You’re so up yourself.

I recently did an exercise where a partner and I each took turns to talk uninterrupted for three minutes, firstly about everything we appreciate about our skills and achievements; secondly, about the qualities we each bring to aspects of our life, at home, at work and in community.

I found this tricky, as I felt blocked and couldn’t really get into a momentum to say the things that came to mind. I know there are lots of things to appreciate about my life, about what I bring, and me, but to say them out loud, with confidence and conviction, well, it totally didn’t come easy and that’s a tragedy.

I don’t remember being explicitly told I wasn’t allowed to say (out loud) something I liked about myself, but for as long as I can remember, I’ve been uncomfortable volunteering I liked anything at all about myself. And not because I didn’t; I actually quietly have always quite liked who I was, I just never felt free to enjoy or appreciate myself out loud.

I have learned along the journey of life, that if you said you liked something about yourself — merely something about the way you’ve done your hair or chosen a pair of shoes — people would chant, ‘love yourself, love yourself’ (not good) or accuse you ‘you’re up yourself’, ‘you have tickets on yourself’, ‘you’re big noting yourself’, ‘you’re conceited’, ‘you’re a show off’. You learn pretty quickly not to open your mouth.

While I could say ‘I prefer this top over that one’, to verbalise that I liked how I looked or felt in a specific top was a no-no.

If I achieved something particularly great (like doing well in a swimming race or getting a good job), I could accept the compliment with a thank you, but then had to deflect the attention with self deprecation, following with ‘Yeah, but did you see the part when I stuffed up?’ …

And I’m only talking about the word ‘like’, let alone ‘love’ here! To go a step or two further and openly like a quality of myself, like my humour, my reliability, my thoroughness, or my willingness to see people as equals etc., well that was impossible to imagine happening. And I’m still feeling this.

Being self-deprecating is ‘cool’. It’s funny, and we call it humbleness. Apparently it’s a positive thing to be, it means you aren’t up yourself, you aren’t showing off and you’re sympathetic to others’ issues.

And it caps us.

It keeps people small and inconsequential. It’s safe and stops us from shining, and in fact isn’t true humbleness. And it’s probably a manifest of a self-worth issue, that we don’t feel worthy of being grand, awesome or beautiful. Ooooh, I think I just hit the nail on the head for me!

It wasn’t until a few years ago when I was in the audience of a presentation by Natalie Benhayon that I realised how wrong not being allowed to appreciate myself is.

Young girls parade in front of mirrors with an ease and a pleasure of themselves that is adorable and inspiring and every mother loves watching this.

But I saw Natalie on stage openly declaring she was beautiful. There was absolutely nothing conceited about her declaration. She simply stated it as if she was talking about the colour of her shoes.

My shoes are black, I am beautiful.

Right there and then I felt the difference between big-noting and true appreciation.

And so here began a new journey of life, this one now an honest, open, loving, supportive, warm, and evolving journey.

These past few years have brought me much closer to expressing — I can openly say I love myself, but is yet to come with the complete owning and claiming of that statement as I felt from Natalie. Cut to now, and the above little exercise a partner and I did has exposed the next layer for me to unearth; why do I reserve appreciation of myself from others? I think it’s about self worth…looks like there’ll be a part II;