The gift of self-criticism

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself."

As someone who tends toward perfectionism, I've heard that message a lot. And I don't like it.

For one, it feels shaming and judgmental. Who is anyone else to say how I should or shouldn't relate to myself?

Even more than that, though, I think it is bad life advice. Because sometimes I really mess up! And sometimes self-criticism is exactly what is called for.

If I think I'm not supposed to be hard on myself, I'll be afraid to even look at those areas of life where I may not be doing a good job. I won't want anyone else to point them out either, so I'll be hyper-defensive. I'll see myself as weak and fragile. And any problems I'm creating will just get worse.

I know this because I've seen it play out in my life, and it's something I want to change. 

I want to remember that it is okay to be hard on myself, that self-criticism is not the same as self-hatred, and that being honest with myself about the ways I mess up can be a huge gift.

To that end, here are some reminders that I wrote for myself earlier this week, which I share in case they resonate with you, too:

You have permission to be angry and disgusted with yourself for choices you make out of fear and laziness. You have permission to feel ashamed for living irresponsibly and ignoring your impact on others. You have permission to feel regret for the ways you've betrayed your values and blamed others for your unhappiness. You have permission to hate being human.

You also have permission to offer yourself love. You have permission to forgive. You have permission to let all these feelings go. You have permission to re-commit to your values, to set new goals, to try something new. You have permission to ask for help. You have permission to change. You have permission to live.

Have a wonderful week!

Why? Because you ARE.

Earlier this week I attended a performance by the Johnson School Peacemakers, an 80-person group consisting of all of the 3rd and 4th grade students at my son's elementary school.

During the performance, the kids did an impressive amount of singing, dancing, and speaking that they'd worked on for months. My favorite part, however, was a slideshow with photos of all the students simply being themselves: reading to siblings, playing sports, jumping, laughing.

In just a few minutes, I got to soak in snapshots of 80 different human lives, each one with its own unique energy, purpose, and story. It was clear that each child was valuable and worthy, not because of any special actions or accomplishments, but simply because they were. 

I left with a deep sense of gratitude for the lives of those kids, and a reminder of my own value and worthiness, too. Because it is true for all of us.

I am looking forward to next month's Living Library event for similar reasons. We have over a dozen "human books" lined up, each with unique and valuable stories. The group includes a transgender teacher, a professional Santa Claus, someone who had a near-death experience, and so many more.

I hope you will come to the event if you can. I also hope that you will take a moment right now to appreciate the value that you bring, just in being alive. You have quirks and ideas, desires and fears, failures and greatness... and the world needs it all.

A simple compassion exercise

During this week's blog-writing time, I found myself thinking about someone close to me who has really been struggling lately, and who has been doing things that, from the outside looking in, seem stupid and self-sabotaging.

The more I focused on the situation, the more scared and helpless and angry I felt -- a downward spiral that had to stop if I was going to write anything honest or valuable.

I tried a number of things to get my bearings back. I acknowledged and listened to my feelings (including the annoyance that they were there in the first place). I thought about what I really want for this person, and wrote out a list of those things. Then I re-wrote that list as things I want for myself, too.

Each of those helped to some degree, but the thing that really clinched it was going through a compassion exercise from the Avatar course, which was printed on a small card that was on the table right next to me. You can find the full text here, but to summarize the instructions:

With attention on a specific person, repeat to yourself the following:

1. Just like me, this person is seeking some happiness for his/her life.
2. Just like me, this person is trying to avoid suffering in his/her life.
3. Just like me, this person has known sadness, loneliness and despair.
4. Just like me, this person is seeking to fulfill his/her needs.
5. Just like me, this person is learning about life.

This exercise was such an important reminder to me that just because someone's actions cause pain for them (or others!), doesn't mean that their goal is to cause or experience pain. They may just not know (or have the skills to implement) better ways to get what they really want.  

When I assume that this person I care about wants to cause herself pain, it is really scary, and I can find myself resisting her actions and not trusting her decisions. But when I remember that what she wants for herself is actually the same thing I want for her, that dynamic shifts and I can become an ally. Which feels so much better to us both.

You don't have to fix it

I'll be honest. I've been struggling lately to practice what I preach. There has been significant upheaval in my family and home, and it has been overwhelming my ability to cope.

