oddly disappear into the ether when one is standing alone with no apology or pretense for what is apparent to me and anyone else who cares to look – a revelation of seismic magnitude, 9.5 at least. I'm just who I am, cellulite, wrinkles, and all. Not particulary stand out. Not the worst, not the best.

On the plus side, I no longer worry about much. I'm not suffering nearly as much as I know I could be. I have no guilt, don't apologize for myself very often, and find I can leave grudgy feelings on the ground and walk away on (self) command if I need to. I've struck oil!

I think learning about your ‘self’ takes courage, commitment, openness, and faith that it will all come right in the end. It's been a process of letting go of the many false beliefs picked up from the collective consciousness: that you have to look good, be smart, know the right people, say the right things, and have the proper experience, in order to be happy and successful in life. Peeling back layers to the point at which you can simply ‘Be Yourself’ is counterintuitive, difficult and off-putting and, at times, lonely. It’s the waking nights, the anxious days, the churning gut, and the whirling mind. All the things we scurry like mad to avoid. Filling the days with busy, busy and putting the parentheses of chores, errands, and family duties or social commitments around the nights.

Banging away on the drum to drown out the silence that leeches in when we are alone, finally, with only ourselves to talk and listen to. The question eventually emerges...am I good enough?

The yardsticks we use to make that measurement largely depend on the state of mind we find ourselves in. As long as externalities, such as accomplishments and things, are held up to measure the value of a being, we will fall sadly and sorely short. In that place we are wont to overlook how far we’ve come in our ability to care, to give, to love, and to place our essence into the lives of others at critical moments – when it really matters – to be the change we want to see, as Gandhi wisely recommended.

Being ourselves in an authentic way is actually about accepting ourselves in a generous way. If we can show love to our 'selves' in the way we've tried to show love to others, most of what we worry about and even much of what we strive for in life becomes meaningless. We may still have some worries, and we'll definitely continue to have goals, dreams and desires but when we can see from a place of true self-appreciation and self-caring, the fear behind our worries and the motivation for our goals dramatically changes from something we have to produce in order to be accepted and valued, to something we really want to be as we live and learn. It finally stops being about the external altogether and the mind’s eye is refocused inward to the source of where all that we are resides.

Truthfully, if we can’t find room to accept who we are, as we are right here, right now, nothing much really matters anyway. No matter what we conquer or create, or what we lose and how many times we fall down in defeat, we will never be fulfilled in the struggle because we're striving to be validated in an insatiable way.  We can never get enough love and validation from any source outside of that silly, sometimes unlovely, amazing person we find ourselves to be.

Self-love is what we're all searching for.  Eureka!

Sadly, because it is so simple, we spend most of our lives thinking that someone or something else can give us what only we can give ourselves. No other person, amount of money,  possessions, or a fleeting sense of accomplishment will ever fill us up. It's not hopeless though. We can stand alone, clothed in the authenticity of who we are, and offer complete, unfettered acceptance of ourselves, to ourselves. Just as we are. Here. Now.

It has become crystal clear, now that I am without all the props, it’s always been up to me (click your heels Dorothy). I can celebrate who I am at any time, and for any reason or no reason. The more often I stop and carry out this little 'I love you anyway' ritual, the better I feel.

Love others as you love yourself ~ The ancient wise man that said that was much, much (much) further along on his journey than most. I think he was certainly divinely enlightened and I wish I had been able to understand what he meant sooner, then perhaps I wouldn't have had to learn this the oh-so-very-hard way, so late. I’m getting there though. The progress is generally too difficult to see, yet every now and then the protective scales fall away and a glimpse of all that is yet to be surrounds me for just a split second, and then I can see it's all going to come around in the end. 

I can live with that.