I’ve come to the conclusion that beating yourself up, being down on yourself, hating yourself and all that smack isn’t quite what it seems.<\/p>\n
It’s not this hopeless condition from being treated badly when you were a child.<\/p>\n
Nope. It’s being lazy<\/strong>. It’s procrastinating[1]<\/a>. It’s spending time on something that is so non-productive, nay, damaging that it hardly bears thinking about.<\/p>\n And yes, I know that there are going to be people who read that and think, “Oh great, another reason why I suck. Gee, thanks.”<\/p>\n But think about it the time and energy you might be putting into it. Isn’t there something else you’d rather be doing? I’m not saying that you have to be super-productive here, but hell, going outside and drawing with chalk on the sidewalk would be a far, far better use of your time.<\/p>\n What if, every time you felt down on yourself, you thought, “Yep, thinking that again. I’d rather do something else. I’m gonna go finger paint[2]<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Notice that you acknowledge the thought without harsh judgment. Don’t look for yet another <\/em>excuse to beat yourself up. The point is to STOPPIT. You look at it with dispassionate eyes and coolly choose to do something, anything<\/em>[3]<\/a> else.<\/p>\n It doesn’t have to fix<\/em> whatever you’re down on yourself about. I mean, sure, if that’s what you want to do and it’s even something that’s fixable, cool. But chances are good that the habit of being negative to yourself is actually the more damaging issue.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Or read a book, or look up absurd trivia on Wikipedia<\/a>, or whatever. Washing dishes is better than feeling down on yourself, you know? Okay, marginally. <grin> At least you get clean dishes out of it.<\/p>\n
[1]<\/a> Think about it, how often do you feel down on yourself that you don’t feel like there’s something you “should” be doing, but aren’t. (Dieting, cleaning the house, earning more money, managing the money you have better, being more social…).<\/p>\n