Shoulding all over ourselves

What is this weird current thought that says that it’s not okay to need positive reinforcement about our value from people close to us?  Why do we seem to be so convinced lately that we must know, in every moment of every day and with every breath, that we are exactly perfect just as we are?  Why is it wrong to want (or occasionally need) someone to remind us we’re wonderful once in awhile? 

It doesn’t help when every single commercial and every single magazine (and let me just say, “Fuck you, Cosmo”) tells us that we’re just not good enough.  We’re not thin enough, rich enough, wearing the right shoes/dress/mascara or whatever.  They tell us over and over again that no matter how hard we try, we cannot possibly be as good as we “should” be. 

I have one amazing, fabulous, beautiful friend who is in the process of learning, after having gone through some pretty serious shit the last few years, that she is, in fact, amazing, fabulous and beautiful.  Most days she seems to know she rocks, but from time to time the mean girls in her head tell her she’s not.  Let me just say this for the record:  The Mean Girls™ LIE.  They are more full of shit than your lower intestine.  But sometimes….well, sometimes they’re just louder and harder to ignore.  And to top it all off, this phenomenal woman supposed to be a totally emotionally-self-supportive rock?!  Fuck that.

These are the times when we get to lean on the people we love.  This is when we call our Badass Girlfriends Who Are Probably Just As Insecure Sometimes As We Are. And these women who we know are amazing, even when *they* doubt themselves (I know..shocking, right?), these wonderful friends remind us that we’re just as amazing.  That they’re just as inspired by our courage and strength and innate glory as we are of theirs. 

Here’s the thing:  You don’t get to be a grownup without collecting some baggage.  We all have it and a lot of it sucks.  The reality is that you simply cannot reach adulthood without schlepping some along with you.  The trick is to keep it fitting in the overhead compartment.  But just because maybe it’s a manageable size, doesn’t mean that you don’t occasionally need a hand lugging it up the stairs.

So stop picking on yourself.  Stop thinking that needing that reassurance from time to time means that you don’t actually rock, because you do. If the Mean Girls™ start giving you shit, pour them a glass of wine and tell them they’re wrong about you.  They’re wrong about themselves too.  Because they’re you and you’re them and you should really be nicer to each other.

I love you.  You are amazing and beautiful and glorious and inspiring and I’ll tell you that just as often as you need to hear it and even when you don’t, just because you deserve to hear it and I believe in telling the truth.

“You should believe in yourself so hard you shit your pants” 

--@lifecoachers via Twitter

~W