May 4, 2002

I think I have just given myself the most difficult task known to mankind. To like myself. Once you step onto the great mountain of self esteem, you find yourself walking up the scales of the tail of a great fire breathing dragon. He is unrelenting in trying to break into your castle of self confidence.

Patrick, my partner and I went together into the void of nothingness where all creation happens and there set two "intentions" each on our newly created "chalkboards of creation." Very simple, very precise, it seems, but it's the implications and the rest of the stuff you have to do that makes your monster LARGE in a hurry.

Our first intention was to love ourselves. To me, that one seems kind of easy, peasy. I associate that with seeing the divine within, our God self, the beautiful angel that holds the space for and encourages all that we are. What's not to love about that? This beautiful, golden being, always in a state of loving and giving. Here world, is my highest self. How do you like me so far?

The second intention was to like ourselves. Not such an easy task, despite our towers of good intention. This is where I see all of the warts, the lumps, the bumps and the bulges. Sounds like a Dr. Suess book. The lumpy, bumpy wart from the village of bulge.

This is where the 'me devil" lurks that says the wrong thing in that crucial moment. The never satisfied gnome that just wants to lose just 5 more pounds. The little girl we can't accept that throws a temper tantrum that overrides the mature individual that we think we are. How does THAT happen? This is the place where the giant monster of "all that we SHOULD be" looms in the darkness, just waiting to pounce.

One of my biggest run-ins of late with this unrelenting beastie was an indirect result of Patrick and I putting together our own business creating courses, and articles on what we call "Speaking Your Truth." While doing this, I've had to fall back on some old part-time endeavors to pay the rent. Just as the coffer was dwindling, I got a phone call, offering me exactly the type of work that I needed and liked, exactly when I needed it. God never wants me to starve, it seems, as he always comes through with just what I need, just when I need it.

So now I'm doing the cooking and food prep for a beautiful Bed and Breakfast just over the Lion's Gate on the way to Grouse Mountain. Great fun, great people, work that I love, the flexibility that I need, and enough money to keep me flowing. So here's the kicker. My second week there, the housekeeper goes on holiday, so I was asked if I could help out a bit more and expand my duties a bit. Only too happy to comply, I found myself having second thoughts while donned in a pair of yellow rubber gloves staring at a very large bathroom, in just as large a state of disarray. Could I still like myself while up to my elbows in someone else's toilet?

The ironic thing is that Patrick, after 20 years with a successful business in facilitating corporate cultural change is finding his well dry at the moment. Luckily for him, he has a friend that has a landscaping business that needs a bit of help when he has an especially large plot to dig, so Patrick gets to spend the odd day in the trenches.

We both figure that God is teaching us a lesson in humility, and from the depths of toilet scrubbing and ditch digging, there is nowhere to go but up.

Another really good self beater upper, and one that I completely buy into, is the body image monster. Women have been fighting this creature for decades and it seems that men are finding themselves introduced to the great green self esteem eater lately as well. I'm 5'8" and 140 lbs. Not exactly fat. Some might say slim. But just my luck, I
find a guy that likes the "Twiggy with boobs" look. I'm definitely more of the Marilyn, curvy type. Twiggy go home.

So how do I convince myself that the way I look is more than perfectly OK, when my brain tells me that my mate, the man that I love, would be more attracted physically to someone else ? After 40 years of programming, and as many years of looking at myself in the mirror, do tell me, how am I going to find a way to like myself now? My
little grandmother angel guide says, "Look at it as an opportunity to find that what is inside of you is more important than the way you look." Yeah well, I can see that on a good day, and that certainly is what Patrick keeps telling me, but it doesn't always fly when you are on your knees scrubbing the big white porcelain fishbowl.

Oh-and don't forget this one-the cleverly disguised vixen of the geographic cure to escaping yourself, the well deserved vacation to a sunnier clime. Don't let the cloak of sexy soft skin fool you, "cause underneath, guess what? You'll see the familiar green hue of nastiness as wherever you go, there you are! It's very easy to dislike yourself while wedging your non-Twiggy like curves into the latest way-too-teeny bikini on the beaches of Jamaica.

The heaviness of it all becomes unbearable some days, especially when you start projecting it all onto the people you should be loving the most. Suddenly Patrick becomes too fat, too lumpy, too bald, and why can't he look like Tom Cruise, anyway? Or your boss, who's normally very understanding, is just sooooo unreasonable that you
will HAVE to find another job soon. Your Mom is too demanding, your co-worker too slow, your friend too unreliable.

Now, having turned in the big hamster wheel of life long enough, having been fooled one too many times by the sirens of seduction, I've decided that if I am REALLY, TRULY, cross my heart and hope to die, gonna' like myself, I think my approach needs to be a bit different. I know what all the new thought gurus say, "go within you will find your answers there, young grasshopper." Yeah, well, that's all very nice, but what, exactly does that look like on this planet, Oh swami?

The beautiful thing about my new approach, just like all else that goes with the flow in the universe, is that what I have decided to do costs nothing. I don't have to move, I don't have to change jobs, get a new partner, new friends, a new boss, or even disown my parents. I've discovered the eternal secret of all happiness, finally, and it was
right under my nose all the time. I've decided to take 100% responsibility for all I am, all I do, all that I feel, and EXPRESS it in a creative way that serves all involved. It's as simple as that.


Although it's an upward climb from the 40 years of programming and
socialization that keeps rearing its' ugly head, finding myself again has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life. I'm starting to find that the big green confidence eating gremlin is looking smaller and smaller every day. And those toilets don't look quite so intimidating either.