March 29th, 2017
Affirmation: I stay on task.
Word of the Day: Occam’s razor (n):
When our water here
becomes saturated with pollution,
it gets led back to the original water, the ocean.
After a year of receiving starlight,
the water returns, sweeping new robes along.
Where have you been? In the ocean of purity.
Now I am ready for more cleaning work.
If there was no impurity, what would water do?
It shows its glory in how it washes a face,
and in other qualities as well,
the way it grows the grass
and lifts a ship across to another port.
When the river slows with the weight of silt
and corruption, it grows sad and prays,
Lord, what you gave me I gave others.
Is there more? Can you give more?
Clouds draw the water up to become rain;
the ocean takes the river back into itself.
What this means is
we often need to be refreshed.
____
Self-Forgiveness
Self-forgiveness is not a nifty, new-age, politically-correct, psychobabble fad concept to let ourselves off the exacting hook of accountability. Rather, the I believe the opposite to be true. That is to say, self-forgiveness is a critical step in the direction of becoming a truly responsibly adult human being. Self-forgiveness is often the first step and first responsibility for many of us, because in its absence, we are liable to sinking into the quicksand of our self-focused negative thinking.
If you are skeptical about this, reflect back upon the amount of time and energy you have spent on self-criticism and self-condemnation in your life. Did that time and energy yield the intended outcomes in terms of making you a more responsible person? Put another way, then, self-critical thinking is irresponsible.
It is important to distinguish distinguish this type of irresponsible thinking from healthy critical thinking. The latter makes up our conscience and works to keep us in line with our personal morals and value systems. Self-criticism is also much different from the healthy critical thinking that is part of the "feedback system" that allows us to learn and grow from experience.
The self-criticism I am referring to is the perfectionistic tyrant in our heads that incessantly informing us that we are not good (smart, beautiful, thin, successful, _____) enough and that we are always falling short. Even when we do accomplish something, this inner bully is quick to crack its whip, reminding us that we should have succeeded sooner or better or differently. It also feeds us worries, fears, and anxieties, telling us things like we won't be able to maintain our success, that failure is just around the corner, and that nothing we do can absolve us of our past failures.
In many ways, this voice can be thought of as the "Should Monster." In the words of psychotherapist Thom Rutlege:
"Whether [your] shoulds are explicit or implicit, these are deeply embedded messages that keep us from taking the next important risk or knock us back down when we dare to get up... you're a loser no matter which way you go... you become so invested in pleasing the unpleaseable that you become caught in an endless (and useless) struggle to satisfy [your shoulds]."
Remember that the time and energy you spend in this dysfunctional inner struggle is time and energy that you are not spending on the things that you choose and that matter to you. Again, in Thom's words:
"Ultimately, the time and energy expended in self-criticism, self-condemnation, and self-abuse is time spent in self-absorption. Granted, this is self-absorbed pain, but the focus remains constantly on the self."
Self-criticism, then, renders us less, not more responsible and effectively responsive to the world around us. In the absence of self-forgiveness, we remain lost in our internal mazes, trapped in this isolated state of being that keeps us from fully living our lives.
- In what ways do you believe that you can use self-criticism as a way to get yourself to accomplish something?
- What are your fears or resistance to letting go of your self-criticism and replacing it with self-forgiveness?
- In what areas of your life does self-criticism show up the most? What does your self-critical voice sound like? What does it say and who does it remind you of?
- What does your self-forgiveness sound like?
Affirmation: I stay on task.
Word of the Day: Occam’s razor (n):
1. a scientific
and philosophic rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which
is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be
preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be
sought first in terms of known quantities.
How We Move Inside Grace
(1)
When our water here
becomes saturated with pollution,
it gets led back to the original water, the ocean.
After a year of receiving starlight,
the water returns, sweeping new robes along.
Where have you been? In the ocean of purity.
Now I am ready for more cleaning work.
If there was no impurity, what would water do?
It shows its glory in how it washes a face,
and in other qualities as well,
the way it grows the grass
and lifts a ship across to another port.
When the river slows with the weight of silt
and corruption, it grows sad and prays,
Lord, what you gave me I gave others.
Is there more? Can you give more?
Clouds draw the water up to become rain;
the ocean takes the river back into itself.
What this means is
we often need to be refreshed.
____
Self-Forgiveness
Self-forgiveness is not a nifty, new-age, politically-correct, psychobabble fad concept to let ourselves off the exacting hook of accountability. Rather, the I believe the opposite to be true. That is to say, self-forgiveness is a critical step in the direction of becoming a truly responsibly adult human being. Self-forgiveness is often the first step and first responsibility for many of us, because in its absence, we are liable to sinking into the quicksand of our self-focused negative thinking.
If you are skeptical about this, reflect back upon the amount of time and energy you have spent on self-criticism and self-condemnation in your life. Did that time and energy yield the intended outcomes in terms of making you a more responsible person? Put another way, then, self-critical thinking is irresponsible.
It is important to distinguish distinguish this type of irresponsible thinking from healthy critical thinking. The latter makes up our conscience and works to keep us in line with our personal morals and value systems. Self-criticism is also much different from the healthy critical thinking that is part of the "feedback system" that allows us to learn and grow from experience.
The self-criticism I am referring to is the perfectionistic tyrant in our heads that incessantly informing us that we are not good (smart, beautiful, thin, successful, _____) enough and that we are always falling short. Even when we do accomplish something, this inner bully is quick to crack its whip, reminding us that we should have succeeded sooner or better or differently. It also feeds us worries, fears, and anxieties, telling us things like we won't be able to maintain our success, that failure is just around the corner, and that nothing we do can absolve us of our past failures.
In many ways, this voice can be thought of as the "Should Monster." In the words of psychotherapist Thom Rutlege:
"Whether [your] shoulds are explicit or implicit, these are deeply embedded messages that keep us from taking the next important risk or knock us back down when we dare to get up... you're a loser no matter which way you go... you become so invested in pleasing the unpleaseable that you become caught in an endless (and useless) struggle to satisfy [your shoulds]."
Remember that the time and energy you spend in this dysfunctional inner struggle is time and energy that you are not spending on the things that you choose and that matter to you. Again, in Thom's words:
"Ultimately, the time and energy expended in self-criticism, self-condemnation, and self-abuse is time spent in self-absorption. Granted, this is self-absorbed pain, but the focus remains constantly on the self."
Self-criticism, then, renders us less, not more responsible and effectively responsive to the world around us. In the absence of self-forgiveness, we remain lost in our internal mazes, trapped in this isolated state of being that keeps us from fully living our lives.
- In what ways do you believe that you can use self-criticism as a way to get yourself to accomplish something?
- What are your fears or resistance to letting go of your self-criticism and replacing it with self-forgiveness?
- In what areas of your life does self-criticism show up the most? What does your self-critical voice sound like? What does it say and who does it remind you of?
- What does your self-forgiveness sound like?
"Pleasing the unpleasable" - a never-ending marathon where the finish line is in the hands of the unpleasables. What a colossal waste of time.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, it is usually not other people that are unpleasable - it is our internal sense of inadequacy (which is also sometimes projected).
Delete