A part of increasing self-esteem is to never give up on yourself nor be afraid to be yourself. It is the means to finding your true nature and source of liberation. Your true nature is not an ideal to live up to. It’s who you are right now. It’s there, mingled with your hang-ups and bad habits.
Try to see your so-called limitations with clarity and kindness. You didn’t ask for this suffering. Yet, here it is. Welcome it as part of the practice, accept it, experience it fully and then release it.
Pema Chödrön says “the key to feeling more whole and less shut off and shut down is to be able to see clearly who we are and what we’re doing.” The idea is not to get rid of our neurosis, but to befriend it. That requires getting to know it with some kind of softness and learning how to let go of our attachments to it.
