Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash
A few weeks ago, a friend posed this question: What do you think makes a good person?
I spent a good deal of time pondering this because I knew the answer was not as easy or as obvious as I might assume.
We often say that someone is “a good person.” But what does that mean, really? We’ve come to use “good” as a general catch-all for traits we admire or deem desirable—loyal, helpful, kind, selfless, generous, etc. Whatever your definition of good is, it has been shaped by outside influences, namely other people’s expectations and preferences.
When I sat with this notion of “good” and my own experience with it, I realized that the label “good” is simply judgmental, constrictive, and controlling. As a child, I was either a good girl or a bad girl, depending on my behavior and actions. My parents wielded “good” in an effort to get me to behave in a manner they deemed acceptable.
As I got older, the criteria for what qualified as good became more complex and nuanced. It was no longer just my parents and close family members issuing judgments but also teachers, peers, clergy, friends’ parents, neighbors, the local librarian, etc. who were evaluating my goodness and worth.
As an adult the web of judgment continued to expand and become more intricate to include employers, managers, colleagues, romantic partners, industry acquaintances, and society at large. (Society’s judgment was always present, but I didn’t feel it as acutely until I was an adult.)
Without consciously realizing it, my life became all about making sure I was “good” by everyone else’s standards and trying to avoid the negative energy and fallout if I fell short of the mark. (That’s the challenge of being a highly sensitive empath. When you absorb everyone else’s energy, the default coping mechanism is to keep everyone happy so you don’t have to deal with it.)
It’s no wonder then that when I heard David Whyte read the first lines of Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese” I burst into tears right there at the kitchen counter where I was preparing dinner.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
I had finally collapsed under the weight of judgments I had been carrying all those years along with the shoulds of external expectations I had been shouldering.
The heaviest burden of all and the one that was the hardest to put down, though, was my own self-judgment. Constantly judging myself as good or bad undermined my sense of worthiness and whether or not I felt deserving.
Fast forward to a week or so ago. I was going about my day when, out of the blue, the name of a singer-songwriter I followed closely for a few years a decade or so ago popped into my head. I didn’t think much about it until, when that same night, I heard one of his songs during the closing scene of a TV show my husband was watching. Now that caught my attention. Knowing I had the song in my collection, I gave it a closer listen.
These lines struck me …
All we are we are …
And every day is a start of something beautiful …
And in the end the words won’t matter …
‘Cause in the end nothing stays the same
Here is what I have learned from my years of doing the work to unwind my truth from outside opinions: I am so much more than the judgments of other people or myself. I am neither good nor bad. I am both good and I fall short of my own values and integrity at times. (Who doesn’t?!) But there are no words that can capture the essence, the soul of who I am because I am always changing and evolving. (Just ask my husband who recently said he has a hard time keeping up with me.)
My worth just is. The same is true for you.
When we judge ourselves as good or bad, we deny all that we are. We deny all we are capable of being and the good we are capable of doing in the world. When we judge ourselves for being human, we deny ourselves of the love we are and the love we inherently deserve simply because we are here on this earth at this time. And when we deny ourselves that love, we deny ourselves of living a life we love.
Just remember, every day, you are the start of something beautiful. If you could use a little help remembering all you are, reflect on these questions from the Allow Awe card in my forthcoming card deck:
What about you is awe inspiring?
What would be possible if you embraced your awe-someness?
If you can’t think of anything about yourself that is awe inspiring, ask someone whose opinion you trust and value. You may just be awed by their response.