Comfortable with Ourselves

Part of wisdom is understanding

that all these things come from a basic desire

of wanting to get along with ourselves.

Eventually all of us have to say to ourselves, “I want to like myself. I want to be able to be alone with me and get along with me. I want to make friends with me. I know it’s hard to make friends with me because I know everything about myself. I know all the good things about me, all the bad things, all the things I should have done and didn’t do and vice versa. I know all the arguments and fights and all the things I’ve done in my life. I can bring up a ledger of all these things and many times I don’t like me. But I have to make a decision that somehow or another I have to make an effort to like me. I have to be able to spend time with myself without needing distractions.”

I want to feel comfortable

that I can be alone with myself

and not be lonely.

Nobody can do this for us. We have to decide to have this conversation with ourselves.

You get up in the morning and while you shave or are putting on your make up, you look in the mirror and you say, “I want to like you and I’m going to try. But if I fail, I will try again. If I fail I have the right to fail and I am forgiving myself for failing. But I want to give myself the gift of trying to have a good life here.

“And if I’m not having a good life here it’s because I have not stopped to be grateful for all the gifts I have been given. I have to stop complaining about my life. If I start to think about it, I could find things that could be worse.”

So this is a tremendous shift in attitude.

It’s also a choice.

We always have a choice in our attitude. I can always find things that would appear to make life better for me. Our culture is always advertising ideas for this. Or I can start thinking about situations that could be worse than what I have right now. Then I would realize that my life is already pretty darn good.

Don’t make this life complicated.

It does not have to be complicated. This life is very simple. When we complicate things, everything becomes difficult to deal with.

I don’t think it’s out of line to ask you, a few times during the day, to pay attention, to be diligent, and to be thankful about something. To be truly thankful about something in this life!

Be thankful.

Appreciate things that you have.

Be in love with the Beloved.

Forgive yourself for knowing

all the things about yourself

that you don’t like.

Treat yourself

like you would treat a good, good friend.

I love you so much. It’s really so. I hope that you will hear me.

MOVE OVER HAFIZ

I no longer separate

the relative from the absolute.

Everything that is relative,

separate, unique, individual,

is intrinsically infused

with the absolute.

It is my joy,

as well as my pain at times,

to participate in knowing, touching,

tasting, seeing, smelling, hearing,

and feeling these infusions.

But I would not have it any other way.

I am the beloved,

wrapping my heart around

an unnamed One with a billion names,

kissing a mystery

I can only fleetingly know.

I stretch out my hand

and lead the Beloved

into my life.

(Move over, Hafiz.

You aren’t the only one

who knows how to dance!)

Shivakti