Last summer I was shopping for a dress for a work function. I was in the dressing room of Talbots and there was another woman in there as well, trying on dresses and working with a salesperson. This fellow shopper sounded very friendly and upbeat in her interactions with the salesperson, but when the saleswoman was gone I heard an ugly voice from her side of the dressing room: “You look ridiculous in this dress. You’re so stupid. You always look stupid…” On and on the voice went. At first I thought this pleasant lady was accompanied by an abusive friend or relative. It then dawned on me that she was talking to herself. The realization was so disturbing – I felt that this woman must be mentally ill, and I was so sad for her.
Then I had a second realization. Those words that sounded so crazy and disturbing spoken out loud were not so very far from words I have silently thought about myself when confronted with my reflection on a bad day. Most of us do not go around berating ourselves out loud, but how many of us have looked in the mirror and thought, “Ugh!” or “I’m so fat” or “I look so OLD”? Imagine a loved one trying on a new outfit for you. Would you say any of the above to them? Why do we feel it is acceptable to talk to ourselves this way? Why does love and acceptance flow so freely from us for our loved ones, but is rationed out with Scrooge-like reluctance for ourselves?
The inner critic can be relentless and cruel. Many of our inner critics have found brand new material during this time of sheltering in place. Parents trying to home-school their children have told me they feel like total failures at it. Some people trying to help support local businesses have nevertheless felt guilty about possibly exposing someone delivering a pizza to the virus (in case they are somehow asymptomatic). Was that pizza essential? You can drive yourself mad trying to do the right thing these days, because there is so much that is uncertain and so much that is brand new for us.
I generally expect a lot of myself. Before I really started working remotely and I had a lot of extra time on my hands I made up daily schedules so that I could be productive in other ways. Drying fruit in the dehydrator, writing cards to people, getting a certain amount of writing done each day. And I’ve been hard on myself when maybe my food choices haven’t been the best, or I didn’t get through everything on the to-do list. Now that I am navigating the new world of accessing my workplace remotely, working within a narrow window of time each day because we are all sharing computers, it could be so easy to be disappointed with myself for getting behind in my work, or taking “too long” to catch on to a new process we are using.
Enough.
Let’s drown out the inner critic with a quiet, persistent gentleness for ourselves.
Put “take a nap” on your to-do list, and give yourself a smiley sticker when you’ve accomplished that goal. Are your kids healthy, well fed, reasonably happy? High fives all around. They can make their life-sized diorama of the Hadron Collider when this is all over.
One of my favorite types of meditation is called Loving-Kindness, or Metta, meditation. I will discuss my meditation practice and the reasons why I meditate (including what science is showing about what happens to our brains when we meditate) in another post, but today I want to share with you a common mantra in Loving-Kindness meditation that I think is very appropriate for the times we find ourselves in right now:
“May you be safe. May you be healthy. May you be happy. May you live with ease.”
The next time you look in the mirror, treat yourself to some loving-kindness. You deserve it.
Michelle xoxo
P.S. If you’re curious about Loving-Kindness meditation, try this meditation guided by Sharon Salzberg, one of the giants in the world of meditation instruction.