In my last post, I talked to you about the fact that I live my life in a series of shoulds. I have a sneaky feeling that I'm not the only one who does this. I should be better. I should have known that... I should... I should... I should.
Last week, my husband and I took the kids to the park to play. We have been trying very hard to reduce the amount of time that we are spending on electronics. I often tell the kids that when I was young, no one had to tell me to go outside because there was a world out there to explore and that’s where I felt my happiest. Unfortunately, it is very hard to pull them all away from their devices. We managed to get the kids to the park, agreeing to play ball hockey with my son in order to get him there. I don’t usually play hockey with them because I’m not a big fan, but on this particular day, I wanted to try to have a bit of fun so I agreed.
The first few shots that I took were pretty weak. My son wants to be a goalie so he’s constantly trying to get us to take shots on him so that he can practice his saves. So my husband and I had a friendly game against one another by trying to score with my Jayden in the net. Unfortunately, as I got the hang of it and started to score, my son started to get upset. On this particular day, I was inspired to tell him what he could do instead of getting upset and telling himself what he "should" be able to do.
See what my son is doing when he gets upset is telling himself that he sucks. That he should be better. That he should have been able to stop that ball. We all do it. When we don’t meet our own expectations, we are very good at getting upset with ourselves and saying things to ourselves that we wouldn’t say to other people.
When he started to cry, I looked at my husband and put my stick down. I walked over to Jayden and wrapped my arms around him while he sobbed. I provided him the comfort that he was unable to provide himself. We hold them and try to take away their pain, wishing that we could feel it instead of them. Then something dawned on me. I remembered a video that I once watched in which Dr. Wayne Dyer presented a concept of what our thoughts can do to our body. If I couldn’t teach my son not to be hard on himself because he’s done his best, I could at the very least teach him about the impact of his negative self-talk and thoughts on his body. So I proceeded to tell him about the what I’d learned.
What I learned is that it's not the situation itself that determines the direction that our lives are going to take. It's not that momentary or periodic "failure" or weakness that is going to define who we are and what we are capable of doing or who we are capable of being. It's the story that we tell ourselves that is either going to strengthen or weaken us. It's the story that we play in our minds that will either make us stronger and more resilient, determined to control what we can. Or the story is going to be one of self-judgement, self-loathing and martyrdom. The circumstances are not necessarily there by choice. But how you react, your next move in the chess game of life - that will make all of the difference.
My son took this information and he continued to play, catching himself when getting upset, and then breathing through it. Since I shared this message with him, I know that he's used it as a tool more than once. It's not something that miraculously changes your life in a moment. Though I do believe that what you think about can change your life in dramatic ways, it's something that you have to practice in order for it to become more natural. With practice, you will react with more compassion by instinct. Interestingly, you may even find yourself reacting with more compassion towards others once you show a little to yourself!
If you would like to watch the video which inspired this post, you can find it here.
I hope you are all having a wonderful week and staying cool. Until next time dear friends...
Namaste,
Kat
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