When I was growing up, nearly four decades ago now, my parents did not concern themselves with the rubric of self esteem. Dinner time was less “magic circle” where my siblings and I took turns freely expressing our deepest feelings. It was more nightly warfare involving my brother and a plate of green vegetables. My parents expected us to do our best and appropriately acknowledged whatever modest trophy-worthy achievements we had, but there was no cash windfall or refrigerator posting of any of it.
In truth, the refrain I heard most - when good things happened or when adolescence was making its familiar mess - was this: “Remember honey, there will always be someone more accomplished, smarter, prettier, kinder, more athletic and who doesn’t look like a ballerina playing basketball, but there is no one, not one, who has your unique combination of all those things.”
As a first born striver, that came as a great relief. Also helpful when I failed to make the tennis team or place in the Miss Teen of Indiana 4-H Competition. But mostly, it made sense because had they told me I was the best or among the best in any one of those areas, I’d know they were not telling the truth.
Correlation and causation are hard to parse, but this knee-jerk remembrance came back recently when a friend asked me about the source of my glass half full outlook. It happened while we were on a run, where endorphins like to elbow us into honest self disclosure.
I answered by pointing to this refrain and how my parent’s deliberate choice to celebrate the whole me rather than one fleeting achievement gifted me a certain bedrock of confidence. In the same way it’s risky to put all your stock in one company, we open ourselves up to insecurities when we bet our self worth on what superficially seems to be our biggest asset. And while it’s natural to want to pluck out our strengths and bury our weaknesses, the real beauty worth beholding - the thing that will always fill at least half a glass - is the sum of our parts.
I went on to tell my friend that over the years, the accelerant to that reassurance has been the ongoing experience of the miracle of being fully understood and unconditionally loved. Yes in part by my family, my husband and children, but more acutely in a cosmic way.
I spent my childhood singing “Jesus loves me, this I know,” but that was no guarantee that my mind and heart would swing open to the audacious dare behind those simple words. In the same way that writing down a great quote doesn’t make it more real in your life, examining God at a distance is no better than imagining a vending machine in the sky. But I have been daring to believe that I am deeply loved by divine love, just as I am. And, in this paradoxical way, these tender words of unconditional love both tops up my glass and gives me the kick in the pants I need to do and love better.
No matter how many aces we were dealt, none of us are immune to self doubt. Furloughed confidence happens regularly. And because it does we must plan for it by nurturing what is more true than a stumbling block in the road. To be happy in your skin most of the time doesn’t have to be unrealistic or left to the On Cloud Niners. When something in your life isn’t going to plan or even approaching takeoff, when stay home orders and overbaking cloak you in an extra eight pounds you do not want, when social media tempts you into thinking nine out of ten people are doing better than you, may I ever so gently remind you or tell you for the first time:
You are the beautiful, crazy, unique sum of your parts. And those parts are on a trajectory. Today’s trouble might be the headline, but good news is often buried in the graphs where every data point matters.
(Written with love to Meredith, my running friend, who encouraged and reminded me that one of my parts — recently on a long furlough - was that of a writer.)