How to be the kind of person who had a great childhood

Three essential things you can do to gain self-love, ease, and quiet confidence

Art today is by Lise Fischer, who has some lovely stuff in her Etsy store

You can often spot someone who had an unconditionally loving childhood and adolescence—someone whose parents were “good enough” in a quiet, steadfast kind of way—by the way they move through the world. There’s a gentleness to their self-regard, an ease they bring to various situations. They don’t need to earn their place in a room; they assume it’s already there. It’s not arrogance, but rather a kind of unshakeable self-love, planted early and watered often. These are people who can tolerate silence, laugh easily, make eye contact without flinching. Their confidence isn’t bravado—it’s inheritance.

Were you lucky to have had a secure and loving childhood? Or did you face early difficulties with love? Or does your experience fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum?

Whatever your personal history, today I’d like to share with you three essential things you can do to grant yourself—and the child who lives in you—love, ease, and quiet confidence.