I'm late to my writing practice today, in part because I had a tough night sleeping, and as a result, my physical body is in knots, and also in part because I have so many thoughts and feelings swirling through me, concerning where I've been, where I am, and where I want to be.
I could not make up my mind this morning about what I wanted to write about, which is physically manifesting as more swirling thoughts and tighter knots. ow. I find it frustrating, and painful, when that happens, because I much prefer clearer paths in my thoughts. I also prefer to have gotten some real sleep, and to not be all physically knotted up.
Then it hit me. The swirling thoughts and what lay inside the knots themselves were what I needed to write out/write about. Maybe. I have a huge amount of resistance to discussing them right now, and I realize that I was resisting my resistance. I really don't want to discuss or re-experience the pain I'm in right now, or have been in before; this is a blog, not the confessional. Wonderful that I can see all that; not so hot to experience.
Even after all this time of working on my stuff about fears, knots and swirling thoughts, and knowing that I have editing ability and the ability to question/reason, I am still scared of making a mistake.
I know that mistakes are how we learn and grow, and that many of them are just not that bad in the scheme of things, and won't matter 10 minutes, 10 months or 10 years from now. The concept of mistakes is scary for me, all the same.
From there, I thought that forgetting about the resistance, and instead giving myself permission to have my fears, would be far more compassionate, and make my life easier. Only to discover that I don't need permission from myself to have the fears. I just do have the fears for right now, and I accept that. I don't have to own the fears, however, as I know that I wouldn't be heartbroken if they left.
Experiencing instead, more self-compassion, and gently stopping beating myself up for mistakes I've already made, would feel pretty good.
I do need to perhaps give myself permission, as opposed to an order, to stop anticipating that I'll screw up again despite having good intentions, qualities and skills up the wazoo and beat myself up for screwing up in advance, hard enough that I either just..stop, quit entirely, or start getting depressed and work even harder to overcome whatever my imagined deficiency is. Damn it all, despite me trying very hard and perhaps even ordering myself to get over it, I still have Type-A, perfectionist tendencies, which are, in my experience, the cruelest of all task-mistresses.
This, I know now, are some of my biggest stumbling blocks in life. Crappy self-talk and perfectionistic tendencies. For example, I know I am beyond the shadow of a doubt, good enough to have good things in my life, yet, in the past, I've repeatedly wound up dealing with all the shit stuff where I remain unseen, unappreciated and very under-compensated for the value I add to whatever thing or another. Yet I just accepted it as my lot in life, even though I railed (uselessly) against it. Which led to me Doing My Thing, which involves a whole lot less wading around in proverbial crap and the potential of exponentially greater reward.
Then, I knew I was on to why the thoughts were swirling and the sleep wasn't happening. I was just flushing stuff that didn't work for me anymore, and making space for stuff that *does* work for me here in the present time, and maybe, even going forward.
So, I ask this today. Where can I be gentler with myself? Where and how can I better honor myself?
Until next time...peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment