Have you ever acted ugly and then hated yourself for it? Whether you yelled at your kids to stop screaming, snapped at your partner, or were rude to the wait staff; it never feels good. I have noticed more and more (and maybe this is due to my profession), practicing self-compassion is almost never an option as a way to deal with your ugliness. Why is that? Why can’t we reason our way out of feeling like crap for reacting to a situation? I believe it is due to the standards that we try to live up to. We are shown incessantly how to live our lives, how to raise our children, how to decorate our homes and the list goes on and on. The standards are displayed in such a way that it appears to be an effortless state of existence. To always be chill and handle every possible thing under the sun with ease. But it isn’t, is it? It is awful trying to be perfect and manage your hectic life gracefully.
Here is the deal. We can keep putting more pressure on ourselves to be awesome all the time or we can let go of our ugly mishaps and have a little bit of self-compassion. For example, you bite your kid’s head off because he won’t just find his shoes and get in the (bleep bleep) car! Once you get in the vehicle and are driving like a maniac, to make it to school on time, you catch a glimpse of your son’s expression in the review mirror, and your heart breaks.
You have some options:
A) Start an inner dialogue berating yourself and your shameful behavior.
B) You can practice self-compassion.
Let’s say, you try something different and you choose that later. You allow your mind to recall the fact that you haven’t had a good night’s rest in weeks, your boss is on you about this new project, you can’t remember the last time you had a moment to reconnect with your partner, and really when was the last time you filled your cup with something you enjoyed doing?
The next step is to forgive your mishap and let it go. You tell yourself that you are a good person doing too much and you make a mental note to scale down. The last very crucial step (if it involves another human being) is communicating the why behind your action (not excusing it, but explaining). Let your son know (making the dialogue age appropriate) that you did it wrong and explain how you wish you could have handled it. Make sure the other knows it is not their fault etc. and move on with the wonderful day.
Self-compassion is an easy thing to do but very few tend to give themselves the opportunity to practice it. Today, do it differently. When you mess up on a project or if you get something wrong with a recipe, shrug it off and remember that you’re not perfect nor do you have to be. Just do the best you can and in the mean time…try and slow down and fill that cup of yours:) Only you can make yourself happy but you need the time to do it.