This is not a trick question that requires a long and laborious answer. The simple truth is saving ourselves begins and ends with coming home. Come home to yourself where you are right now. Not ten pounds lighter or more together or with a better car, job, or haircut. Just come home right now with complete acceptance, no hedging, and zero apologies. When we finally recognize ourselves as enough, even in the mess and chaos, everything shifts and starts to become lighter.

Then let that saving and shifting expand out to body, mind, and soul. Come home to your body, honor what it needs, how it feels, tend to it and take care of it. Your body is the vehicle for everything else you want to do, be, or become. Come home to your mind and the stories you create, the careless or callous thoughts, the judgements, the coldness or harsh criticism, only you have the ability to heal and mend them. And don’t forget to dwell in gratitude for all the beauty already seen and lived. Come home to your soul and its brave honesty and fire, and everything that wants expression. Own it all and let it help you evolve into what’s next. No more judging, faking, or manipulating the truth that rests within, simply let it unfold.

It’s fine to want to be more than you are now, but to get there you first have to be here. When we own it all, the triumphs and the failures, we save ourselves from being the victim, the scapegoat, or martyr. Then it’s just about stepping into our warm body and our perfect imperfections and being ok with it, all of it. Saving ourselves has more to do with having our eyes wide open to the whole truth about who we are, the gritty as well as the glorious, and loving them both. In fact, the gritty has far more to teach us about compassion and true acceptance, and here I am talking about compassion and acceptance for ourselves. Somehow, forgiving ourselves is always last on our list or the hardest thing to do.

When we embrace everything we are we stop sitting on the sidelines waiting for our lives to happen, for the perfect time to arrive, or a special someone to rescue us. We save ourselves by being completely honest with ourselves. From here we can begin to create, culture, and cultivate what has meaning for us, and this starts the unraveling of all the knots that have us caught and changes the course of our lives.

In fact, this is all we’ve ever had to do, come home. We’re a little bit like Dorothy in the land of Oz. We’ve been searching and seeking outside for what’s been within us the whole time. Coming home means we’re willing to change the old stories and misconceptions and free ourselves from second guessing and self-doubt. Listen to your truth and let it transform you.

The reality is, you’ve always been more than enough.

kb