Ship 30 for 30
How to Treat your I-Don’t-Feel-Good-About-Myself-itis
Three years ago, we’d just moved back to Canada after 20 years in the UK.
We bunked in with my brother while looking for a new place to live. What I’d really missed while abroad was watching my nieces and nephews grow up. So now, I was able to (partially) make up for lost time.
One day, my youngest niece, in a fit of teenage angst, screamed,
“OH, WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT MYSELF!!!!”
Well, well, dear niece. Welcome to the human condition.
I-Don’t-Feel-Good-About-Myself is at the root of most daily problems we encounter.
And while there’s no permanent cure (other than, of course, the cemetary), there are useful treatments:
(1) Recognise everybody else is battling it.
Everybody. Every day. All the time.
So when they snap or snarl at you, it isn’t you they’re reacting to, but the pain within. This is at the root of all racism, sexism, and any other -ism you suffer. (That’s not an excuse for the -istic treatment of you. Just the cause.)
(2) Forgive them.
(Hell no, it’s not easy. But it works.)
(3) Forgive yourself for your imperfections.
ALL of them. You weren’t intended to bperfect. Accept You as you are.
(4) Recognise your errors as Learnings, not mistakes.
(That’s not to say you shouldn’t put right any offences you may have caused. Just don’t accept those errors as proof you should feel bad about yourself — they are not.)
Turn these into HABITS?
