Be Good To Yourself and Other Items On My To Do List!
"You're way too hard on yourself." Is a quote my hubs says to me at least once a week. This is his response when I am being overly critical about my body, my hair, the work I do or even a meal I cook. I've always been a perfectionist and extremely hard on myself but it wasn't until the person I love more than life said it to me that it finally clicked. I am way too hard on myself and when I started to look around I realized that most of the women around me are way too hard on themselves.
I began to ask myself why are we all so hard on ourselves? I started by querying the hubs and asking him a multitude of questions like "When you are trying to take a nap or rest on the weekends do you run through a list of things you really should be doing?" or "When you are getting undressed to get in the shower do you make a mental list of the things you need to improve on?"
God bless the hubs! He looked at me (as he often does) like I had completely and totally lost my mind. His response to me peppering him with questions was "When I'm tired I take a nap and when I'm getting in the shower if I look in the mirror I'm normally thinking....hey good lookin." To know my hubs is to laugh but it's the honest to God truth of how he feels.
I proceeded to ask the plethora of men I work with similar questions and always got similar responses. I then went about asking the women I'm close to and hands down every single one of them basically said "oh yes I am soo hard on myself." Or my favorite "just wait until you have kids and slap the mommy guilt onto everything else."
Good lord, is all I could think! How and I mean how did it happen that pretty much every woman in my life's inner dialogue wasn't about how beautiful, smart, talented, accomplished they were but was about what they could be doing better or what they haven't yet realized. Listen I am not judging because I am the same way I just thought I was the only one.
My question really is how did we all get here? Is it because we all expect too much of ourselves? We expect ourselves to be the perfect daughter, sister, wife, co-worker, friend, mom etc. I think there is some truth there. That in striving for perfection we have completely forgotten to recognize how good we are today, right now, flaws and all?
I have. Most days I am running through a list of things a mile long I need to do for work and for the household and more often times than not my self-worth isn't a part of the equation. Most days I feel like I'm running from meeting to meeting or event to event and trying to give my all and by the end of the day there is very little left of me. I then come home and try to be a great wife, daughter, sister and friend and for the most part feel like I could do it better.
The best quote I've heard lately is "Wherever I am, I feel like I should be somewhere else. The other day I walked out of the gym with their weights and 3 step-risers. I didn't notice at all until I tried to load the groceries and bam there they were. It got me wondering if I had left my kid at the dry cleaners instead of the laundry and just to be safe I rode back over and checked." I laughed so hard at my friend I almost wet my pants.
I wish at the end of this long, rambling blog I had some great, easy advice that was going to make all of it better but I don't. What I am going to do is commit and promise somethings to you (the people who are still struggling to read this) and myself. I am going to start being good to myself instead of being so hard on myself and I encourage you to do the same.
I'm going to do some other things like not beat myself up when certain jeans, dress pants, or khakis or too tight it is a waste of time and isn't productive. I can make time to workout or I can't but food and treadmills will not determine if I'm a good person.
I'm going to say hello to people whether they say hi to me or not. I left an event not long ago with a bunch of people who I knew and knew me and instead of being friendly or gracious everyone pretended to be too cool for school (including me). I can blame it on them and say they should have been friendly first but I am just as guilty. The fact is we are too old and life is too short to be anything but nice and full of grace to one another.
I'm not going to feel guilty when the hubs goes for a run or to the gym and I am laying on the couch drinking wine and relaxing. Everyone has different ways of de-stressing and coping and that's that.
I'm not going to beat myself up if I miss a birthday, or don't buy the perfect wedding gift or forget to write a thank you note because let's be honest shit happens and there are more important things in life.
I'm not going to feel bad that some Sundays taking a 5 mile walk with Mae and singing hymns and thanking God for the day is the church I need.
I'm not going to feel guilty that sometimes I need people and I need help. In fact I'm going to embrace it and ask for help more readily.
In the end I am going to try to be like one of my favorite, fictional heroes, Julia Sugarbaker, and say what I feel, be honest and open and take care of the ones I love. In honor of Julia (and for inspiration) I leave you with one of my favorite Julia speeches!
"Yes, and I gather from your comments there are a couple of other things you don't know, Marjorie. For example, you probably didn't know that Suzanne was the only contestant in Georgia pageant history to sweep every category except congeniality, and that is not something the women in my family aspire to anyway. Or that when she walked down the runway in her swimsuit, five contestants quit on the spot. Or that when she emerged from the isolation booth to answer the question, "What would you do to prevent war?" she spoke so eloquently of patriotism, battlefields and diamond tiaras, grown men wept. And you probably didn't know, Marjorie, that Suzanne was not just any Miss Georgia, she was the Miss Georgia. She didn't twirl just a baton, that baton was on fire. And when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks! And when it finally did come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton, and 12,000 people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one-half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation, as flames illuminated her tear-stained face! And that, Marjorie - just so you will know - and your children will someday know - is the night the lights went out in Georgia!"
