Our Rude Minds

Our minds are crazy............ Thanks to evolution we have something hardwired called a negativity bias- meaning that we are likely to be hyper critical of ourselves. (Great right?) Although harsh self criticisms are bound to happen in life one of the ways out of this conundrum is to encourage self-compassion.

“Research shows that the No. 1 barrier to self-compassion is fear of being complacent and losing your edge,” Dr. Neff said. “And all the research shows that’s not true. It’s just the opposite,” meaning that self-compassion can lead to greater achievement than self-criticism ever could.  - Click to read this NYTimes article for more!

I decided the other day, to myself, that I want to work on actively forgiving myself. The goal was that with each inevitable self critique- I will forgive and let go. I would consistently encourage myself to think compassionately.

My inner dialogue:

I want to forgive myself for being vulnerable and messy. For being unpoetic and abrupt. I want to forgive myself for overthinking even the most minute things and for my moments of fearfulness. For being irrational and then daring to utter those thoughts out loud. For being projective in moments of strife and being unintentional with my words. For being blunt, honest, and raw. 

Sometimes we forget to breathe, we forget to slow down, forget to admit to ourselves that flaws are inevitable and that these flaws are neither good or bad. In fact they are normal and defining parts of who we are. We forget that we are human. I even forget sometimes that I have power over my own perception of the world around me. And at the end of a long day I am lucky enough to be surrounded by people who remind me of this. So if you are reading this, please let this be a gentle nudge in a kinder direction towards self compassion.

xoxo