DON'T BE YOUR OWN WORST CRITIC
It is so very easy to find negative things to think about myself. I am by far my own worse critic and I have a litany of things I criticize myself with - from my looks, to my personality, to my failures as a wife and mother, to how much I talk - and even how I sound when I talk (how ridiculous is that!)Here's an example....
I am walking around the block every morning in the hope that a few extra kilos will drop off along the way (wishful thinking so far). I get up a bit earlier, throw on some clothes and sneakers and off I go. Along the way I pass other walkers, joggers, dog owners etc and most of the time I say "morning!" with a smile or make a brief comment about the weather or whatever. One day I heard myself speak and thought how gravelly I sounded and how I needed to sound more "feminine" and how I would go about this? - ridiculous when I think about it - it's early morning - no shower, no breakfast and no coffee.......it would make Shirley Temple sound gravelly! I'm sure not one person I meet along the way would think for a moment that my voice sounded anything by normal, but my little negative committee called a meeting and took me to task.
SECOND GUESSING EVERYTHING
I stand on the scales and stress over a kilogram gained, look in the mirror and see a new wrinkle, try on an outfit and realize that it is too young for me. I offer some timely advice to my daughter and have it thrown back at me and then berate myself for speaking up. I start churning if my husband goes quiet (which is quite often seeing he's an introvert!) - did I say something? did I forget something? am I talking too much? and on it goes - it turns out that usually he's just tired and winding down - who'd have thought?Each time my mind's negative litany is playing at full volume, I need to step back, take a deep breath and see myself as others see me.....they aren't looking all that hard and they certainly aren't piling on the judgement - I do that all by myself. Perhaps I could cut myself the same amount of slack and stop over-thinking everything. I'm even finding that I have some good things to offer people and I need to focus on those and how far I've come, rather than seeing my slip ups and faux pas.
WE'RE ALL WORKS IN PROGRESS
So I am a work in progress in this area - I don't want to be vain and self glorifying, but I do want to cheer myself on a bit more and be happier in my mind. I certainly don't want to be fishing for compliments or being needy - what a turn off! I think I just need to step back and breathe and not hold myself to some absurd level of perfection that I will never achieve. With age comes wisdom (one of the few blessings that getting older brings!) and my advice to myself is - chill out girl!JUST A FINAL NOTE:
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