I’m OK

When admiring other people’s gardens, don’t forget to tend to your own flowers.

Sanober Khan

In 1967, the self-help book, I’m OK-You’re OK by Thomas A. Harris was published. In 1972, it made the New York Times Best Seller List and remained there for almost two years.The premise is that a large part of the population believes “I’m Not OK-Your Okay.” At some stage early in our lives we adopt this position about ourselves and it affects everything we do. We act from a place of lack of self -worth. Without getting too in the weeds over this, we need to value who we are.

This week I listened to a meditation by Jeff Warren titled, You’re Okay. The meditation reminded me of the book mentioned above. Whether you agree with the author’s premise of transactional analysis or not, most of us find we need to give ourselves a break once in a while. In the meditation Jeff encourages us to tell ourselves, “I’m okay.” To give ourselves permission to like who we are.

Like who we are, might sound like a no brainer. The truth is it’s not that easy. For many of us, we are told, over and over again, we are not okay. In both words and actions, just the opposite comes through and eventually we believe what we see and hear. We need to step back and cut ourselves some slack. Maybe, we aren’t that bad after all. Take a moment while admiring other’s gardens, to appreciate your own.