Hereâs something Iâm thinking about: I want to practice intentionally encouraging myself.
This flows out of my larger interest in learning to soothe my inner child, but with a more active sense of a regular, purposeful practice.
My default internal dialogue is a drone of perfectionism, with a repeating snare drum of self-doubt and erratic riffs of fearful self-blame.
What if, instead, it sounded like a sonata of gentle dissonance and resolution, with a melodic rise and fall of distress and soothing, and moving chords of self-encouragement?
âGood job.â âYouâre doing great.â âThat was really hard, but you did it. Iâm proud of you.â What if my inner dialogue sounded like this, instead of the usual automatic self-hassling? Answer: I think my life would feel a lot calmer and happier.
This seems like a situation of unhealed-child parts of meâthe ones trying to hold everything together or else something bad will happenâwho need me to be the attuned, encouraging parent they always needed.
From another angle, this also seems like a situation of cognitive bias: my brain has a bias against trusting myself. Itâs the exact opposite of Voldemortâs bias that Harry points out to him in HPMOR:
ââYou have a blind spot around strategies that involve doing nice things for other people, to the point where it stops you from achieving your selfish values...You donât see nice ways to do the things you want to do...Even when a nice strategy would be more effective, you donât see it because you have a self-image of not being nice.â
â Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky
I have a blind spot around doing nice things for myselfâand saying nice things to myselfâto the point that it stops me from achieving my altruistic values (in that Iâm wasting emotional energy on self-doubt), because I have a self-image of being nice to others but not to myself!
Therefore, I need to consciously compensate for that bias, if I want to operate closer to actual truth and effectiveness. I could maybe try some behavioral modificationâperhaps a reward system of giving myself a point for each time I say something encouraging myself.
It certainly seems worth the try. Maybe Iâll report back with my results next time!
Sunday Springs
(Although now itâs already Monday)
Section posts from the past week two weeks
đď¸Writerâs Waters
âď¸Parenting Puddles
đŞˇSerenity Splashes
Enlightenment is to healing what flowers are to blooms-- same vibrance under different names, like air in different rooms-- and just like flowers, both of these need time and space to thrive-- and courage to face what's underground and to open to new life.
soothing my anxiety when my mind feels foggy
Itâs okay to not have it all figured out. Clear, sunny days are fun, but clouds and rain are essential, too. Take it slow in this fog, little one.
Forward, enlightenment knight, to another day pursuing the light of healing and living with mindful sight, honest, brave, and kind. Yours not to perfectly plan, yours not to meet demands, yours but to do what you can, staying self-aligned.
If the voice in your mind is strict and unkind, thatâs not a voice of wisdom. Itâs a scared, hurt child alone in the wild who needs help and compassion.
People who hold an opposite view politically from yours aren't evil, of course. They're people too, with the same needs at their cores: to feel safe, to protect their young, and to have the means to live. It's just a different route they've come. Let us seek to build a bridge.
You donât scold a daffodil for not blooming on command. It will open when it's ready: this you understand-- and yet you scold a child for not jumping to obey, instead of adding light and time to help them bloom their way.
You feel like a mess and a screw-up, I know, but listen: what you are is real. Real people have complex feelings and needs, and real life is a messy, screwy deal. You're doing great with your very full plate.