Last month I experienced a tiny crisis of shame and horror due to one of my dogs accidentally causing minor harm to someone. I did all I could to make it right, but I was still left with a lot of big, upset feelings.
In reaching for self-soothing, here are some of the things I reminded myself of (and wrote in my journal), from the realms of philosophy and psychology. Maybe you will find them soothing, too. 💗
Separateness and agency are illusions of ego. “I” am just another point of consciousness in the universe of time and space.
I am a creature experiencing things happening to me, just like everyone else.
My inflated sense of responsibility is a product of my socialization, not a true map of reality.
So if I accidentally cause harm to someone, I don’t need to writhe and wallow in shame. Just do what I can to make it right, and keep moving forward.
I am human too. I am imperfect, and I am subject to blows of fate just like anyone else.
So be human. 💗
River Roundup
Section posts since last time
New section:
📖 Commonplace Brook
a flowing stream of quotes and notes from books I read and love
With this new section, I aim to more deliberately share quotes from books I love and/or am currently reading. There’s so much deep, rich, and powerful wisdom to be mined in books great and small—yet when I scroll social media, I find it full of bland quotes and snappy memes. I want to share instead some of literature’s thunderclaps that have knocked me down and changed me.
Here’s one, for example, from my favorite essay—Emerson’s “Self-reliance”:
“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.
This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.
It is the harder, becuase you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know.
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great [person] is [one] who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
This is how I want to live—with self-aware, mindful choosing even when I’m in the presence of other people.
I always love this great passage in H.P.M.O.R., and it struck me anew recently on my latest listen-through:
“You did not choose sides when you went to Ravenclaw. You choose your side by the way you live your life, what you do to other people and what you do to yourself. Will you illuminate others’ lives, or darken them? That is the choice between Light and Dark, not any word the Sorting Hat cries out. And the hard part, Padma Patil, is not saying ‘Light’. The hard part is deciding which is which, and admitting it to yourself when you begin down the wrong road.”
— from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky
🪷Serenity Splashes
on the ironic magic of loosening one’s grip
This is me continuing to reflect on the mindset of “let the discombobulations happen,” as I wrote about recently. I’m looking at the irony of how things seem to actually go better when I don’t try so hard to control them!
The tighter you grip, the harder you strain, the more you trip into puddles of pain. Loosen your grasp; let come what may-- and you'll weave like a cat through the weeds of your day.
on cloudy inner weather
I want to spread beauty-- but my mind feels gray and heavy with shadows of grief and malaise-- and so, I crave beauty to lighten my heart and fight off the darkness with awe and art.
I’m basking in this healing warmth.
I grew up under clouds of self-rebuke that poured on me from pulpits. I stayed low. Now my sky clears more and more to blue; and in the sun of self-kindness, I grow.
Anxiety tilts me downward, off balance in my mind. Sometimes I wobble backward, rehashing things behind, and then I'm leaning forward, trying to walk the ground ahead, or else I stretch around me to others' paths instead. Take a breath. Look at the sky. Allow these weights to fall. Be her and now on my own path, walking firm and tall.
another poem about anxiety
My old, crony clouds, gray with strain, hang around-- but sometimes, somehow, I can rise above them, where the sun still shines-- and things are actually just fine. Up here, I can catch my breath-- until the next time I forget and fall back down among my clouds.
I totally get that lingering shame. I made a poor decision in traffic while we were in Charleston that almost caused an accident (I'm not sure if I told you about that or not?) and it's been bothering me off and on ever since. I appreciate the reminder to be human. ❤️
Also, I like the Commonplace Brook section! I'll have to update my settings to make sure I get them in the future! 😁✨