Today I want to talk again about how we talk to ourselves when we mess up. When we do something wrong, for lack of a better term.
True story: A couple of weeks ago, I took my nine and ten-year-old into Yankee Candle. Which I have now learned is a bad idea. When they were little, it was no big deal, it was not a fun store—and now they want stuff. It could be just me—no judgments—I don’t think it’s a good idea for a nine and ten-year-old to have candles in their room.
Against my better judgment, I gave in…and Daddy was not happy with me. Both my son and daughter picked the candle they wanted for their room. Yankee Candle now has these decorative glass canisters that seemed like a really good idea because they keep the candle from knocking over. And they weren’t totally cheap, either. They were $25 each.
So we got home and I went to my husband, their Daddy, and I told him the story and he was like, “Yeah we’ll talk about this later but this isn’t going to happen.”
So later, I was wrapping them up to return and for some reason, I got the bright idea to take the wrapped candle and place it inside of the canister we were going to return (I don’t know why since we were keeping the candles and returning the canisters.) It was on the ground on the ceramic floor and as I was putting the candle into the canister, it dropped out of my hand, fell into the canister, and broke the bottom.
And man, did I plummet into Less Than.
And here’s what Vickey always talks about: for me, many of my viewers and clients, there’s verbiage that goes along with falling into Less Than. One of my clients really berates himself like, “What are you an effing idiot?” (He berates himself pretty harshly.)
I don’t berate myself to that degree and I don’t call myself an “idiot”. I don’t usually have words for mine, but I feel like, “Ugh why did I do that? He’s going to be so mad at me. What was I thinking?”
Then I reigned myself in. Like, I’m not thrilled that it was $25…but it’s not like it was $25,000. It did take me some time to pull myself out of it. Nowhere near as long as it would have taken me years ago before I began doing this work. It didn’t take me hours like it would have in the past. Maybe minutes.
Yes, even I still do go into Less Than or Better Than. The question is: how fast can we bring ourselves back into Center? Into Same As.
How fast can we breathe ourselves up into Same Ass from Less Than, and how fast can we remind ourselves the other person matters, too, when we go up into Better Than?
When you go into Less Than: “It’s ok to make mistakes! I’m human and I can hold myself in warm regard despite my flaws and imperfections.”
When you go into Better Than: “The other person matters too.”
If you need help finding out which of these areas you get stuck in and how to breathe yourself back into Same As, let’s work together! Click here to book a free consultation call.