fat tuesday

[astragali]

I have never been very good at Lent. I understand the reasoning and I value the spiritual discipline of it, but I have always felt awkward about it, like I was showing off or something. But Lent, as I understand it, is about renewing our commitment to three things: justice towards God (in the form of prayer), justice towards ourselves (in the form

Comments

[wlotus]

Good luck! It is a difficult habit to break, but it is rewarding. Ask me how I know. :-)

[astragali]

How do you do it? I just had a bad evening, and now I am sitting here feeling generally worthless and I keep thinking of how I should have done this or said that and I obviously didn't do those things because I am stupid and unloveable. My thinking brain says "No, you just had a bad day," but my emotional brain won't shut up and I don't know how to not listen.

It's A Gradual Process

[wlotus]

Back in the summer of 1995 I promised myself to stop calling myself names. That first step made me aware of the hurtful things I was saying to myself. Over the years I have learned to look at myself with far more compassion and gentleness. It wasn't an instantaneous change, and I would sometimes slip up. But nearly 15 years later I don't struggle all that much with it.

Start with this awareness that you have of the hurtful things you say to yourself. That is the first step, and it's an important one, so don't discount it! Maybe you can apologize to yourself whenever you find yourself saying something negative. Imagine if you had said that same thing to Sarah and how you would apologize to her, etc. ("I'm sorry! You didn't deserve that. I've had a bad day, and I'm taking it out on you...") Then you can do the same to yourself.

[tadprime]

Don't just give up the negative, focus on teh positive! And remember, you are loved!

[hanov3r]

Permission to slap you upside the head if I catch you backsliding? :)

[copper_season]

Good luck, bb!

*hugs*

[berkeleyfarm]

This is beautiful. Go with God.

Last year I tried to give up both checking the snark groups and added-sugar. I was really bad at both, especially the latter. I was totally freaking obsessed with doughnuts and I hardly ever eat them. I was really really down on myself for this.

But the lesson for me was to NOT BE SO DAMN HARD on myself (as came out when I was talking to my therapist on Maundy Thursday). So it turned out to be a successful discipline after all.

(all by way of saying: be kind to yourself if you fall back into the old scripts. Recognize it and move forward in a positive direction.)