I can't tell you how annoying it is to have collected all this knowledge about creating joy and connection -- and to know that it's possible under any circumstance -- and yet be unable/unwilling to put it into practice.

In the back of my mind, I keep finding myself thinking, Something's wrong. I have to fix it! This makes me anxious and keeps me from seeing clearly and acting wisely. And it's not even true.

The reality is, I can't fix it. Because the "it" is Life itself, including things that have already happened, and things beyond my control.

In the big picture sense, there is nothing wrong with Life. It just contains a lot of things I don't like and don't understand. 

Stepping back like this eases the anxiety. It gives me space to remember who I am and see more clearly what I might do to create more joy and connection right now.

It also reminds me how much I love talking to people about life, and how much I've missed teaching and facilitating these past few months.

I look forward to getting back into that soon, but in the meantime, I am available for 1:1 conversations, and would love to talk to you. See details on Pepperlane.

I wish you love and happiness, no matter what your life is like right now!

What would you have done?

Our local post office is notorious for having especially rude, surly and unhelpful clerks. Earlier this week I saw it in action. 

Ahead of me in line was a woman trying to send a package overnight. The problem was, overnight service -- although offered by the postal service -- wasn't available to the particular destination she needed.

An additional problem was, English wasn't the customer's first language. Nor was it the clerk's. And the clerk spoke really, really fast. The customer didn't understand the situation, and kept repeating her same request, while the clerk got more and more exasperated and rude, rolling her eyes and making comments that were dismissive and disparaging.

As an onlooker, this was extremely uncomfortable to witness.

My heart went out to the customer, who was not just frustrated and disappointed that she couldn't get this package to its destination in time, but also, I imagine, somewhat humiliated by the way she was looked at and spoken to. 

I was angry with the clerk, who could hardly have been more unhelpful or disrespectful. I was angry that, for whatever reason, there was no one else there to help deal with the growing line of customers. And I was annoyed at the postmaster, the postal service, and government bureaucracy as a whole, for the dysfunctional organizational culture that makes this kind of behavior acceptable, even commonplace.

I took down the name of the postmaster, and started drafting a very powerful and articulate letter in my head to make him aware of the impact of this situation. I was halfway through that imaginary letter, the customer having already left, before I realized, with some embarrassment, that I'd completely missed my chance to actually be helpful.

I'd been thinking so much about what everyone else should and shouldn't have been doing to help the situation, that I completely missed the fact that I had agency too. That jittery fight/flight response I was feeling while standing in line? That was my body getting ready to do something!

It wouldn't have needed to be anything dramatic or heroic. What if I had just gone up to the customer and asked if there was anything I could do to help? Practically-speaking, there wasn't much I could do, but might the action have still made a difference?

Maybe it would have helped the customer feel more supported and less alone. Maybe it would have helped the clerk re-think her approach. Maybe it would have eased my sense of powerlessness, and soothed the discomfort of the other customers in line as well. Any one of those outcomes would have made it worth it to me.

I'm curious what other ideas you have about situations like this. Have you experienced similar discomfort in watching other people mistreat each other? What kinds of things have you done, or do you wish you had done? What was the outcome, or what might it have been? What other options can you think of for preventing and minimizing harm in situations like this?

Using hindsight to re-commit

Earlier tonight, instead of writing this blog post, I found myself in a long and heated argument with my husband -- which I realize, in hindsight, I could have totally prevented.

By listening to his actual words, rather than what I was reading into them.

By recognizing his good intentions, and trusting in our common goals.

By humbly considering that I don't know everything, and that he may have valid concerns.

Or, at the very least, by stopping to re-focus when I could see we were both worked up.

But instead, I persevered (ha!), and successfully engaged in over an hour of defensiveness and fear and negativity. Followed by a long period of journaling, apologizing and reconciling. 

It was good learning, I suppose, and I'm getting an unexpected new blog post out of it, but there are so many other ways I could have used that time.

I share this not out of shame or self-pity, but because, after messing up, it feels good to remind myself what I'm really committed to.

Listening. Trust. Humility. Self-awareness.

These things matter, and they are worth practicing over and over again. Along with huge doses of self-compassion and forgiveness.

Thank you for practicing along with me.

