We have been at school for over seventy days and all I want to do is sleep. I’m tired and stressed. I’m cold and cranky. Registration was agitating, and I can’t wait until Thanksgiving break. Complaints overwhelmed my mind as I was at the gym today. The end of my workout was all I could think about, and that is exactly when my bad thoughts turned worse. Everyone else was so much better than me. Everyone was passing me on the track. Why could everyone lift more than I could? Wasn’t anyone else was tired or sore? Why was I the only person in the gym not strong enough to push through my workout? Something must be wrong with me.
I had sufficiently worked myself up into a mess of self-loathing less than twenty minutes into my workout. All I could think about were the parts of my life I was failing in, because when you’re upset about one thing, it’s easy for it to snowball. For whatever psychological reason, when sliding down that slippery slope of self-hate you have to hit every rock along the way just to make sure you feel as bad as possible. Today was a particularly bad day. I wasn’t only being unfairly critical of myself; I was getting angry at teammates and friends who were only trying to help. I left the gym feeling frustrated, unattractive, sad and slow.
After some cooling down time, I also started to feel guilty. I was being selfish. Of course I’m not the only one who was feeling bad about myself today. We all struggle everyday with self-image and self-esteem; it’s only human! By comparing my internal struggle to my perception of others external success, I wasn’t being compassionate towards myself. I was in my first yoga class a few months ago and the instructor said, “Be grateful for where you are today”. She meant that it was ok that I couldn’t do all of the moves like that woman in front of me who must have been either an acrobat or gymnast or Elastigirl from The Incredibles. My self worth was not diminished by my lack of toga coordination. I was having a blast, and I didn’t fall nearly as many times the next time I went. Life is about building onto the success of the day before. Today, I forgot to be grateful that I wasn’t injured. I neglected the encouragement of my teammates, and I really needed to cut myself a break for being sore because I had been working really hard earlier this week.
So, from now on, be grateful for the things that you can do in that moment. Being hard on yourself is not worth the stress because if you aren’t nice to yourself, who else is going to be?
Cheers,
Dani