Becoming Your Own Support

I think each of us is pretty familiar with the experience of meaning to do something and — for whatever reason — not doing it.

I find it can be particularly challenging when running a business.

I meant to do quite a bit over the last week, catching up from my trip to Cabo, but things have a way of piling up, don’t they? I had a great week in many ways. Lots of time talking with friends. Lots of practice time. Some great client sessions. 

And yet I didn’t get to everything on my list.

Gregory Bateson wrote a funny little essay about that, called “Why Do Things Get In A Muddle?” 

Basically there are infinite ways for things to get messy, and only a few ways for them NOT to be messy. The odds are in favor of messy. Time is the great muddler (along with other people), so inevitably there’s going to be a bit of a mess in our lives.

Knowing that, I think the more useful question is: what do we do when things get muddled?

What’s our habitual response and what’s the internal dialogue when we mix things up? How do we treat ourselves? 

I for one noticed the old, familiar voice of guilty workaholism creeping in...

“You should have done more.”

If I’m not careful, it’s easy to slip back into that punishing attitude.

Luckily I’ve been re-reading Seneca’s “Letters From A Stoic,” and I came across a really touching line. He cites another philosopher, Hecato, in saying,

“‘What progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend.’ That is progress indeed. Such a person will never be alone, and you may be sure he is a friend of all.”

We can so easily slip into the compulsive habits of guilt, doing more, beating ourselves up, and so on. It’s so familiar for most of us that it goes practically unnoticed - until you begin looking for it. 

Then you’ll find it nearly everywhere. It’s the moment when your breath catches. It’s when you keep going after you’re exhausted. It’s when you rely on momentum to move forward. It’s when you “drop” rather than “place.” It’s when your posture collapses. 

The challenge is not to damn the tendency. That only perpetuates the subtle war we’re waging with ourselves. The challenge is self-compassion, learning to be with yourself as you inevitably fall short of your ideal.

The challenge is in becoming a friend to yourself, a better steward of your own needs.

Things get muddled. You will fall short or miss the mark. How you act toward yourself in that moment determines everything that follows.

Make sure that whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it deliberately.