Are You Done Beating Yourself Up Yet? No? Hold my tea.

Enough already. While I appreciate your desire to improve yourself, your behavior, your

relationships, your grades or your times playing Mario Kart, I don’t appreciate you beating the snot out of yourself with the effort. That, my pugilistic friend, is counterproductive. Would you like to know how I know this? I’m going to assume the answer is “yes” and tell you. Because the more you beat yourself up for making mistakes or not being – God forbid – perfect, the more you undermine your belief in your ability to improve, make changes, and achieve your goals. The routine self-flagellation you inflict simply chips away at your confidence and feelings of self- efficacy, leaving you less motivated to try because “why bother?” For some reason, images of Charlie Brown and Eeyore commiserating over cups of cocoa just sprang into my mind. Huh.

The challenge with trying to improve some aspect of yourself or your existence - while

simultaneously criticizing yourself for needing any kind of improvement - is that the whole routine is counterproductive at best. At worst, it leaves you feeling like you’re a failure, a loser, a fraud, and lazy. Read that last sentence out loud and then tell me how inspired and motivated you feel to make a change. I’ll wait. (Insert reasonably annoying hold music here.)

I’m going to make a wild guess and assume that you did not like how that sounded when you read it aloud and that it made you feel a bit… icky? Down? Defeated? As long as you don’t come back with a highly energetic and euphoric adjective, I think I’ve made my point. I acknowledge that there are some people who find being insulted, criticized harshly, and even screamed at quite motivating. However, most of life is not Boot Camp. Or Potions with Professor Snape. (That should paint a pretty clear picture for my fellow Potter fans.) So, what is a struggling Hufflepuff to do? (Please replace with your own Hogwarts house, Mandalorian Clan, etc.) Well, how about starting with the way you talk to yourself? Whether silently, under your breath, or screaming on the cliffside, if you call yourself names like “stupid” or “loser” or “moron” or “dumbass,” it won’t take long for those messages to become firmly rooted where self-esteem should flourish and create the belief that you are, in fact, a stupid loser. How you talk to yourself or about yourself matters. Repeat something often enough and you’ll start to believe it’s true.

Therefore, step one is to speak kindly to yourself. Imagine your best friend or closest family member struggling with whatever you’re struggling with and consider how you would speak to them about it. Would you call your best friend the cruel names you call yourself? Would you insult your friend’s abilities when they’re having difficulty with something? I’m going to guess that you wouldn’t. Instead, you would be encouraging them and trying to build them up, piece by piece, if necessary, much like a Lego Death Star. If you’re treating your Legos with more care than you treat yourself, it is not surprising that you feel like shit about yourself. (For anyone who doubts that I understand the proper care and treatment of anything Lego, I can give you references supplied by my nephews.)

Step two is often more challenging for people because it involves accepting imperfection, failure, not knowing, and indecision as part of being human. And when I refer to acceptance, I mean accepting these things without judgment. We humans are judge-y little creatures and it takes effort to break that habit of slapping every thought that crosses our minds with a side- order of judgment. You need to practice letting go of the narrative that says that you’re not good enough. WWBRS? Exactly! What would Bob Ross say? He would say we don’t make mistakes; we have happy accidents. And even happy little trees and clouds need a friend. The most important friend you will ever have is the one, the only one, who will be your companion from birth to death: you. So, before you launch another tirade of insults at yourself, consider the alternative, which is to give yourself some grace, some room for imperfection, some self- compassion, and maybe even a cup of cocoa.

Becoming more loving and accepting of yourself is a process and it takes effort. There are some brilliant folks who have devoted themselves to helping you do exactly that and I encourage you to check out their books, websites and videos. Check out Brene’ Brown and Kristen Neff. And if you really want to feel that you’re just fine, exactly as you are, spend some time with Bob Ross and those happy little trees.

Molly Mouse and Teddy are nice to themselves and each other. Be like Molly and Teddy.

Thanks for reading! You’ve been Smudged,

Tracy