Here’s my confession: even after two decades of studying mindfulness and meditation, I deeply struggle with the practice of self-love. Sometimes I don’t even know what it means. What it feels like.
Sometimes I struggle with the preliminary foundation of self-compassion, or even the bare bones basics of self-acceptance.
When I go through a hard time, when I mess up, when I’m humanly imperfect, I can turn on myself with an intensity that even my worst enemies wouldn’t be able to muster.
Does it matter that I know — intellectually — that this doesn’t serve me? No. It does not.
The punishment and hate I unleash on myself sometimes knows no bounds.
Welcome to my dark side.
Working With My Inner Perfectionist
I just finished up a three-week training on Navigating Client Resistance, with my coaching mentor Joanna Lindenbaum. It was not my first foray into this field; in fact I’ve done this work many times with Joanna through many of my trainings.
And working with client resistance is one of my specialties.
But working with it in clients and working with it in yourself can be very different.
During the training, I worked with my own resistance at a deeper level.
In particular, I focused attention on my inner perfectionist. This part of me often keeps me stuck as she unleashes unnecessary and unhelpful criticism, fixates over details that are often not important, and generally exhausts me with her extreme fear of doing anything that might seem like failure.
Even when she allows a blog post or a creative project to escape out into the world, the aftermath is often one of shame to the point that I don’t promote my work.
During the training, I experimented with a new process to dialogue with her. But I couldn’t feel the love. At the conclusion of the process, I hated her more.
The process brought a new light to the way that other parts of me fight with the perfectionist. In particular, my inner rebel wants to let things be messy; the perfectionist says no.
My inner judge is extremely critical of the perfectionist and how she gets in the way. The perfectionist seems immune to the judgment.
In dialogue to discover her purpose, the perfectionist claims to be protecting me from the humiliation of failure. She claims that she will help me produce better work. She claims that she is making things better.
And there is a part of me that yells back:
Can’t you see that you’re ruining my life?
The Consequences of Inner Toxicity
There is a war going on, and it’s killing me.
It’s toxic, exhausting, and counter to all productive intentions.
I’d like to banish her, to push her out. But my informed, aware wisdom knows that this, too, won’t serve. Any parts we push away come back stronger, when we least want them.
Love all your parts, they say.
It’s essential, but it’s not easy.
Why Self-Love is Crucial for Productivity
To some of my corporate, results-oriented clients, the idea of self-love seems silly, irrelevant to any productive aim.
Except it’s not.
The state of being at war — whether external or internal — does not make for clarity of thought or action.
In addition, the hatred and cruelty that is self-directed eventually results in cruelty directed outward.
If you’re holding yourself to unreasonable standards, chances are you hold others to similar levels of unreasonableness.
If you have no tolerance for your own humanity, how can you allow another person’s humanity?
We can love and care for others only to the same degree we can love and care for ourselves.
The war within — whether we acknowledge it or not — will eventually drive people away. Try being successful in business if people don’t want to work with you because you’re too overbearing, too critical, too negative.
Good luck with that.
A New Approach
After listening to a meditation by teacher Jeff Warren on the Calm app, I am trying a new approach:
No dialogue. Just compassion.
Or, at the very least, acceptance.
When dialogue only seems to incite war, a better approach might be to simply witness and hold that part of me in compassion: to accept her presence without letting her run the show.
Equanimity.
Allowing her to be there, but not allowing her to hold me hostage.
She is one part of me; not all of me.
She has her reasons for being; other parts of me disagree with whether they are effective.
I do not love her yet. But when I pause to breathe and allow her to be there, I can find an ounce of compassion for her.
It may not be much, but it’s something.
Love isn’t perfect; not even self-love.
Perhaps embracing that truth is the best place to start.
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