Saint Francis and the Sow
Photo by Iva Rajović on Unsplash
It Is Hard to Be Kind to Myself When I’ve Made a Mistake
In the last blog I mentioned #kindness and a week later, I had a post-script: it is hard to be kind to myself when I mess up: my instinct is to criticise, to correct. Although painful, this has a logic, as most mistakes come at a cost, either financial (parking ticket) physical (sunburn) or emotional (embarrassment) – which I’d rather avoid. So my brain kicks in, “Stop that!” But then I have the pain of the mistake *and* I’ve been shouted at - a double whammy. I want to feel better and - like most of us - my short cuts of TV, ice cream, zombie scrolling aren’t that helpful, because they lead to a cycle of blame - comfort - blame.
On some level, I believe chastisement is the only way I’ll learn. But do I? Really? Has shouting at myself proved effective? What if self criticism is just another bad habit?
Self-soothing
Let’s look at the blame - comfort - blame cycle. In that state, I’m not thinking, I’m craving: repeating something damaging, even when I know it is harmful, is addiction. But why do I ignore the consequences? Perhaps my need for soothing NOW, for balm, is so urgent it drowns out the sensible voice that knows this leads to future pain. What I need to do is stay aware of the soreness and offer myself a kinder comfort. But what does that look like?
What is kindness?
When I was training to join a Buddhist Order people used to say “Oh, be kind to yourself”. I had no idea what they meant (perhaps they didn’t either). It took me years and a long retreat in rural Tuscany (being somewhere beautiful made it easier to sit with pain) - to realise that, for me, kindness meant accepting. Not to fight or hide my flawed self and my flawed life but to accept it. Simply to say “This is me, this is who I am” was a radical solution.
The problem is, when I’ve messed up or when I am in pain, the last thing I want to do is accept it! It hurts. I want to be as far away from that discomfort as possible. The only solution, as crazy as it seems, is to be gentle.
What kindness does
Kindness relaxes and soothes so I’m not in a heightened state with my amygdala screaming at me to put out the fire.
Kindness says, I understand why you did that. I believe you can change. Let’s get you safe.
Kindness knows it’s not just me who feels pain, everyone does. And yes I know, when we hurt, we want to curl up and withdraw and protect ourselves. But if - when - I can stay open, just a chink, to the world outside my head, I feel less alone, less useless, and the pain will ease. I can rejoin the human race.
What is kind to you?
Have a cup of tea, go easy on yourself, clear your diary. Or you might need to get moving, go outside, make something. You know what you truly need.
My template says: ‘my value comes from what I do, not who I am’, so I need to drop that. Drop the expectations for a day and wrap yourself in softness. I used to get very cold after therapy, maybe I felt exposed, or maybe all my energy went to my heart. Maybe he turned the heating off - anyway, I learned to take an extra jumper. The point is to notice what you need, not just whatever is to hand, and give it to yourself. Take a minute: what is it that you need, right now?
You might upgrade what you eat: even if you think the smoothie / steak / organic salad is overpriced, try it. You are making an effort to change, to learn: reward that! Encourage yourself by making that new, positive step enjoyable.
A bigger view
You might talk things over, read a blog, listen to music, anything that lifts your eyes from the pain and the blame and onto a way through. We all mess up and we all ace things; we do both, we are both, and we need to see both.
It’s easy to forget, which is the delicate gift of this #poem. It is a beautiful thing to be reminded of your loveliness, when it’s slipped out of sight. If you have stuff to look at, contact me at kavacounselling.com or kavacounselling@gmail.com
Saint Francis and the Sow by Galway Kinnell
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.