You're Never Done

Friends, don't you ever think that anyone grows out of their need to work their ass off at self love. I am a coach to so many mothers and work every day to teach my children and my clients to see the pure goodness in themselves, to realize that their goals are only achievable through self love and affirmation, and to grow myself into that place as well.

I have spent years working with counselors, mentors and coaches to unlearn my destructive habits and discover the true and good within myself. I used to think that someday I would arrive at this destination where I totally loved and appreciated myself, never reverted to negative thoughts or self-esteem, and approached everything before me with positivity and self-worth. Then I realized that would never be the case, that I would never be done trying or needing to work on myself, but I believed it was because there was something wrong inside me - that I, unlike others, had such a negative personality that I would always have to overcome it.

I might be wrong or just not evolved enough yet, but right now I think that never-done-ness is actually the same for everyone. While we have different stories, different personalities and different baggage, all of us have human brains. The human brain is a problem-solving machine. And that means it is constantly seeking out problems. It will even invent problems if there are none to be found, even when the task before it is simple self-reflection. Feelings like pride, satisfaction, gratitude, self-love, are things that we need to cultivate and CHOOSE. When I think about this in terms of my mandate as a mother, it helps me a lot. Seeing my kids be hard on themselves or put themselves down is gut-wrenching.

Why can't they see how incredible and transcendent they are?!?! Why? Because they're human. It's not because I taught them to feel badly about themselves or let them down as a mother. It isn't my job to raise kids who never doubt themselves; that is impossible! Now I see my job is to teach them how to handle it when these feelings come up, and to show them what an adult who is working on that every day looks like.