Don't beat yourself up...

“Don’t beat yourself up...” my boyfriend said to me on a run one morning, as I spoke about how little training I felt I’d done that week. In fact, despite a self-imposed stay at home because I had the flu sanction, I had ran twice, done a somatic class, walked most days, and been to the gym. It still didn’t feel like enough.

“Don’t beat yourself up...” a mentor would say, as I exclaim to my frustration raising money and the countless no's I’d received amongst a few ‘maybes’. It’s not my first rodeo, I know it takes time, I know it’s not personal. I still don’t feel like I’m enough.

“Don’t beat yourself up...” I say to myself as I look in the mirror, wondering how my neck has managed to age so quickly. How long I can resist all the content about botox and lower blepharoplasty and lip filler. How to get dressed and fit in with what’s cool when all I want to do is be comfortable.

But I do.

I beat myself up daily.

There’s no one telling me, specifically, to be younger, hotter, fitter, smarter, wiser, kinder. No one pointing a finger telling me that who, how, or what I am isn’t ok.

And yet I compare myself to the people around me, to the content around me, and I tell myself, “I’m not okay.”

Yes, I repair the damage at the end of the day. I talk myself out of it, remind myself that I’m human, that it’s ok.

I am all at once flawed and perfect. Confused and sane. Assured and indecisive. Special and completely and utterly boring and mundane.

I keep wondering what the point in all of this is. What the answer is. When someone or something will stop me in my tracks and say “hey, this is the answer, this is the way.”

And maybe this is the whole point.

No one’s going to do that for me.

No one’s beating me up and no one’s saving me either.

It’s all on me.

As I mentioned this imaginary boxing ring to my friend over text, she replied “story of my life.”

And I realised how hard we can all be.

Perhaps the metaphorical ‘beating oneself up’ is all a part of the process. A process that’s inevitable, perhaps unavoidable, when we’re shown thousands of comparison points every day.

Doubt makes us question how think, how we act, and sometimes there’s a lesson to be learned, sometimes we need to be a little tough on ourselves. Discipline, is that what they say?

I remind myself that if I’m going to beat myself up it should only be for a minute, before I lift myself up again - and get on with my day.

This piece was written for Fluff in collaboration with The Ritual by KIC, currently discussing the theme: “Method in the Madness.”

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