Being cruel to yourself makes you dumb.
It siphons away your energy.
It hobbles you.
It can keep you from learning what you most want to learn. Sometimes, for years and years.
What if the biggest obstacle between you and getting better at writing, coaching, teaching, loving, parenting, painting, singing, __fill in the blank______, was self-cruelty?
Self-judgment. The voices in your head Seth categorized so succinctly here.
Many of us were suckled on the belief that getting better at something must include berating and belittling ourselves. Otherwise we aren’t being honest with ourselves.
Actually, learning happens best when we can calm our heart brains, by concentrating and taking in good feelings.
If you keep working at something you really care about but you never seem to improve, get curious about how you treating yourself as a learner.
What you are saying to yourself? What feelings you are focusing on? How are you holding your body?
If you find yourself speaking to yourself like you would like to speak to Glenn Beck, then put your hand on your heart and recall a time when you felt loved. Good enough. Relaxed.
Put your whole attention on that feeling.
Turn up the volume on it.
Notice how good it feels.
Ask yourself: If a beloved friend is trying to learn this, how would I help her?
Now I’m off to practice my talk for tomorrow using exactly this approach.
Here’s to self-kindness as the sweetest – and fastest way — to success.
I’d love to hear how you self-kindness and finding the good to help you learn.
P.S. Two ways to steep yourself in self-kindness in July: retreat with me at Kripalu or in Taos. Only four spots left for Taos.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Carol Logan Newbill Jun 1, 2010
Ouch ouch ouch. I wrote about this very subject — although I didn’t think of it as “self cruelty” — today. Hunting, Farming, and what happens when the tractor runs out of fuel.
Now I have to work on the speaking kindly to myself part.
2 Bridget Jun 1, 2010
When I was eight years old, I severely burned my arm with a pot full of hot grease. I was in the hospital for 3 weeks. Each day after my dreft whirlpool bath, my arm had to air-dry before it could be bandaged. It was so painful. My arm had little protective skin on it. So every nerve was exposed. It was overwhelming.
One day, I started describing the pain. I started naming the pain. I asked myself the question, “What does it feel like,really? I know it hurts, but what does that hurt feel like?” Sometimes it burned. Sometimes it felt like broken glass. Getting into the quality of the pain made it bearable.
Getting into the quality of a learning experience makes it bearable too. When I am learning a new thing and sucking at it, the critic has to make way for the voice of the actual experience,the voice that describes
what it feels like to put brush to paper,
what it feels like to see the pins of my quilt piece lined up with precision,
what it feels like to recognize that precision took me 20 minutes and that’s okay, etc.
The voice of experience reminds me, somehow, that what I’m doing, I’m doing for me and that I’m worth it.
I think this may be the same thing has being nice to yourself the way you’d be to a friend. Or similar. Hmm….
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4 Andrew Lightheart Jun 2, 2010
You know that this is a topic I’m working on…
One of the things that I’m watching is how I am cruel to myself *through other people*.
ie I beat myself up but with *their voice*.
Clever, eh?
I get to feel bad AND resent someone else at the same time…
For example, technology has conspired to make my afternoon VERY frustrating. It was only Conditions of Enoughness that helped me to remember to reframe my expectations of what I was able to achieve.
What amazes me is how close the self-cruelty is to the surface.
Eep. Allowing the softness in can be scary too sometimes…
5 Andrew Lightheart Jun 2, 2010
I think that may have made more sense in my head.
What I meant to add is that I had to not beat myself up this afternoon with the voices of more productive people and their (totally imaginary) disappointment in me.
Self-cruelty disguised as living-up-to-my-potential.
6 Susan Gallacher-Turner Jun 2, 2010
Ok, this is a hot button for me and my dear husband agrees! How to stop it has always been a big question for me. Andrew’s comment is so true, so easy to do, too, unfortunately. Glad he found a way to put the boxing gloves away for an afternoon.
Now…to put mine away, too.
Any suggestions?
7 Jennifer Jun 2, 2010
Carol, I look forward to reading your post!
Bridget, what a perfect story of being present. I did the same thing, do the same thing, with my back pain.
Andrew, I totally get it. It’s the productivity greek critic chorus.
Susan, next time you feel yourself being mean to yourself – as we often feel it in our bodies first – think of yourself as a baby. Innocent, sweet, totally lovable. See yourself as a baby. Smell the sweet smell. Put an arm around that baby and ask her what she needs in this situation.
See if that helps!