My Halloween Treat
On the night before Halloween last year, I realized I’d forgotten to buy pumpkins for my kids to carve. I arrived at the grocery store at 8:30 p.m. after a long day of work, only to find all the regular-sized pumpkins had already been sold.
Disappointment hit me like a sledgehammer. I thought of my kids, then ages 3 and 6, sad and disheartened. What would I tell them? Mommy had a long day at work and forgot to go to the store? I took a deep breath and I tried to focus on finding a solution. That’s when I saw a bin filled with mini pumpkins. I grabbed a few, deciding that arriving with mini pumpkins seemed better than arriving home with no pumpkins at all.
I pulled up into our driveway and sat in my car. I took a deep breath in and I exhaled. As I exhaled, I released the disappointment that I had in myself for arriving home late. As I exhaled, I released the frustration that I felt over the fact that the pumpkins I had wanted to purchase were sold out. The past had come and gone, and this was the one moment that I had right now. I let the weight of those things leave my heart and I opened my heart to opportunities for joy and connection that awaited me just inside my home.
My little ones gave me welcome home hugs and kisses and then we jumped into pumpkin coloring and carving action. I expressed excitement in telling them that they each got three pumpkins, instead of just one, to carve. Since I was excited about these little pumpkins, they were excited about them too.
This is the magic that awaits us when we’re kind to ourselves.
Instead of feeling so defeated by the lack of normal-sized pumpkins, I opened my eyes to other possibilities. I looked for a workable alternative and found one. Instead of electing to wallow in my disappointment or beating myself up emotionally for failing to get to the store earlier, I chose to feel grateful that I remembered to get pumpkins for my kids after a very demanding day. Instead of hurrying the kids since it was getting late, I chose to enjoy being with them in all their decorating glory, marker-covered hands and all. I cherished being with them as they worked at their natural pace. In my view, an occasional late night while making a special memory together is worth the lost sleep.
Every day we have opportunities to be cruel to ourselves, but we get to decide whether to take those opportunities or instead if we will choose to practice self-kindness. I believe that when we have a practice of being loving and kind to ourselves, that naturally overflows into the way we interact with others.
I actually think it’s really not possible to truly love yourself and simultaneously feel hate in your heart for another person. So, one thing you can do to change the world in a positive way, is to start by being kinder to yourself.
As a mother, I see helping my sons learn to practice self-kindness as one of my most important roles.
I watch each of my sons make many mistakes as they learn. I encourage them to learn from their mistakes and to keep trying. When I see the tears well up in their eyes or their shoulders slouch forward in disappointment, it pains me to see how hard they are on themselves already at their young ages. As parents, we want our children to keep trying so they will learn that they can do hard things, and we want them to love themselves even when they make mistakes.
Yet, when we make mistakes, like forgetting to buy the pumpkins to carve before the grocery store sells out, our default setting is to come down very harshly on our- selves. But treating ourselves with harshness and criticism does little to motivate us to improve.
Instead, it causes needless feelings of guilt and disappointment. It uses up precious energy to feel guilty and disappointed. That same energy has the potential to be channeled into creating an opportunity for fun and connection.
Some people believe criticism is a great motivator and that if we’re not self-critical, then we won’t succeed at the highest levels. Research, however, shows that self-criticism might not be the motivating factor many believe it to be.
In Michelle McQuaid’s article, “3 Ways to Turn Self-Criticism Into Self-Compassion,” published in Psychology Today, she writes about the harms of self-criticism and cites one study where a Stanford University professor found that the more people criticized themselves, the less likely they were to meet their goals, whether they be weight loss, academic success, or job performance.
“In fact, neuroscientists suggest that self-criticism actually shifts the brain into a state of self-inhibition and self-punishment that causes us to disengage from our goals,” McQuaid writes. “Leaving us feeling threatened and demoralized, this self-criticism seems to put the brakes on our plans to take action, leaving us stuck in a cycle of rumination, procrastination, and self-loathing.”
Treating yourself with self-kindness rather than self-criticism is good for your well-being and it’s good for your productivity too. Years ago at a seminar, I was introduced to using the framework of stop, look, choose and vote to gain consciousness regarding my thoughts and my decisions. I’ve recently implemented the stop, look, choose and vote framework to develop a process for shifting from a habit of self-criticism into developing a habit of practicing self-kindness.
Stop
If you’re starting to go down a bad road of self-criticism (e.g., the “I suck for not buying pumpkins earlier” road), the first thing you need to do is to stop going down that road. So, pause and take note of your mental space. Is this where you want to be? If not, then stop. Taking deep breaths is a great way to help yourself press the brakes. One deep breath may not be enough, but after you take five deep breaths in a row, you’re already well on your way to slowing down.
Look
Now that you’ve stopped, look around. What are the options you have in front of you? Consider available options. Look for other paths.
Choose
Now that you’ve considered your options, you get to choose which option you will select. Going back to the sold-out carving pumpkin situation, one option was that I could have bought a bottle of hard liquor, gone home with my head down, put the kids to bed with an air of total disappointment, and then after they were in bed, I could have drank myself into a place of forgetting or not caring about how I disappointed myself and them. Alcohol, drugs, endless numbing with TV or social media scrolling all can be used to try to escape from the self-critical feelings that we do not want to feel anymore.
A slightly less dramatic choice, but a still a self-harming choice, would be that after seeing that the regular-sized pumpkins were gone, I could have stormed out of the grocery store cussing under my breath that life sucks for me as working mom who doesn’t have enough time to prepare for Halloween in the way my kids deserve. This route likely would not have been as self-destructive as the hard alcohol drinking option, but it still would have left me feeling like crap and would have caused me to stop looking for opportunities to make things better, because of the story I was choosing to tell myself.
Another option is the option to make the most of what I have before me: mini-pumpkins and little kids who are happy to have quality time with me doing something fun.
Vote
I chose to make the most of the night with the mini-pumpkins, and I chose to vote to focus on the fun and the connection that I had the opportunity to create with my boys.
Life will constantly present
us with opportunities to tear ourselves down and to see life
both as something we are failing
at and something that “others”
are messing up for us. But, when instead, we stop, look, choose and vote to do the things that are kind to ourselves, we show up and we create so much beauty in the world.
On the night before Halloween, I chose to be kind to myself. That choice felt nourishing to me then and now, in reflecting on that night, I know that modeling self- kindness is something I want my boys to learn to do for themselves and there’s no better way than practicing on myself to show them how. The results were a magical Halloween eve with my boys. I believe that this magic awaits us all if we allow it into our lives by voting for kindness moment after moment and day after day.
I fully believe that when we are taking care of ourselves, our families, and those we love, it’s from that space that we contribute most meaningfully to the world and to the lives of our clients.
Work Cited
McQuaid, M. (2016), 3 Ways to Turn Self-Criticism Into Self-Compassion, Psychology Today
This article was originally published in the San Luis Obispo Bar Bulletin