Self-Criticism
Reminders to be mindful are all around us, unfortunately our minds are so loud and consuming, we tend to miss them. A breeze chills your nose, a bird sings on a branch that sways in that breeze, and the tree dances before you. Your mind barely registers the call because it is not here in this moment where all the beauty is happening. It is thinking about what’s next, or what was, or what could be.
But occasionally, something happens that snaps your attention back. Awareness explodes, mind is fully present and ready for what it has been missing.
This happened to me the other day as I was taking a guitar lesson. I felt embarrassed and thought my progress terrible (I’ve been taking lessons for about a month). Matt, my teacher, reminded me that in my class I offer the students to take on a mindset of non-judgement and accept where they are, and how I can take the lessons I learn in one aspect of my life and apply them to others. Well, yeah… of course… so why did it take someone else repeating my own words back to me to spark that awareness explosion? Why is not important, it happened, and I am so grateful.
While I have been enjoying the process of learning guitar, I have also spent a lot of time telling myself how terrible I am at it. The reason I am so attracted to mindfulness, the reason I share it with everyone I teach, is that it saved me from myself. I spent most of my life believing terrible, hurtful words that my brain offered to me as truths of who I was. When mindfulness came to my life, I saw for the first time, that my thoughts were nothing more then thoughts. They were not necessarily true, and mostly wildly untrue. Mindfulness of thoughts is noticing them and letting them pass, like ships on the water. I am so thankful for this practice.
So, what happened? I started something new, something I have never done before, and old habits kicked in, my mind took over, and before I knew it, I was believing the thoughts.
I hope that if you are reading this, maybe it is what you need to spark your awareness. How have you been talking to yourself lately? Do you rock positive self-talk in yoga class, and then completely lose it in another area of you day? If so, this is your call to notice. Notice with kindness, compassion, and non-judgement. Let those thoughts pass like ships on the water.
