Thinking Well of Ourselves

“Think well of yourself.” The first time I heard this guidance from my spiritual teacher, I had no sense of how increasingly important it would become in my life. Back then I remember wondering what would happen to my self-improvement project if I (gasp!) thought well of myself. Wasn’t the goal to discover and root out all the ugly patterns living in me? Thinking well of myself seemed to require turning a blind eye to all my obvious issues. How could I think well of myself despite clear evidence that I was not getting high scores in the ego transcendence game?

Getting down on ourselves for our “faults” might be holdover activity from the mea culpa indoctrination many of us received. The well-intentioned religious idea may have been that we’ll become better people if we acknowledge (and maybe even beat ourselves up for) our wrongs. But actually, the opposite is usually more accurate:

Spiritually, we grow faster when we love on ourselves.

We might learn to think of the tendency to get down on ourselves as a kind of “evolutionary fragility.” Have you noticed how getting down on yourself really does weaken the whole evolutionary process? We start to feel like we are a problem. Eventually, we feel like we are an unsolvable problem. From this anemic, un-resourced place, it is hard for us to have enough energy to grow. Evolutionary fragility is afoot whenever I take spotting some less than ego-flattering pattern in myself as evidence of my wrongness.

Consider the distinction between saying “I am angry,” and saying “Anger is arising.” The first statement links my identity to an undesirable pattern. The second statement comes from a different identity – a simpler, more innocent foundational identity rooted in goodness – and notices the pattern as an impersonal arising. The anger might seem personal and true in the moment, but when I am able to come from this deeper identity rooted in goodness, I am not as tied up in defending the anger. There is more space around the arising anger, strengthening my agency to consider what I might do with it.

When I am able to locate myself in the Ground of Being, I dwell in a more joyful and kind, more reliable, truer sense of myself. From here, thinking well of myself is easier.

Kelly E. Miller, colored pencil on paper

It also helps me to consider that my inner state proliferates to the outer world, and into all my relationships. If I think well of myself, I am more likely to think well of others and they are more likely to feel accepted, understood, and unconditionally loved. So if at first the pattern to think poorly of myself has worn a deep groove in my mind and I can’t easily think well of myself for my own sake, maybe I can practice it for the sake of my child, my pet, my partner, or a friend.

To “think well of yourself” is an invitation to:

1. Remember Who you really are, and
2. Cultivate the general goodwill and loving kindness toward yourself that will be the energy signature experienced by everyone around you.

Thinking well of ourselves is an act of self-compassion. We can think, “God bless me for how hard I am trying.” Or, “Anger is arising. I will love myself while anger is visiting me.” Cutting ourselves slack will actually make us kinder human beings.

As an astrologer, my eye is on the titanic celestial movements of this week. Despite the many positive breakthroughs we might experience in the near future as a result of this week’s planetary weather, on our way there we may also be dealing with a lot of woulda, coulda, shoulda type self-recriminations. That’s why I will be practicing thinking well of myself. Will you join me?