Thank you for hardware.

Thank you for henna hair dye that is safe to wash down the drain and healthy for hair.

Thank you for intuition that strengthens with practice.

Thank you for our relationships with our inner selves. My inner self may benefit given more respect from her outer self.

Thank you for natural scents.

Thank you for thredup. That’s where I found the vest and jacket that the alter-me wore in my dream. She was walking tall in the woods alongside her partner near their house filled with treasures, out of harm’s way. 

Thank you for beloved neighbors’ gifts of persimmons and pomegranates. 

Thank you for the luxury to wake up slow and cuddle until Peaches is ready to get up.

Thank you for best friends.

Thank you for my belief in your and my healing.

Thank you for fresh thoughts on jogs. This morning I thought about self esteem. It’s not a fully baked thought but here you go. Zero sum investment gains do not build genuine self esteem, and such investment losses do not reflect lack of self worth. 

What I mean is that if I invest in some aspect of me compared to others, and come to see myself as having more of it or higher quality (and others thus as having less of it or lower quality), then any boost I get from the comparison is not adding to my genuine self worth. On the flip side, if I look at what others have or do as being more or better than me, the perceived lack in me is only illusory. 

Why? It sounds mushy or weird but this is how I feel. It’s because true self worth, and hence how we accurately esteem ourselves, comes from an inherent value within us all, in equal (i.e., infinite) measure. It’s only when we see ourselves on the level with everyone else that our self esteem matches reality. It’s only when we see our individual uniqueness on par with the uniqueness of each living being that we get it. And when we do that, we will not feel need to compare our relative worths from the outside—in terms of milestones we’ve reached at each decade of our life, or how far or fast we can run or cycle or swim relative to others, or where we live, or what our kids or partners accomplish, or how much money we earn, or our job titles or academic degrees, or our height or weight or house or car. Those comparisons may have some purpose but that purpose is not to delineate our value nor distinguish it from the value of another. 

On the contrary, the good that I see in myself, if it’s genuine, is inside you, too. My good reflects yours, and vice versa. They never compete. Our worths are interdependent because we are not disconnected. We are one.

The meaningful piece of that oneness may hide within. We all share built-in magic at our cores as long as we are alive. Each of us is an equally incomparable little particle of light, each occupying its own space in time, equally capable to shine love and worthy to receive it. That’s what makes us both invaluable and inseparable. We’re made of the same stuff and need each other to make meaning, to move from being a single dot to a full ray. When we grasp our equality—that we are as miraculous, no more and no less, than everyone else—that all of us are treasures—then our self esteem realizes it cannot be earned or demonstrated through performance metrics that single us out. It comes from an inner, unshakeable place of unity. There is no competition! Everyone is a winner.