The Courage to just 'Be'

I must confess – the term ‘self-improvement’ gives me the creeps.

If there were such a thing as sensory sensitivity for words and expressions, then ‘self-improvement’ equals the sound of fingernails scraping down a blackboard for me. Whenever I stumble upon it, it sends shivers down my spine.

We tend to believe that the hardships and suffering we are facing must mean that we are somehow flawed. That there’s something inherently wrong with us, and we need to ‘work on ourselves’ to deserve a happy and fulfilling life. That we must ‚do’ in order to be loved – that it’s not enough to just ‚be‘…

For love, after all, doesn’t come for free… does it?

I suspect this is the underlying force behind our relentless attempts to upgrade our achievements, promotions, memberships, faces, bodies, wardrobes, bank accounts, dating profiles, mindsets… 

A futile endeavour to prove our worth through success and prestige. But we’ve got it all wrong. 

I choose to believe that love does come for free. 

The work we must do is not about improving who we are to ‘earn’ love, but about gaining self-awareness and self-knowledge – to remove the barriers holding us back from accepting the love that’s always been there in the first place.

This is the rocky road we must start walking.

The steep mountain we must start climbing.

Sweating, cursing, shedding tears of desperation along the way.

But once we find ourselves journeying toward this inner state of self-knowledge and self-acceptance, we may no longer feel the need to achieve or to improve who we are. We may find the courage to simply ‘be’ – and trust that opportunities will unfold, just as life unfolds. 

The only thing we need to ‚do’ is notice them and reach for them – as we open the gates to our fantasies… In doing so, we ‚achieve‘ without aiming to – simply by following our inner spark.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m still far from fully walking the walk of inner peace and confidence. But there’s this little voice within, softly whispering that it’s ok to just ‘be’…