This is the birthplace of joy: radical self-approval. Approve of your dreams, and say yes to them. Let yourself know that who you are matters. Couple that with radical self-acceptance and self-forgiveness and you will have all the energy that you need to accomplish what you want.

It’s important that we all shine in our individual ways. Comparisons are over. What is important is not that we be better than the person next to us, but that we find what is uniquely ours to share. The only thing we are going to be uniquely excellent at is being fully ourselves. We must be replete with our own magic. One of my teachers once said something like, “Your brilliant magnificence is so obvious that you are unaware of it”. The Buddha said, “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change”. Dan Millman wrote “There are no ordinary moments”.

Spiritual awareness is about un-habituating ourselves.

For instance, notice all the times in a day when you criticize yourself, or wonder in fear if you are really good enough. Stop letting those moments go by. Stop them, and change them. Make a different moment.

Then notice all the beauty of the world you have become habituated to.

Love yourself first. Before you worry about the outcome, the presentation, the work, the results - love yourself. Forgive yourself. Don’t let your mind be a buzzkill and you will be high for life.

If you still believe you need to punish yourself to get results, that if you stopped you would no longer grow or get things done, think about this: if you yell at a flower does it grow faster? If you punish a tree does it grow taller? No. If anything it grows crooked. We are all becoming who we are anyway. The best gift you can give yourself is light and nourishment and radical permission to be the magnificence that you already are.

Have your own back

The secret to happiness is to be your own best friend. You do that for yourself, and you get happy.

You’ve got to have your own back. If you want to get something done in the world, you’ve got to stop sapping your own energy with self-criticism, or self-denial, or self-hatred.

You’ve also got to know how to go for what you want, and keep promises to yourself. You’ve got to say yes to your deepest longings, and believe in them, because when you don’t, you break your own heart. And you’ll never trust yourself if you do that. Loving yourself starts with being able to trust yourself, that you won’t sell yourself out. You can love someone you don’t trust, but you can’t really be close to them. And you want to be close to yourself. You want to whole. You want to be undivided.