How accepting to be faillible changes my life
When you're standing on the edge, wondering if you should go back to your unconscious compulsive behaviours, or take a stand for yourself
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I’ve written last time about that bad day I was having. I described how routine and a bit of consciousness helped me that day, and transmuted it into a good day.
I’ve thought about it again, and I want to give a more global picture about that process. It is actually misleading to talk about bad days. There are only bad moments. And what you decide to do in those moments will either lift you up, or drag you down.
The decisions are the critical points.
Life is hard
Life is essentially hard. There are so many moments when you have good reasons to be unhappy. And there are so many times when you have no good reason, yet you’re still unhappy. There are even all these moments when “everything’s fine, objectively!”. “Well, I hear dissonance!” But those moments will be for a later post.
So essentially, in life, you’re dealt a hand of moments. And in that hand, there are many, many bad cards. What should you do about it? Lament and despair about how hard life is? Confront head on, and always make the best out of it, no matter what?
I think there’s a third way, more subtle, which reconciles the two. It navigates the frontier between responsibility and acceptance.
The dwelling maelstrom
When I have one of those moments, my natural tendency is to feel even worse. “I’m a failure, life is really too hard, I can’t bear it. I’m not even good enough to solve that problem…”. It’s as if life (thanks for that!) has a chunk of code about self-destruction.
Then the cycle becomes a cycle of hell. You go distract yourself, or rather curiously, somehow perversely punish yourself. You indulge in something you know is bad for you, for the sake of feeling how bad it will make you feel. Once indulged, you feel even worse as you’ve added one thing to the list of things you can complain about. You’re definitely one good failure.
It’s as if you’re looking for the bottom of your soul. Maybe in an attempt to at least have something to bounce up from.
Usually, most of this process is unconscious. We don’t realize this is happening. This is why we need the choice.
PS: Maybe dwelling in negativity is actually a form of healing process, in some cases, but I won’t dive into that here.
The choice
Instead of letting negativity take over, the practice I now have is that I realize I have a conscious choice. I face it and face the consequences of it. I envision the hell loop ahead. And I wonder: do I truly want that? if I do, where will I end up? won’t I actually end up much worse? who will pick me up? is that what I want in my life?
And I, more often than not, decide that I don’t want to go that way.
A friend asked me about how I stay conscious in these moments, so it got me thinking. What changed that gave me the willingness to pursue what I deem as better, instead of self-thrashing me by choosing what I know is worse?
I have several layers of analysis here.
First, I’ve already committed myself to living the life I want to live. I’ve already taken many steps in that direction. I quit my job, I settled on a new purpose, I created my own business. These decisions are the result of a consciousness work to align my deepest desires and my reality. I’ve seen how fruitful it is, what it brings me, and I don’t want to loose it. It’s like a beautiful garden that you’ve done huge effort to build. Now you don’t want to water it during a day in summer. Would you want all of your efforts to go to waste? Somehow you are kept afloat by your own life, since it has gained momentum, and has inertia which you can’t truly fight.
Second, I’m better at knowing my feelings. Working on being conscious helped me make big decisions in my life, but also small decisions (which arguably led to the bigger ones). By practicing meditation, and accepting more my emotions, I’m sharper at spotting the trigger moments. My very negative thoughts have a specific colour, a typical itch. They’re somber, red. I’ve got acquainted with those kinesthetic signs. So I can welcome them thoughts as friends, and recognize this as a choice moment.
Lastly, I don’t have a safety net. Related to the first point, I am now on my own track. I’ve chosen it. I have no one to reproach the bad moments of my day to. It’s my shit. And also, I need to cultivate a good momentum, otherwise, how do I create a business? I can’t let myself down, when I need to maintain financial security. Somehow, harsher conditions create easier conditions to choose up, rather than down. So how would that work if you have a great condition with great supports and backups? Full responsibility might be a key in that case, the one that removes the safety net, the one that puts you in front of your own limitations in a mirror, with the only one able to fix it: yourself.
You are faillible, and that’s lovable!
A crucial element of the consciousness of choice is acceptance. There is no redemption if you don’t let yourself be vulnerable. If you don’t accept that you’re feeling bad, and that it’s ok. The very fact that you’re beating yourself up for it is usually why you end up beating yourself harder…
You need love in those moments. And the best love is the one you can give yourself. The love where you pardon yourself for being weak for a moment, for not being a robot and still having emotions. You love that you can contemplate their colour, their art within you.
From that love comes the strength to give yourself more love, rather than hate. When you go down the road to hell, it is the sad part of you that pushes you down out of desperation to get love and recognition. It will make you feel worse, until you’re able to give it what it needs. You know what one says: life confronts you with things that hurt until you’ve learnt the lesson.
Imagine your little inner child, sobbing, sad. What do you do with a sad, overwhelmed child? 🤗
Reignite the engine, building on small things
So now you’ve chosen up. Hurray!
Yet, it’s still a bit fragile. Your emotions are still present and taint your mood. You are prone to relapse. What I find works best, is to take small actions, one step at a time. Don’t judge yourself, don’t put too much pressure, just rebuild. In my last article I talked about routine. Routine can help you as it’s easy pathways in your brain, easily adopted. But other things can work as well: get yourself a cup of tea, go take a quick nap, go on a short walk, send a message to a friend… Well whatever makes you feel good.
I was about to recommend “self-love” things. However, I’ve found something that resonated with me recently. The guy said: “often, when you are depressed, you tend to get focussed on yourself. The thing is, it often makes things worse. Serving a cause exterior to your self actually makes you less self-conscious, and as a consequence, less depressed”. I could feel the truth of it, at least for me.
Today, I had one of those moments. And helping this friend about his question ignited me back. It fed my need to be useful to someone. And here I am, writing this! Life has some twisted ways, sometimes… :)
So do something you love, or help someone out of Love (with capital L for all types of love). Start small, and build from there. After the first step, you’re presented with the same choice (again?!), but it’s easier now, and after the next step, again easier, until it’s easy.
I wish you many encounters with your inner child, and how you can bring him/her joy, comfort, fun… and many other things!!