By Shae Hadden | Bio
One of my New Year traditions is to clean up some of the papers that have accumulated around me over the past year. Yesterday, I came across these “Facts of Life” that someone had given me and thought they were worth sharing. Unlike the ‘facts of life’ we normally think about (like ‘the birds and the bees’, death and taxes), these seem fitting for the beginning of a new year, especially since they actually challenge us to look at ourselves and others in a whole new way.
- We are human beings.
- We make assessments of ourselves and others.
- These assessments are usually more or less grounded, but they are never ‘true’.
- We live inside the negative assessments we have about ourselves and act as if they are true. These self-assessments are not well-grounded, and they aren’t true. By acting as if they were, we rob ourselves of the ability to care for others as well as we could and limit what is possible for ourselves.
By accepting these facts, we can choose to live life differently…in a way that will allow us to respect ourselves.
- We can commit to examining our assessments and to only take seriously those that empower us to take action.
- We can forgive ourselves and others for past and future mistakes. We can forgive ourselves and others for not being perfect. We can accept we are only human.
- We can commit to learning whatever will enable us to care for others.
- We can accept that learning only takes time, patience and teachers. And we can be patient.
I accept these ‘facts of life’ and choose to live in a way that will allow me to respect and honour myself. And I thank whoever gave me this bit of wisdom last year….