How many skills do you have that are, at this point, well honed?
Probably billions.
It is possible that you have forgotten how much it took to learn how to:
walk, talk, run, make people laugh, comfort a co-worker, clean a bird cage, book an airbnb, pick out cabinet knobs everyone admires, organize paperwork for others or yourself, tell the future, accept the past, knit, sweep gutters out, kindly hug longer than people realize they needed, cook a whole duck, make a killer grilled cheese, take a good photo, sing a christmas song, talk clearly despite crying hard, paint a garage covered in vinyl siding, brush your child’s hair so they don’t scream, brush your dying father’s hair so he doesn’t feel like a piece of meat in a hospital gown, be that someone who can pick out great music for each occasion, have expertise in naming pets perfectly, reading the needs of a situation, chopping onions so they taste best, remembering people’s birthdays or names…
You get the idea.
Do you give yourself credit for those?
It took a ton of work – mental, emotional and often physical – to build those skills.
I mean, do you know how many people and creatures benefit from the skills you first identified as something you needed to build, then did the work building and finally now gift to the world, day after day, just because you can?
How could you step into owning the right to the relief of seeing fully, if for only moments at at time, that what you do, what you give – benefits others astronomically?
How could you also bring some ease into the things you have done a zillion times and are already skilled at?
Sometimes, when we first learned the skill, we thought it would always be hard because we didn’t acknowledge what a great thing it was that we were even attempting to do – we weren’t patient or kind with ourselves because we didn’t know that was allowed or even possible.
Check in to see if you are still trying too hard to do things you already know how to do.
Check in to see if you are giving yourself credit for the things others benefit from because you know how to do it.
Most things take great care and energy to learn – we need to be sure we get the benefit of that hard won knowledge in the form of self-appreciation and allowing for ease in that knowing.
See if you can step into the relief you give to others by seeing what you are doing as a gift.
Because what you do is gifting, all day, every day.
And you deserve to feel as good about giving your skills and gifts away as you do when you hand someone a wrapped present and see how delighted they are.