I was just thinking about the idea of “thinking you’re a good person” while watching Inside Out 2 tonight. And I sort of realized that, while it can be an essential core belief, it’s actually very limiting—you’re locked into not doing anything “bad” lest you lose your self-worth.
Better is probably just to have an innate sense of your value that transcends all your characteristics and good deeds. Or maybe, more accurately, a lack of thinking of yourself (judging and condemning yourself) as being “bad” or unworthy in any way for any reason.
Then the brightness of your inherently divine essence can naturally flow and expand and you can feel joy. And you can more quickly work through the karma of your “negative” characteristics by allowing them to be expressed and observing consequences.
[Other person’s text]
Hmm, I wonder if that’s true. I guess “allowing decadence/degeneracy” is a thing.
[Other person’s text]
Ah, ok. (But do you literally think you’re not a good person? Even if you’re not exactly bad? And what does “not being a good person” mean, other than that your values aren’t what you think they should be? Or is that the sum of it?
[Other person’s text]
Ah, I don’t know if I do this myself, so maybe I should be “fixing” myself instead, but I think the ideal way to look at your own shortcomings is with a neutral eye. Just observe what you want to change. If it helps, you’re “good” for wanting to be better in the first place.
And as for comparing yourself to others, I think (though honestly I don’t actually feel this way) that nobody’s better than anybody else. In one of Neale Donald Walsch’s books, God says, “Is one finger better than the other?” We’re more like fingers distending from a greater whole than separate entities, and we each have our function. By comparing people to each other and you to others, you also internalize that scale and allow yourself to think of yourself as anything but 💯. Thanks for joining my TED talk. :P
Related post: https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2017/05/21/goodness-compartments/
