To my beloved friend,
I have a message for you today. My words might be blunt and they might even be overstepping into deeply personal territory, but I see what I see and I hope you will forgive me for saying what needs to be said. You don’t love yourself enough. You are far too hard on yourself for the times you are imperfect, mess up, or fail to meet your own strict standards. You judge yourself harshly and rarely do you give the kindness and light that lives at the core of you enough credit. I’m writing this letter because I want you to stop and realize the truth in these words. You deserve better than the way you treat yourself. You deserve better than the mistreatment you put up with from others. You deserve to be free.
No matter how many mistakes you’ve made or how hard the story of your life has been, you are a special, precious soul and you deserve good things. You deserve to be free of the voice in your head that tells you that your suffering is inevitable. The voice that tells you that you are not good enough, smart enough, beautiful enough, or talented enough to live an abundant, happy life. That voice is not a good companion. It is a liar – a hateful distillation of all the times that you were criticized by broken people, the times you tried and failed, the times that you hurt or betrayed others or were hurt or betrayed yourself, and the incessant barrage of messages of inadequacy fed to you by a consumer-driven society whose economy runs on instilling a sense of discontent and incompleteness within its people. It is hard not to believe the things that you hear repeated to you or those that you repeat to yourself. But you must remember that belief does not make something true. The earnest flat-earthers are a good example of this. However easy it may be to roll your eyes at the bullshit that other people believe, the things that you believe about yourself can be far more insidious and destructive. It’s time to address what you believe about yourself, your power, and your value.
The mindset of poverty does not only separate people from financial ease, it also stifles the spirit from being able to give and receive love in a bountiful way. It stops people from feeling the joy of being alive in this beautiful world and appreciating how special they are. I see you struggling with this, my dear friend, maybe only a little but perhaps more deeply than I can sense. I cannot be more emphatic when I say that looking at yourself as impoverished and “less than” is a lie and a trap. Please heed these words, for they come from a place of experience. I spent most of my life snared by these false beliefs and this is why I was moved to write this letter to you. The truth is that you are beautiful, worthy, and there is a whole world full of freedom and joy and love available. Please find it within your will to walk away from the judgments that others (and yourself) have placed upon you. You deserve to be free.
It’s time to get serious about renewing yourself, forgiving yourself, and remembering who you are underneath all the tension and the cruel labels that you have allowed to be stuck all over you. Life is hard and people are hard. The painful experiences in your life have tarred and feathered you and stolen your ability to embody your most magical, authentic self. Not everyone has the same depth or variety of woundedness, of course, but each of us carries more weight that we should have to bear. This includes you. The disappointing truth is: a savior is not coming to free you from these psychological fetters. As helpful as allies are, there is no deity, candle, gemstone, or relationship that can bring you back to wholeness until and unless you make the firm decision in your own mind that you are worthy of being free and that you will be free. As you march through the years allotted to this incarnation, you can either be your own greatest love or be your own worst enemy. The choice is yours. I hope so much that you will choose to face the reality of your personal imprisonment and forgive and love yourself the way that you deserve.
You have made mistakes. You have hurt people, been wrong, and made bad choices. Of course you have. You likely thought you were doing the right thing at the time, or perhaps you were acting from a place of selfishness, anger, spite, or hurt. This is what we messy humans do sometimes. Fucking up, and fucking up fairly often, is an fact of life. It is something that all of us do. But you must remember that what you do wrong is not one bit more important than all the things you do that are good and loving and healing and right. Mistakes have been made, but you have grieved, suffered, regretted, and eventually learned from them. There is no need to carry them any further. Whether others forgive you and what they think of who you are and what you do is irrelevant. Once you have acknowledged and taken responsibility for the cringy things you’ve done, it is okay to let them go and put your energy toward being happy and being better. It is not only okay to move on, it is imperative if you ever wish to be happy.
Be your own best friend, my friend. When people hold grudges or project blame onto you, let them. When people misunderstand you, chafe against your boundaries, or simply are rubbed wrong by who you are, let them. Everyone has their own perspective and others’ preferences and judgments should never have the power to diminish your self-worth. Stand strong in your own peace and the knowledge that you are not, and never have been, a vending machine put here on earth to please others. You deserve your own experiences and to be fully in charge of your own life. Don’t let anyone make you feel badly for having your own set of preferences, ethics, and standards. Others should not have the power to define who you are or who you should be. Giving anyone that kind of sovereignty over you will only make you lose trust in yourself and erode your precious sense of self-worth.
What really matters is what you see when you take the time to look deeply at yourself. You’ll find imperfections there, habits of thoughts and behavior that are harmful and need to be uprooted. You may be exasperated when you see how stuck you’ve been and how much you still need and want to grow. But none of those things that you obsess about and loathe are the sum total of you. There is beauty there, too – tremendous, jaw-dropping beauty! And compassion. And humor. And passion. And love. You are unique and gifted and you have so much to offer the world. Even if you haven’t fully realized it yet, you are incredibly special, important, and needed.
I pray that you will be bold enough to leave that place of timidity in which you have walled yourself in with defenses, believing that authenticity is unsafe.
I pray that you learn to look at yourself with admiration and find a healthy balance that allows you to address your shortcomings while never losing an ounce of love for the person that you are.
I pray that you forgive yourself for so often harming yourself with judgments and unkind words and thoughts and feelings. Abuse is every bit as damaging and traumatizing when you are the one dispensing the cruelties. Speak to yourself with intentional love and respect and watch your happiness blossom!
Finally, I pray that you rediscover yourself in a way that will feel like falling madly, head-over-heels in love. I know with ever fiber of my being that you deserve that love.
Making the decision to forgive and love yourself will not make the world less hard and it won’t change damanged people from hurting you as they flail about trying to find their own way. You will still have to face hard and hurtful things and you will still occasionally fall short and disappoint others and yourself. You will still be human. But please trust me when I say that the decision to love yourself unconditionally and to let go of the worn-out narrative that you deserve less is a choice that will change your life. It will change everything.
With much love and great hope,
Tammy