Do you mentally beat yourself up? Maybe you tell yourself you’re not doing enough, not working enough, not being the best you that you can be. I do all of that. A lot. For a long time, I thought the only way to silence this voice in my head was to simply do more. Work harder, write more, exercise more, eat more vegetables, meditate more, and on and on…

But in the past year, I’ve been trying to work on the idea that everything I am right now is enough. Everything I need to be I already am.

I think the thirties is the decade where we do more of this work than ever before – this work of self-acceptance. You realize that you have to embrace and accept your own imperfections. Those negative voices that tell you, “You’re lazy! Be more productive!” and “You need to do more” and all of those voices, don’t serve you at all. You have to be kind to yourself. I wish I knew exactly how to do it, and sadly I really have no idea. But I do know that it begins with loving all the parts of yourself – the lazy parts, the sad parts, the goofy parts, all of them.

“Clearly recognizing what is happening inside us, and regarding what we see with an open, kind and loving heart, is what I call Radical Acceptance. If we are holding back from any part of our experience, if our heart shuts out any part of who we are and what we feel, we are fueling the fears and feelings of separation that sustain the trance of unworthiness. Radical Acceptance directly dismantles the very foundations of this trance.”
― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha