Why You Should Replace Your Inner Drill Sergeant With Self-Compassion
Pamela Alma Weymouth, MFA, MSW
Every New Year’s Eve I like to burn things. That is to say I like to engage in a ritual that I learned in Mexico on a beach around a campfire.
STEP 1: SAY GOODBYE TO 2020. Write down all the things you want to say goodbye to from the previous year. Crumple them up, light a fire or a candle and burn them in a way that does not burn your house or anyone else’s house down. This feels really satisfying.
This year it’s a long list for me: Goodbye Covid! Goodbye restaurant and store closures! Goodbye to the woman who wrote me a nasty text about all my flaws! Goodbye to certain politicians who I shall not name here so as to not offend! Goodbye to the medication screw up that really messed up one of my favorite humans! Goodbye to the non-stop-bickering-with that family member who drives me crazy! Goodbye hot flashes! Goodbye maternal exhaustion! Goodbye zoom schooling! Goodbye CalFire! Goodbye police brutality!
Of course we all know that many of these things will not just magically disappear simply because the calendar date has changed or because I’ve burned them up. Police brutality. Zoom schooling. Social distancing. Covid. We still have some work to do. Yet crumpling these things up in a tight paper ball and watching the smoke rise, makes me feel a tiny bit more powerful. And I like to believe we are one step closer to change.
After my sons and I are done burning up our goodbye lists, and after I’ve put out several flaming pieces of paper that come close to burning my house down (please supervise your children while doing this activity. No, my liability insurance won’t cover you.)
STEP 2: WELCOME IN YOUR INTENTIONS. Write down all the things you want to welcome in. Your intentions—or those dreaded things we call resolutions.
Oh the hope! Each year I feel the dreaded ache of shame at all those lofty goals I have yet to manifest. The sense of failure and self-flagellation begins. I write. I crumple. I try to get the tiny pink piece of paper to float up into the air as they are supposed to if you roll the paper a certain way into a little tube. When it works they float up magically into the air. When it doesn’t work they sink to the bottom of the fire pit and your sons walk away and tell you the ritual is stupid, nothing will come true. (They’re teenagers. Ignore them.)
STEP 3: DON’T BULLY YOURSELF. Recently I had the good fortune to learn that my traditional practice of self-inflicted-bullying at the year’s end is not in fact the most productive use of my time. New science and research by Dr. Kristin Neff shows that in fact it is by being fiercely compassionate toward ourselves that we can create the most change.
This extraordinary logic completely turns on its head everything I was taught as a child, by a domineering and intense single mother—determined to make sure that I was not spoiled, ungrateful or lazy. The result of this childhood verbal battering, is that I am highly skilled self-inflicted arrows—a skill that one cannot sell at a baseball game—or I’d have sold many a ticket.
When I review my Rapunzelian lists of how I might improve myself—I am as usual confounded by the ways in which this years list looks exactly like last year’s list. At the top is: Be on Time! Next to: Finish My Book! I fear these intentions may in fact go straight into the coffin with me. At the funeral that I am late to.
I want to do better, only some habits are so deeply ingrained it’s hard to know how to unravel them. Dr. Neff thinks I should throw my whip out the window and instead try self-compassion. If this sounds touchy feely— I hear you. Yet her research reveals that if you talk more kindly to yourself you actually will have more success with your goals.
Dr. Steve Hickman writes, “Perhaps you have seen the clever t-shirt depicting a pirate on his ship exclaiming, ‘The beatings will continue until morale improves!’…pummeling someone…[is] like continuing to put your car in reverse in order to move forward.”
In practice, I believe you can still set absurdly idealistic resolutions—but when you trip up, try talking to yourself the way that you might talk to your five-year-old self. You might say Good try! Dust off the dirt buddy! It’s okay, you gave it your best shot darlin’. Apparently committing to be more kind to yourself might be the most powerful resolution you will ever make.
My inner New Yorker, thinks this is really cheesy. But my resident Californian thinks it might be nice to not have whip marks on my back this year.
How might self-compassion change your relationship with your resolutions in 2021?
Join me & a group of amazing rare caregivers this Thursday at 11:00am to tell us about it. Journaling & Resilience is a nurturing rare mom group in which we explore science-based wellness tools and short writing prompts to build resilience and help you cope. Confidential. Free.
Register to join here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/attendee/tZMsdeyuqj0rGtz0MowiGsLN77bd0Ij4v3gW/ics?user_id=vfses8qHQjaab_Zs1PD4Sg
