I had an awesome Christmas. My husband gave me a GIANT TV for Christmas and I had a week’s vacation while my kids were away with their dad. Heaven has been a week on the couch with my new TV, a stack of movies and some video games. There might have been a little bit of danger about becoming permanently bonded to the couch, but regular exercise has prevented that, and kept my blood moving too. Did you know there is a dangerous national epidemic called Couch Butt? I almost had that. It’s when you get a butt cramp from doing nothing all day. It was GREAT!
I am not generally a couch potato, mind you. I am a very busy person, hardly any time for couch and TV combo. It was only a brief moment in time that I would be luxuriating in the cozy nest of my living room. And I could have so easily felt guilty about my couch time this week. But I didn’t. I just enjoyed it. I could have been cleaning and organizing my house. (Hah!) I could have been writing my book, or working for world peace, then it suddenly occurred to me that I was….. I was creating world peace by accepting my momentary couchness with total inner peace.
Here is how I figured it all out…
I am not much of a believer in New Years Resolutions. But this year, my new goal is to accept myself exactly as I am, without trying to change myself. This is harder than it looks, since there is a part of me that is always discontent with what I have and who I am. I can be a very “grass is greener” kind of person. And I often suffer from the twin demons of ENVY and COMPARING. You know that one, when everyone else has a better life then you do. I have couch envy. And until recently, TV envy.
In the Institute of Energy Medicine, that crazy Healer Training Program that I teach in, we talk about the Ego Ideal as a picture you have in your mind of who think you should be. I don’t know about you, but I can strive really hard to reach that pretty picture. And it feels like a lot of wasted energy. My ego ideal is just like me, only about 10 lbs thinner and ten years younger. And a lot richer. And my Ego Ideal just upgraded my dented, gun metal gray Mom Van that always smells like DOG no matter what, to a red hot Mercedes. (Car envy!) Cuz I am what I drive, so says the Ego Ideal.
And I just parked that car in front of my huge house. I am counting the number of bathrooms in my house. What? Five bathrooms! How decadent is that! (Oh yes. I have multiple bathroom envy. Hey, four teenagers, small house, one bathroom. It’s an issue!) And I might be a lot more famous, someone really well known. A leader in my field. (Whatever field THAT is. I think it’s the field that has been mowed down by aliens into a funky crop circle.) Oh yeah. And my gorgeous house isn’t in New England. (GAK!) I am doing all of this from Southern France and Hawaii.
Now that I am done adjusting the picture on my mental TV screen to TOTAL FANTASY, I feel a tremendous high, but bumping back into reality (as I wait in line for the bathroom in my real house…) I suddenly feel bad about myself that I am not that. Total epic bathroom fail. Am I a huge failure because I don’t meet my own ego ideal? This chronic dissatisfaction drives me to check stuff off my to-do list, but if left unchecked, it creates a lot of unhappiness. I know it will be written on my tombstone. “She was a good person, but she drove a very uncool car and only had one bathroom. And she never did lose that 10 lbs.” or maybe “Total Car Fail. Epic Bathroom Fail. Major 10lbs Fail.”
We all have an ego ideal. Marketing companies know this and use it to their advantage, to purposefully create dissatisfaction inside of us. They create a problem and hand us a answer in an easy three payments. How much money do we spend on lifting, toning, tanning, lightening, shaping, losing weight here, but adding it there, growing hair in some places and removing it in other places, all because we are are simply not acceptable the way we actually are. This desire to be other then who we are fuels many industries and empires. (Leaving heads of said companies with cool cars, multiple bathrooms and costly surgery to get all the hair and fat in the right places…) And leaves us feeling hollow and broke!
The good news is that when I disconnect from the Ego Ideal, I actually like myself and my life a lot. What if I felt like I was enough just as I am today? It’s a radical concept, but I am finding it very cozy when I get there. Suddenly, my life is quite nice. The couch looks good and the extra 10lbs is just a cushion to protect me from a fatal case of Couch Butt. This led me to wonder what if we all just stopped, took a few deep breaths and accepted ourselves exactly as we are in this minute? What would happen if the whole world did this? Maybe world peace would be achievable after all.
See? World Peace! Told you I would get there…
Think about it. How much depression and anxiety would be cured if we really loved who we were in a fundamental way? We might still work to change our circumstances, but how much hate would be gone from the world if we stopped hating ourselves? I stopped feeling like a failure for being middle aged and driving a mom van. My heart swelled with love and gratitude for my one bathroom. Think of the chamber pot, hole in the ground, out house alternatives. My bathroom rocks. I feel the love.
I am not saying we shouldn’t change or try to improve ourselves. I am always reaching for more inside of myself but when it comes from a a place of already feeling full inside, it feels a lot different then walking through the world with a big chip on my shoulder. From that place I am trying to prove something from a state of discontentment and not-enoughness.
When I already feel like I am already enough I feel motivated to be all I can be, but from a different place. This place is more about feeling joy as I express myself in the world in all the wacky ways that I do. It feels energizing and life giving. Totally different animal. Reality snaps back into place and all feels right with the world. I am in the right place at the right time and my life has an unbelievable richness to it. Each aspect of it brings more joy and connection. More opportunities to enjoy each moment as it comes. And that is when the good stuff happens, that is when miracles occur. The Buddhists have it right. Suffering comes from not accepting what is. Peace comes from loving what is.
Did you ever notice that most of the good stuff you have in your life, came out of already feeling GOOD about yourself and what you are doing? Let’s all make that our New Years resolution this year. To start from a place of lovingly accepting ourselves and each other as we truly are.
Bless you all and have a Happy New Year!
