Second, my executive assistant went to renew her driver’s license in the state of Arizona, only to discover that the state of California had flagged her name for failing to complete an 18-month online course after a relatively serious infraction that happened years ago. The online school went out of business during COVID. She called to tell me “I’m going offline for the afternoon because I’m just so frustrated that a mistake I made years ago is still costing me. UGH.”
Third, I caught an absolutely terrible virus last week. And man, do I hate being sick. I started feeling bad on Sunday and nonetheless kept a full schedule on Monday and Tuesday. After my first Zoom session on Wednesday morning, I relented and canceled the remainder of that day’s meetings and made an appointment at Urgent Care.
I was blaming myself – “Come on, Kristie. You’re tougher than this.”
I was blaming chemotherapy – “Stupid chemo drugs that killed my immunity.”
I was frustrated. “I don’t like letting people down and canceling things.”
In all three of these situations, the first response, the first “voice” that appeared was not one of kindness, one of grace, or one of understanding.
Why are we all so hard on ourselves? Why do we say things to ourselves that we would never say to our dearest friends if they were going through the same thing, made the same mistake, or didn’t accomplish something the first time they set out to do it? Enough already. I learned this week, from two of my favorites (pictured below), that there’s a 40-second solution.
