I Will Believe The Truth About Myself…

…no matter how beautiful it is.

I learned these sweet and powerful words at a weekend retreat for burned-out Jewish professionals.

In the circle for this meditative prayer experience, tears sprang from the eyes of participants — including myself — and one could feel the whole group just drop down into oh my.

I’ve been thinking about why this one sentence about believing in our own beauty landed so deeply for so many of us. Part of it is neurological. Part of it is spiritual. And part of it is that we are, apparently, in very good company.

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Our survival as humans has been driven by what psychologists call “negativity bias.” For our own safety, we are primed to look out for what’s not working so we can be prepared. Our ancestors learned to weigh the bad more heavily — because it kept them alive.

Many of us walk around with negative self-talk as running commentary in our brains: I should have done… I messed up… I will never measure up… It’s my fault…

But we don’t have to do that to ourselves.

The constancy of the inner critic can become second nature. And so when we hear something as radically different as “I will believe the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is” — it can stop us in our tracks.

What, me? Beautiful? Smart? Kind?

Is that true?

Really?

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I’m reminded of Moses at the burning bush. When told by the Divine that he was meant to lead the enslaved Israelites out of Egypt, his response was:

Who, me?

Mi anochi? מִי אָנֹכִי — (Exodus 3:11)

Moses tried many ways to convince God he was inadequate. He couldn’t speak well. Surely God should have chosen his brother Aaron.

But God saw something in Moses that Moses could not yet see in himself.

Has that ever happened to you? Someone in your life recognized a quality or ability in you before you could?

I remember being asked to lead my first prayer service at a conference for Jewish women leaders — long before I was even thinking of becoming a rabbi. The conference organizers called and asked if I’d lead, and I said: You have got to be kidding. Who, me? My Hebrew is shaky. I’ve never done this before. You really should pick someone else.

They insisted I was the right person for that moment.

I didn’t believe them then. But maybe that’s exactly the point.

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When someone tells you something lovely about yourself — take it in.

Breathe into it.

Believe it.

When you recognize beauty in yourself, let it land as truth.

We were each created b’tzelem Elohim — in the image of the Divine. Which means we must all, each of us, be beautiful. How extraordinary if we could truly take that in.

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There was one more moment worth sharing.

When Yoni began singing, the words were “I will believe the truth about myself.” A beautiful intention. A reaching toward. But then, partway through, he shifted: “I do believe the truth about myself — no matter how beautiful it is.”

A gentle murmur moved through the room. Something landed differently. I will is a promise we make to our future selves. I do is a claiming — right here, right now, in this body, in this life.

We were each created b’tzelem Elohim. Maybe singing these words — out loud, with confidence — is one way we practice actually believing it.

Here is a recording of this song, sung by retreat leader and founder of Eden Village camp, Yoni Stadlin, who asked that we share it widely. Bring it to a thousand ears if you can.

Try it. I’d love to hear what you notice.