This week: The comfort in self-compassion
Recently, we held a talk on why we love paper so much. One of the reasons is that paper never asks anything of you. It’s just there. You can grab a pen and simply get started. Computers, on the other hand, require passwords, start-up time, chargers, or things that you need to remember and consider – and sometimes, that just isn’t my specialty. So I end up getting angry with myself because, for example, I’m working at home, but I left the charger at work. In my head, all sorts of to-dos start popping up, like e-mails that need to be answered because people are waiting for a response, or layouts and proposals that need to be checked and approved, and so on. It’s at moments like these that I feel like screaming “THIS IS SO INFURIATING!” And those little voices in my head don’t make matters any better with their “Idiot, how are you going to fix this?” or “You’re such a fool for forgetting the charger,” and “Why don’t you ever think!”
But then I do think: I think of what I can do instead. Like making the third edition of the Flow Mindfulness Special. With a chapter on self-compassion, for which I have written a story about how I try to be nicer to myself. And how things have improved over recent years. What I learned in the self-compassion course I took is to think: “What would I say to a friend in this situation?”
Hmm. I step outside, take a deep breath, then go indoors and make myself a latte, get my iPad (22 per cent charged, code the same as my debit card) and decide to have a quiet day. To do everything I can that doesn’t require my work computer, and then go running for an hour and write my blog in peace. On the iPad, until it’s out of battery. Because I don’t want to run around like mad looking for the right charger and getting annoyed because the universal charger I have “is not recognized by this device.” Nope. I’ll simply continue on paper. And I’m looking forward to that. Because paper is just so great.