The peace of not knowing

Last week I noticed tulips already starting to come up in the neighbor's yard. In the middle of February in Massachusetts!

I'm no gardener, but this seemed awfully early to me.

My first thoughts were predictable ones related to climate change accompanied by feelings of anger, despair and helplessness: This is clearly not right! These tulips have been duped into blooming at the wrong time.

But then I took a breath, and noticed the thoughts shift.

How do you know? I found myself asking my certain, worried self. Life so much bigger than you. What if the tulips know something you don't know? What if, for some reason, this timing is actually perfect?

There was something peaceful for me in not knowing. It gave me the freedom to let go of my certainty that things are terrible just because they happen to feel terrible.

It was different than denial -- pretending that everything's fine and will automatically work out to my liking, while being afraid to look at any conflicting evidence. Rather, it was peace that comes from being aware of all that's going on, and still appreciating how much there is that I don't know.

It was interesting to notice that it didn't leave me feeling deadened or complacent the way denial does. I sometimes hear people worry that if they let go of their fear and anger, they would no longer be motivated to take important actions or work for positive change, but that wasn't my experience at all. Instead, freed up from worry, I felt a lot clearer about what there was for me to do. And it was possible to do it joyfully.

I like imagining that the tulips are living joyfully, too.

A song for all of us

Has a song ever captured a feeling so perfectly for you that you just had to put it on repeat and listen over and over again?

This was that song for me today: We All Need Saving, by Jon McLachlan.

It was first introduced to me by Rev. Becky Sheble-Hall, the Executive Director of an incredible organization called Chaplains on the Way that ministers to people suffering from homelessness and poverty in Waltham, MA.

For me the song poignantly captures what it's like to love someone who is suffering and feeling alone. And let's face it: hasn't that been all of us at some point?

I want so much for people to feel the love and support available to them. At the same time, I know I can't make anyone feel it. All I can do is keep offering my love, which feels both humbling and empowering.

I think that's all we can do to help anyone, really: to keep offering love in the best way we know how, and making sure that we receive the support we need to do so.

I hope you enjoy the song as much as I do. And if there's someone in your life that you could use help loving better, please reach out to me. It's what I'm here for.

Why it's hard to ask for help

I've been finding myself feeling very needy lately.

Is that as uncomfortable a feeling for you as it is for me?

Never mind that I teach classes with titles like "The Art of Receiving" and confidently tell people that one of the best gifts they can give is to accept another person's help. It can still be hard to put into practice.

One of the things that makes it hard is that it can take me a while to recognize my own neediness. It feels scary and uncomfortable to admit I'm in a situation I don't feel equipped to handle, and so I pretend it's not true. At those times, it doesn't matter how many people are out there able and willing to help me: as long as I'm resisting being needy, I simply won't accept it.

There is a cost to that resistance, though, which is that the neediness starts coming out sideways, as things like impatience, defensiveness and criticism. It feels awful to me, and to the people around me. And it will keep getting worse until I finally say, "Help!" and admit I don't have things handled.

At that point, the thing that can make it difficult to receive help is just the opposite: rather than denying my neediness, I identify with it, and start wallowing in self-pity. "Save me, I can't do this" is the message I broadcast. But when people do try to save me, I resent it -- because the truth is, I don't actually want to be powerless. I don't want other people to live my life or make my decisions for me.

What I really want is to find my own answers. But sometimes I need help figuring out what they are. 

From that awareness, it becomes a lot easier to both ask for help and to receive it. It's just a matter of figuring out the right question(s): What is the situation I'm dealing with? How do I feel about it? Where am I stuck or conflicted? What do I need to know? What do I actually want? What might I do? 

I can ask these questions to myself, to God, to other people... I'm not sure it matters. What matters is my willingness to receive answers that feel good, and get the help I need, so I can be available to others when they need me.

May you, too, recognize your neediness, embrace your desires, find your answers, and be there when others need you.

Validation

Raj Raghunathan teaches a free online course called A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment, and this week sent out a newsletter that included a link to this short 16-minute film.

I've watched it three times already, and hope that you will give yourself the gift of watching it, too. It hits on so much of what the gift of happiness is about, in a way that talking and writing about it just can't.

What do you think? Where are you in this story? What does it suggest for your life?