Technical savvy is not among my best traits. So, when attempts at using a wireless printer continued to fail, I was gratified that I enticed the printer to finally print. Expectantly, I went to retrieve my queued pages, only to discover just one sheet in the tray. The error message on that page read: "Unsupported Personality."
That could have been an error message about my life. Don't get me wrong, I've had support and love from family and friends my entire life. The unsupported personality part is me-to-me. I have an inconsistent, often unsupportive relationship with myself.
Sometimes I like me; sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'm happy with what I've done and who I am, only to be disappointed and discouraged when I don't live up to my expectations of what I think I should have accomplished, or fall short of the person I think I should or could be. Sometimes I'm self-encouraging; other times self-sabotaging.
That error message got me thinking. If someone treated me the way I've treated myself, I'd consider her more an enemy than a friend. I'd see her professed love as conditional, her expectations self-fulfilling; her intentions untrustworthy. I'd recognize her controlling, limiting and fear-inciting methods were not in my best interests. And I'd distance myself from her and look for better friends. But I haven't. I've continued, as my mother used to remind me, to be my own worst enemy.
Most days, I'm harder on myself than on others, holding different standards for love, trust and forgiveness. It seems to me, it's easier to be a friend to someone else than to yourself, easier to love others and to trust and to forgive everyone but yourself. Yet it makes me wonder - how can you offer the best of who you are to the world if you're not offering the best of who you are to yourself?
At this time of my annual birthday reflection, I'm noticing more than my aging skin and graying hair. I'm noting a stronger call to work on life's most profound relationship: the one with self. And I think I'm finally starting to understand why. We need a supported personality to unlock our life's music. It's when we extend unconditional love and acceptance to self, that we're able to live a soul-enhanced life from our core.
In the scheme of things, finding that different kind of self-friendship, takes time and vulnerability and trust. It's taken me decades to get this far on the inner journey dimension, and begin to see who I am. In this second half of life, I'm discovering how to offer myself the same love, forgiveness, compassion, friendship, and gratitude that I offer my best friends. I'm uncovering and nurturing a profound friendship with myself. And as a result, I'm seeing me and the world in a new light.
(c) 2010 Nan S. Russell. All Rights Reserved.