I began to ask myself why are we all so hard on ourselves? I started by querying the hubs and asking him a multitude of questions like "When you are trying to take a nap or rest on the weekends do you run through a list of things you really should be doing?" or "When you are getting undressed to get in the shower do you make a mental list of the things you need to improve on?"
God bless the hubs! He looked at me (as he often does) like I had completely and totally lost my mind. His response to me peppering him with questions was "When I'm tired I take a nap and when I'm getting in the shower if I look in the mirror I'm normally thinking....hey good lookin." To know my hubs is to laugh but it's the honest to God truth of how he feels.
I proceeded to ask the plethora of men I work with similar questions and always got similar responses. I then went about asking the women I'm close to and hands down every single one of them basically said "oh yes I am soo hard on myself." Or my favorite "just wait until you have kids and slap the mommy guilt onto everything else."
Good lord, is all I could think! How and I mean how did it happen that pretty much every woman in my life's inner dialogue wasn't about how beautiful, smart, talented, accomplished they were but was about what they could be doing better or what they haven't yet realized. Listen I am not judging because I am the same way I just thought I was the only one.
My question really is how did we all get here? Is it because we all expect too much of ourselves? We expect ourselves to be the perfect daughter, sister, wife, co-worker, friend, mom etc. I think there is some truth there. That in striving for perfection we have completely forgotten to recognize how good we are today, right now, flaws and all?
I have. Most days I am running through a list of things a mile long I need to do for work and for the household and more often times than not my self-worth isn't a part of the equation. Most days I feel like I'm running from meeting to meeting or event to event and trying to give my all and by the end of the day there is very little left of me. I then come home and try to be a great wife, daughter, sister and friend and for the most part feel like I could do it better.
The best quote I've heard lately is "Wherever I am, I feel like I should be somewhere else. The other day I walked out of the gym with their weights and 3 step-risers. I didn't notice at all until I tried to load the groceries and bam there they were. It got me wondering if I had left my kid at the dry cleaners instead of the laundry and just to be safe I rode back over and checked." I laughed so hard at my friend I almost wet my pants.
I wish at the end of this long, rambling blog I had some great, easy advice that was going to make all of it better but I don't. What I am going to do is commit and promise somethings to you (the people who are still struggling to read this) and myself. I am going to start being good to myself instead of being so hard on myself and I encourage you to do the same.
I'm going to do some other things like not beat myself up when certain jeans, dress pants, or khakis or too tight it is a waste of time and isn't productive. I can make time to workout or I can't but food and treadmills will not determine if I'm a good person.
I'm going to say hello to people whether they say hi to me or not. I left an event not long ago with a bunch of people who I knew and knew me and instead of being friendly or gracious everyone pretended to be too cool for school (including me). I can blame it on them and say they should have been friendly first but I am just as guilty. The fact is we are too old and life is too short to be anything but nice and full of grace to one another.
I'm not going to feel guilty when the hubs goes for a run or to the gym and I am laying on the couch drinking wine and relaxing. Everyone has different ways of de-stressing and coping and that's that.
I'm not going to beat myself up if I miss a birthday, or don't buy the perfect wedding gift or forget to write a thank you note because let's be honest shit happens and there are more important things in life.
I'm not going to feel bad that some Sundays taking a 5 mile walk with Mae and singing hymns and thanking God for the day is the church I need.
I'm not going to feel guilty that sometimes I need people and I need help. In fact I'm going to embrace it and ask for help more readily.
In the end I am going to try to be like one of my favorite, fictional heroes, Julia Sugarbaker, and say what I feel, be honest and open and take care of the ones I love. In honor of Julia (and for inspiration) I leave you with one of my favorite Julia speeches!
"Yes, and I gather from your comments there are a couple of other things you don't know, Marjorie. For example, you probably didn't know that Suzanne was the only contestant in Georgia pageant history to sweep every category except congeniality, and that is not something the women in my family aspire to anyway. Or that when she walked down the runway in her swimsuit, five contestants quit on the spot. Or that when she emerged from the isolation booth to answer the question, "What would you do to prevent war?" she spoke so eloquently of patriotism, battlefields and diamond tiaras, grown men wept. And you probably didn't know, Marjorie, that Suzanne was not just any Miss Georgia, she was the Miss Georgia. She didn't twirl just a baton, that baton was on fire. And when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks! And when it finally did come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton, and 12,000 people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one-half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation, as flames illuminated her tear-stained face! And that, Marjorie - just so you will know - and your children will someday know - is the night the lights went out in Georgia!"
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