When I visit my family it’s always fun. This hodge podge of personalities, temperaments and professions; we are all so different, yet we are all the same.
Appreciating a meal together, my brother asked me, “Hey, if you make a mistake in your blog would you like to hear about it?”
Well, immediately my mind went racing, scanning mentally every word written attempting to pin point the mistakes in the nano second before responding, “What? When? Which word? O M Geeeee.”
By this point the crowd, my family, were laughing and whilst I was too, there was a little piece of me that was a tad mortified.
What would people think!? I’m an educated woman! How can I consider myself a writer when I can’t even get the words right/ write?! 😉
My brother, laughing coyly (I just had to look up the spelling of coyly to make sure I was getting that right, btw) proceeded to inform me that I had written a blog about marriage vows, replacing the proper use of ‘vows’ with ‘vowels’.
Proceed with further mortification – this time I’m slapping my fore head, throwing my head back and scrunching my face up with the cringe worthiness.
“And then there’s the proper use of ‘then’ and ‘than’”, my sister in law chimes in. “There’s been quite a few of those too.”
Well by now I might as well have knocked myself out with the forehead slap.
I’m giggling about this as I type. They both thought it was very funny and then there was even debate about which one scrutinises my work more – my brother or his wife. I should mention here my sister in law is a teacher and is well within her rights to scrutinise (I do believe she is the most familiar with grammar of anyone I know), however, we discover that it’s my brother who is the back seat blogger.
Why am I telling you this story?
Because there’s a closet perfectionist in me. And she’s unhealthy. And she needs a whack.
No good comes from beating yourself up over silly little mistakes. No good. All that comes is a sore fore head and a perpetuated (b/s) story that you’re not good enough.
How do we tackle this?
Recognise the ‘mistake’ – I put ‘mistake’ in inverted commas because, really, who’s defining it as one? Can we change the language around this? Is it a little pick up instead? Is it a lesson teacher?
Recognise the feelings that come with it. Sit with them. Breathe deeply into them and actually name them. What is the feeling?
Catch the thoughts that come with it. Breathe again. Are these thoughts serving you? Are they actually valid? Are the thoughts a mask to protect you from something?
Have compassion and love for the part of you that’s triggering this. Even though I said she needed a good whack, I must love her. She’s only little. We can liken these parts of ourselves to children. They are usually wounded little versions of ourselves, hanging on to a pattern of emotion and thought because they don’t have the mechanisms to understand how to deal with them. If a child came to you upset with these emotions, you would be kind to them, attempt to understand them and offer solutions. So, do the same for the child within you.
Ask yourself, what’s the worst that can happen?
Ask how your hero would handle the situation and then go ahead and model their behaviour. (Pretend you’re putting on the batman suit and all.) These reactions are simply patterns. If you play them out in the same way each time, you’re going to get the same results. So, do something different.
What did I do that was different? I ended up laughing along and promising that I would update what I could that night. Then I did something even more different, I let it go until the next day despite the niggling feeling. Because, in the end, who was it effecting? Only me. I’m sure you, my dear readers, would forgive my oversights.
And to my new editors, my brother and sister in law, is this one ok? 😉
With love
Lynda
PS. If you like what I have to say or think someone else could benefit from this humble little blurb, feel free to ‘like it’ or ‘share it’. And if you’re feeling it, share with us your thoughts in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.
Recent Comments