How You Matter

How You Matter

Isn’t it amazing how complicated and weird we make stuff? I drew the “why am I important?” card this morning. Each of us is. We can tell that simply because we are here. But we get some people telling us from the time we are tiny that we suck, in all sorts of different ways,

We start to believe that we aren’t important, that we don’t matter.

Some of us buy into that idea. We decide to prove that we don’t matter. We give up trying. We decide we are useless, just like they said. We feel like we can’t handle the responsibilities of being a grownup, and we revert to childish behaviors, things that often are damaging to us and our loved ones. And we feel worse and worse about ourselves. We excel at underachieving. Our true potential seems like a horrible lie.

Some of us choose to prove that we are important. We seek approval everywhere, we seek prestige roles, we seek awards. We insist that others treat us differently. We often treat others as though they are less than us. And we often feel hollow inside, all the honors, all the prestige do nothing to make us feel the feelings of being important that we crave.

Both paths are lies, based on mislearning.

The truth is that we are important. Not because we’ve done anything, just because we are. The more we relax, the more we drop our mislearnings, the more we choose our natural, easy, flowing life, the more we come to accept our natural importance.

Accepting our natural importance does cool things. We recognize our importance at our core self. When we know, softly and truly, that we are important, we find that we even carry ourselves differently. We find more opportunities to share our gifts. We easily recognize each other’s importance, and treat each other  with parity and respect.

The next thing you know, we are feeling more connection. We find ourselves enjoying working together, finding common goals, enjoying team efforts, and team rewards. We feel less need to be singled out with accolades because we value and appreciate ourselves.

We enjoy more celebrations, because they mark our successes, and complete them, and just because they are fun.

We find ourselves setting bigger goals for ourselves, and our communities, because we know we can accomplish so much together..

We find ourselves feeling more compassion for others because we see their challenges, we see their importance. We remember how that pain felt.

We find ourselves feeling more gratitude for the many blessings that come to us from so many sources.

We find ourselves feeling more appreciation for the wonders and luxuries that surround us, for the kind and brilliant and loving people who surround us, for the enjoyable activities we get to do, for bodies to live in.

By owning our natural importance, we own our own special place in the world, and our own special gifts to bring to it.  We see that we make a difference, just by being our own natural selves.

How have I changed from believing old lies to owning my own natural importance?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 09152013