Dear Fellow Traveler,
How do you see yourself? Better yet, how do you treat yourself?
We often see ourselves with a rather judgmental eye (see Grant Wood’s painting above). Interestingly, when Seneca was asked about his progress toward wisdom, he responded, “I have begun to be a friend to myself.”
What does it actually mean to be a friend to oneself? And, curiously, why would we behave in any other way?
In his book The Extraordinary Gift of Being Ordinary, Dr. Donald Siegel (a previous podcast guest) observes,
I’ve had the privilege of working as a clinical psychologist for nearly 40 years, seeing kids and adults from all walks of life who came to therapy for everything from back pain to marital disputes. Despite this diversity, some years ago, I noticed that there was one painful struggle almost everyone seemed to share: the relentless quest to feel better about themselves.
All of us, with only periodic success, are attempting to live up to our inner images of who we thought we should be. This tendency of relentless self-evaluation can cut us off from sources of satisfaction and meaning.
