I am always catching myself chastising Self. One of my goals for this year was to work on Self Care so I am trying but I think because I was thinking about it, I also heard more of the negative Self-talk. I became very aware of unfriendly, uncompassionate, how unloving I was to myself, pretty quickly. When we are happy, caring, sharing, people, how could we be so mean to ourselves?
There were times that I was so self-critical that, even when I knew I had done something well, done something good, that I found that Critical Inner Voice (Evil Inner Witch) would be deriding, be hyper-negative of any accolades, be cheering at a failure, generally being cruel.
Being Present enough to be aware of the negative Self-talk, allowed me to recondition my self-talk.
I can easily accept my thoughts on the WHY of other people’s perceived flaws but using the same reasoning on Self is another story. It is way easier to run Self down than to give (or receive) understanding of Self. The Ego (‘Evil Inner Witch’, I call it). Practicing compassion for self is really hard since we tend to have been critical of Self throughout our life.
When we do have moments of failure, lack of competence, and what sometimes can be painful errors, the EIW loves it and cackles in the background all the negative Self-talk she can. I seem to have patience for others, but not self. I say bad things to myself. I have pet nasty labels for Self and it is never so loud as when I may make a real error. It has taken some serious effort to stop and ‘respeak’ the moment. It has seemed that the more I am trying to ‘rethink’, the more I bump things, drop things, break things, make a mess, make silly choices. No matter how I remind myself that I am not perfect, was not meant to be perfect, the negative Self-talk reigns and I am having to be more conscious in a multi-tasking way. It is as if I think I am the only one who has missteps.
I have always been an ‘over-thinker’. I have always been analytical, even in thought about Self. I spend quality time in my life in search of truths, in search of whys, in search of my own deep down dark spaces. Even as a small child, if I received a compliment, I would smile and nod, but my EIW was finding ways to turn that positive into a negative. (Why would someone say they liked my little dress? I would wonder why they would say that and yet their face did not say the same.) I was well aware of hypocrisy at an early age. I knew adults would say things not for me, but being nice for my mother’s sake, for instance. My EIW was more active and had no reins until late in my life. I was good at smiling and nodding. I continued through youth and adulthood with no acceptance of selof as anything good. I identified as flawed and any compliment for anything was easily turned around. I had been conditioned to be a perfectionist. I had been conditioned to believe I was one of their ‘sinners’ because no matter how I tried, I felt flawed and my feelings about self then encouraged others to hurt me. IO learned, eventually to turn down the volume of my negative self-talk and stop waiting for others to help heal me. I had to heal myself through self-compassion.
Even as I type this … self-compassion… my EIW tells me I am being selfish, ridiculous to think I could make myself different. My ego reacted as I learned how to turn down her volume. I became compassion in action. The more I did for others, the more my soul felt peace and I was able to learn to love myself.
I have been called “Mother Theresa” by a top Director. I have been called a malignant optimist. I have been told that I never did anything nice for anyone without having a hidden agenda. I do not know why healing and positive self-talk so threatens some in our lives.
As I quietly accepted, and loved, my flaws, I was able to commit to digging out the spaces in my heart and soul, that were wounded and really look at how that shows up in my life, in my today. Some might see self-compassion as self-pity. It is not. It is finally pulling out the negative Self-talk as it happens and sit with it so it knows your soulful truths.
We all seek a way to change to meet our own changes. We heal when we sit with ourself and consider the negative and positive aspects of our identity. We need positive self-talk that overrides the negative. We need to be aware that making what we sense as mistakes, are a sign that we are growing and learning and that it is okay, human, to make mistakes, and it is important that we forgive ourselves. It is okay to refuse the judgement of others as ever being legitimate for others absolutely cannot know who we are…we hardly know ourselves. It is caring and nurturing to show compassion to self. We need to accept that we deserve compassion. We must learn to greet each morning with forgiveness for self in our hearts so that self-doubt and personal judgements are of no value to us as a growing, learning, divine human being that we are. Perfection is a figment of someone’s imagination ...someone who wants control of us. A huge part of Self-compassion is acceptance of our light and dark self; of the fact that we continue to change right up until our last breath; that judgments off us a chance to really look at self and deal with anything that might be mistaken as being flawed when we are being ourself. We are okay. We are enough. We can learn to truly love ourselves.
May you find a way to heal your broken self, your physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual self. We need to remember we were born ivine, and that the world is a hard place and we will make mistakes. Do ot cling to those mistakes… refuse to accept other people’s idea of who we are supposed to be. Every choice we make comes from a wounded place or a healed place and we must love ourselves for those things that make us us.
©Carol Desjarlais 11.4.23
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