I’ve got to be honest, this would have to be the first time ever that I’ve written a blog piece without the ‘title’ dropping in first.
It’s a constant REmembering this whole blog writing thing.
Don’t you just love the idea of ‘hindsight’? Where our past experiences, which we sometimes can label as our best or worst mistakes/life errors/curve balls/failures…, end up being a golden chicken (vegan option) McNugget that taught you something quite profound… ‘in hindsight’.
Well here’s a memory that I was prompted of today with a handy golden McNugget ‘hind-sighting’ in it.
It was about week 5 of my first ever Social Work placement and ironically this placement was at a Tafe in country Victoria working with disengaged young people. The irony being that 16 years later, I work at Tafe teaching adults how to support disengaged young people. One of life’s lovely loops.
On this crisp country Victorian morning back in 2005, I head to placement and I was mentally bullying myself over a rough conversation I’d had with my then partner the night before. I was wrong. I knew it. And I was probably pretty rude within my wrongness. Needless to say, I just felt awful.
I rock up at placement and as if the show lights turned on, I turned my frown upside down.
Fortunately though, I had one of those zero bullshit supervisors who saw straight through my wobbly smile. With great care, she asks me if I’m ok and needed to chat? I shut her offer down politely, smiling even bigger and harder.
She let me be for a bit… untill she rolls over on her office chair and saids… ‘Laura, you can’t expect your clients to be open and vulnerable with you if you’re not willing to do that yourself, with yourself’!
I begin crying and letting my emotional floodgates swing wide open.
As quick as they opened though, I strangely was able to shut them closed with a phrase like ‘It’s all good, I’m fine. No problems. I’ve just got to be positive and get on with it’! GATES SLAM SHUT!!!
Karli with an ‘i’, looks at me and calls bullshit again.
Karli reminded me that we can’t honestly move ourselves out of a shitty state/emotion/feeling/unless we allow some gentle room for those feelings to be there. If their here anyway, we might as well let them be felt/ have a cry/a rant/a scream/a share/a boxing bag session… A VOICE…!
In hindsight, I learnt a really great lesson from my supervisor that day which has stuck with me 16 years on! I learnt about self compassion.
When we make it ok for the feels to be felt, we can help them find their way and move on! And to be honest, much quicker.
Self compassion is CHOOSING to be with and see yourself as your own friend, instead of your own personal bully.
What would it be like to ask yourself the next time an uncomfortable feeling or emotion visits ‘What is it I need’? Just like you would ask that to a close friend?
Maybe that simple self compassionate question might avoid the floods in the first place.
Today as I tackled my 17th day of kicking around in a moon shoe after foot surgery, I asked myself this same vulnerable question… ‘What is it you need chick’ (is it weird that I do it in 3rd person?).
And the answer I got, of course, was to let myself feel how I felt… and then go to the beach for a hobble walk!
So that’s exactly what I did and when I returned home, so too did this memory and blog piece.
What is it you might be needing at the moment that you could offer yourself like your own good friend? Then go on and do it. For the simple reason that your worth it. Promise.
Self compassion made simple.
LG 💛
SimBLISSity 