I see so many genuinely good people who are so hard on themselves. We seem to get such high expectations of ourself and who we think we should be, that when our reality isn’t matching our expectation, we think we are the failure.
One day in particular I remember being flat broke, having a lot of bills to pay and feeling horribly about not being able to pay them. Because I was not a spender, this was really hard for me to process.
I was driving along bawling myself out…when I stopped and thought, “Jodi you would never talk to someone else this way, why do you talk to yourself like this?”
I didn’t have the answer. If I had been talking to someone else it would have sounded something like, “you are not a bad person, you are just in a pickle right now.”
So I tried this as my new self talk.
I can still remember the absolute total wash of relief I felt from letting go of the thought that I wasn’t a bad person anymore.
This new way of thinking didn’t change my situation, that didn’t come for many years later… but it certainly helped me to start down the path of separating myself from my circumstances, and towards loving and forgiving myself for not always being perfect.
Now I wonder why I ever used to think I belonged in the super hero family, I don’t even like spandex.
Who had the real secret identity after all? Superman or Clark Kent?