Putting the bullshit self-criticism aside...

Putting the bullshit self-criticism, self-judgment, etc. to the side, what do you wish for yourself? When you consider the parts of you that hold your anxiety, your small mindedness, your fears and so on, what do you wish for them if you’ve put aside your bullshit self-criticism and judgment?

The bullshit self-criticism says of whatever is bugging you at this particular time, “I hate it, I wish I could cut it out of myself and throw it away.” Which makes its own kind of sense when that same anxiety or whatever has put you through a lot of trouble, trials and tribulation. And embarrassment. But when you think about it more, what you’re saying is that you want to get rid of a part of your own totality, a piece of you that is scared, or confused, or sensitive to slings and arrows of the world around us. We don’t really want to excise our sensitivities and our softer sense of being. Really we want to help out those parts so that they are not in pain. No pain – they’re great!

So ask your bullshit self-criticism and your bullshit self-judgment to step back, and then think about what you really want for the part of you that appears to be so annoying. What would you say to it? Maybe it’s just a word, like calm, confidence, or grace. Try this lying on your back, tune into yourself, maybe even look for where the problematic feelings live in your body as well, and then say to them something like, “Calm to you, confidence to you, grace to you.” Anything nice will be fine.

That’s what I call self-soothing, because my self is directly talking to other parts of me in a soothing way. When self-criticism and judgment pop up, remind them that their message may be defensive and some kind of self-preservation gesture, but it is not truth. Truth is that when someone suffers, even if it is a part of me, the natural instinct is to help it out. So step back self-criticism, I’m doing the helping out now. It will even benefit you in the end.

And then, inevitably, you will have to consider the bullshit self-criticism and self-judgment as objects of your soothing too. Even if they put on a tough guy act, they also could do with the same kind thoughts, the same soothing voice as all the rest of you. They are just as angry and scared and flustered as everybody else in there. Kind and loving thoughts will help them in the process of being rescued from their particular spot in purgatory.

What if in this movie there are no bad guys, just patients to be healed, and you are both patient and doctor, chauffeur and passenger, actor and audience to your own drama? Your menagerie of crazy characters may not get regulated into something palpably less ridiculous and more socially acceptable, but you will get to be more at peace with yourself, more at home in your own home. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but inside ourselves we are a village, one where the fighting and fussing can soften considerably. Be at peace with your whole, true crazy self. It’s the only one you’ve got.