To the One Learning to Be Gentle with Herself

Lovely, I wonder who first taught you that being hard on yourself was somehow a good thing.

Maybe nobody ever said those words out loud. Maybe you simply learned that if you criticised yourself first, nobody else could hurt you quite as much. If you expected perfection from yourself, perhaps you’d finally become enough. Maybe it was watching others put themselves down. Watching how they spoke, never measured up or even put others down in front of you. It’s sad the things we pick up throughout our life.

I’ve been there. Oh, how I've been there.

I’ve replayed conversations on the drive home. I’ve picked apart my own words. I’ve carried guilt for things that probably didn’t need carrying. I’ve looked in the mirror and noticed every flaw before I noticed anything beautiful.

I think that’s one of the saddest things about healing. That inner critic we have, can become woven so deeply into the very fabric of who we are that after a while we stop questioning it. We simply assume it’s telling the truth.