I love this meditation. I bet if you polled my friends they would tell you that I am basically a kind person. Yet frequently, I am unkind to myself. I nag myself constantly, I perceive myself as lazy, a professional procrastinator, scattered, and trivial.
I’d like to change how I talk to myself – but before I can do that, I have to make myself aware of how often I criticize myself. It’s 9:13 in the morning and already I’ve told myself off several times. I could have gotten up earlier. I read too many articles on Facebook before I got out of bed. I should have made a healthier breakfast. I had fried eggs on avocado toast, bacon, coffee and a blood orange. Tsk, tsk, tsk, bacon and carbs in my breakfast. I’m unclear as to whether I’m scolding myself for the eggs and a cup of black coffee at the moment. Pretty sure I scored with the avocado smash (avocado and fresh squeezed lemon) – oh, but oops, I bought grape tomatoes and forgot to put them in the avocado smash. Excellent opportunity to beat myself up for buying produce, forgetting to use it and ultimately contributing to the food waste crisis and global warming. Again. You’d think the blood orange could be guilt free – but I have developed some sort of sensitivity or intolerance to oranges; it seems to be managed as long as I limit my intake of them to occasionally – but should I be eating them at all? I crave blood oranges in the winter – but isn’t craving a food a sign that it’s bad for you and you should not eat it? I am so weak-willed. And so it goes.
And you know what? All of this negative self-talk makes me feel bad about myself, but it never inspires me to change my behaviour. Time to ease up on myself. Time to begin again.
