The other day my 15-year-old (very intellectual non-athletic) son, who joined a gym for the first time in his life last week, came home from a workout and looked upset.
“Mom. The trainer wrote on my program that I’m supposed to do 50 crunches. But I couldn’t finish the last five. I didn’t do them. It was so hard. I feel so guilty that I didn’t do the last five, I messed up.”
He was beating himself up about these five missed crunches. How many times in life do we beat ourselves up about what’s not there? About what was left undone?
“Wait a second,” I said. “What did you just say? You did HOW MANY crunches? You did FORTY-FIVE crunches?!?!”
“No, but mom—I didn’t do the last five,” he repeated.
“You did forty-five freaking crunches? You killed it. Great job!”
Maybe it was a typical mom move, but it’s something we can all benefit from. Let’s look at what we DID do, not just what we didn’t—or couldn’t—do.
Remember when I talked about the “spot the success” exercise, which I affectionately renamed the Dunzo List? This is along the same lines.
What’s not there
I’m in my second year of a three-year program to become a licensed professional counselor. One thing that comes up again and again in our course is how people tend to state what isn’t there rather than what is there. We tend to focus on what we don’t feel instead of what we do feel.
Example: “I’m not that angry today.”
Ok, that’s what isn’t there: there isn’t anger. However, we can’t work with what isn’t there; we can work with what is there. So now that we’ve established what isn’t there, what is there?
When you find yourself saying what you aren’t feeling, try to turn around and ask yourself what you are feeling. If you check in with what you’re feeling throughout your day, you’ll become more aware of what’s going on inside of you from moment to moment. Some of us are so disconnected from our own bodies and our physical experience that we aren’t familiar with how to express what we’re feeling.
Checking in
A practice that can be useful is known as an “emotional check-in.” This just means that you take a brief pause during your day to check in with yourself and see how you’re feeling—to see what’s there. It can help you get outside your head for a moment and gain some objectivity about your experience.
Checking in with yourself, even just once a day, can be helpful. Take a moment to pause, take some slow deep breaths, and ask yourself: how am I feeling right now?
Note the physical sensations in your body. Try to put a name to what you’re feeling. What does it look like? Does it have a shape, a color, a physical sensation? Try a three-minute body scan meditation. Anything that brings you into your physical body and grounds you in your experience in the here and now can help you to find more balance mentally.
Focusing on how much you’ve done
Let’s give ourselves credit for everything we do every day to help ourselves and others. Rather than beating ourselves up for what we perceive as our mistakes and shortcomings (what’s missing), we can focus on what we did that was good (what’s there). And believe me: every single day there is something to commend yourself for.
Having compassion for yourself means giving yourself credit where credit is due. It also means having a balanced view of yourself. It means taking the time to notice and appreciate your gifts and talents, and not focusing solely on what you perceive are your imperfections.
Example: The other day I had to drive my daughter to her day center where she does psychiatric rehabilitation. The drive is a half-hour from our house, and halfway there I realized that I’d forgotten to give her her morning medicine, which she can’t skip. I started to beat myself up about it, seeing only the cascading results of my forgetting: now we’ll be late, now I have to drive back, how could I forget, etc.
It took my daughter repeating to me some of the things she hears me saying to her and her brother and sister (“You’re only one person, mom, you’re doing your best”) to snap me out of it. Instead of focusing on what was missing (the medicine, my forgetting) I started to list what I had done:
I had pulled out the medicine and put it on the table
I remembered to ask if she had taken it before we got all the way to the day center
I called the day center to explain we’d be a half-hour late and they said it was no problem
And, if we’re really going there: how about all the other days and weeks and months that I didn’t forget?
So, the next time you start giving yourself a hard time when you feel you fell short, take a step back and ask yourself: what’s there that I’m not seeing? You may be surprised at how much kinder you can treat yourself when you take a moment to see yourself as a friend and ally.