Don’t blame yourself.

 One week I testified before a U.S. Senate committee.  It did not go well and, bowed as well as beaten, my ego limped out of the hearing room.

Get your ego out of it.  Stand back and look (at it) at a distance.

“A ‘God’s-eye’ view?”

No, just objectively, as if it were someone else.

That helped.  If it were someone else, I would know that, even on a good day, a Senate hearing is unpredictable.  But there was still an ego wound.

“Lord, what can I do about that?”

Look, you are encased in a body and a personality, and it requires ego strength and self-respect.  When I say, “Get the ego out,” I mean the second-order attachment to ego.  The ego, like desires, is a fact, a necessary fact.  Like the body, it gets bruised.  You just nurture it and let it heal.  Don’t deny it but don’t dwell on it either.  Accept it and don’t attach it to blame.  That your ego has been embarrassed is not the same as “doing something wrong.”  Don’t blame yourself.  That is an example of the wrong kind of attachment.

“Then I should just say, ‘I wish it had gone better,’ and leave it at that?”

Correct.

 

Love Yourself as I Love You

Remember that I love you—I love all human beings—without reservation.  Ideally, you would love yourself as I love you, as I loved Jesus, for example.  But that is not normally possible for human beings, because there are many obstacles.

“But it is possible for a few?”

For some, yes.  I have blessed them with the ability to transcend those limitations.  They can love themselves fully, and this permits them to love others.