Woke up to Radio KFKD. You know the one. It plays a steady stream of bitter self-doubt. Then tries to counter it. So much noise.
Who picked that station for the wake-up call? Oh. I did. I was believing that judging myself was the secret to making my life better. That making myself feel worse would make me behave better.
That belief gets so much airtime, yet when I examine it, I fail to find any evidence in my past that it works. Crazy.
It didnโt work with my children either, though I did give it my best shot. (Sorry, kids.)
And now, decades later I am just beginning to see why Iโve employed it so often, why Iโve believed it might workโฆ.someday. Several times over the years, Iโve heard that judging myself, criticizing myself, beating myself to a pulp is not helpful. Yet, I keep falling back in that rut. A rut that is several miles deep and eons long from years of construction.
Recently I made yet again another commitment to stop beating myself up, but this time I did it differently; I decided when I caught myself doing it, I would redirect myself WITHOUT the added judgement, criticism, beatings. Of course all that violence is the opposite of what I had committed to at the beginning but it was the โnaturalโ (habitual) reaction to self-correct.
So, now I am calling a moratorium on Beating of the Self (BS). Yesterday, I kept catching myself with some form of a KFKD broadcast and got to call BS. I love the double meaning. A little humor goes a long way in this arena.
(Thank you, Anne Lamott.) ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐โ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐กโ๐ ๐ฟ๐๐๐ ๐ด๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ก ๐โ๐ ๐ป๐๐๐๐ค๐๐๐ ๐๐ก๐๐๐: ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ด๐ ๐ด๐๐๐ง๐๐๐ ๐ฟ๐๐๐, ๐ ๐ถ๐๐๐ก๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฟ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐โ๐ก ๐ถ๐๐๐โ. ๐โ๐โ๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ก๐ ๐๐๐๐ข๐ก ๐ก๐๐๐โ๐๐๐ ๐ค๐๐๐๐ ๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ 50 ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ข๐๐๐ โฆ.๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ก๐๐ฆ. ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐. ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐ก๐๐ข๐๐๐๐.