It’s O.K. To Have
The truth is that most people are in their way a whole lot more than anyone else is. One of the best ways to be in your own way is to believe you don't deserve anything that's good. What we're talking about here is your "WIL", aka your "Worth It Level." Everybody's got one. Your Worth It Level (WIL from now on) has a tremendous amount to do with how your life goes and how you let it go. If your WIL is set low, then you probably have a life in which you feel things rarely go right. You may even sabotage things so your results prove your beliefs. I've found that way too often, people also can feel as if they need to be punished. Another issue some folks can have is the feeling that they must believe all the lies the people who mattered in their lives told them because of their own pain and problems. Keeping your WIL low will certainly help you accomplish all this. Here's my question: do you really want to keep feeling like all the truly good things in life are meant for someone else, but not for you? Everything good is meant for everyone. Everyone. NO exceptions. Everyone includes you. Believe it, accept it, act as if you believe it. Trust yourself, not someone whose only investment lies in contributing to helping you feel awful about yourself. Whatever you have to do to raise your WIL, make the commitment to doing it: Go to therapy. Go back to therapy. Read helpful books. Go to talks, workshops, retreats. Talk to people who have a high WIL. You must commit to doing whatever it takes. The goal is to get to a point where you know with every cell in your body that's it's o.k. for you to have. We're not talking material things, although that can easily be part of it. What I am aiming at here is getting to a place where feeling good is expected and relished; where being happy is the norm, not the exception; where you do what you love and love what you do (and I mean this more than just about work); where you have someone who loves you and you love that person right back; where peace and contentment occur regularly, not sporadically; where your life proceeds with ease instead of agony. I am speaking of a getting to a place where there are no more halves of things, only a wholeness of positive experiences. Can you imagine how wonderful your life could be if it looked like this? If you can't, that's a pretty strong sign your WIL is too low. It's never too late to raise it. Commit now.
Think about it: if things don't always have to be hard, then it follows that things going really well is o.k. The problem for many people is that they feel undeserving of things going well and ultimately feel it's not o.k. to have. So, in accordance with their belief, they don't have.
I'd like to share a personal note here. Several years ago, I was going through a particularly difficult time. A very wise, warm, and wonderful woman entered my life and she and I met weekly to talk. Not therapy. Not solving problems. Just talk. I shared. She shared. We listened to each other and to ourselves. One hot Texas afternoon we sitting out on my deck drinking Coke out of real glass bottles and she looked over at me and said, "You know it's o.k. to have, right?"
And that's when it hit me: I had never believed it was o.k. for me to have anything. Not attention. Not love. Not people I could trust. Not the bike I really wanted. Not, Not, Not.
I'd like to tell you that an epiphany occurred and I "got it' that instant and immediately began to live my life as a person who believed having was o.k., but this is a non-fiction book. As the Buddhists like to say, "A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." Lynne's question to me was my "single step" on my journey toward it becoming o.k. with me for me to have. Notice I said "o.k. with me" for me to have. This is a very important, yet very subtle phrase. What it means is this: YOU are the one who decides whether to accept or decline what is already there for you. Now, here's my question for you: "You know it's o.k. to have, right?"
The Wisdom of the Single Step
