I Can Run But I Can’t (Apparently) Hide

photo by Pexels Free Photos

I did not go looking for a word for my new year.

I was perfectly content to slide quietly into 2024, no fuss, no muss. I was more than tired of all my weeks spent with a cold that became bronchitis. Plus those ambivilent feelings I have when any holiday is on the horizon, left over from the problematic holidays of the past.

No word to drive me forward gleefully into the year, no goals to splash across social media or whisper quietly into the dark. Just a gentle landing on the soft pillow of a year with a new number to remember.

But a word found me.

I love people, I love learning about what makes them who they are, learning their unique stories. And I have known since age 3 that kindness toward others mattered to me. I stood on one side of a trench with several other children in the backyard of our neighborhood, across from other children. We were, for some reason long gone from my brain, being mean, yelling across the trench, exchanging un-pleasantries.

The prevailing thought for me was, “Why are we yelling mean things at those kids? We don’t need to be unkind.”

Even then, roughly a hundred and ten years ago, kindness came first in my dealings with others.

Hyphen and all, I kept hearing “self-kindness” as I avoided any celebration of this new year with its new number.

Self-kindness.

It has always been much harder for me to show kindness to my own flawed self than to any other flawed person on the planet.

Speaking with someone else who is struggling with their weight: “Ugh. It’s so hard…and you look great!” I may throw in something about societal expectations, or hormones, or any other tripping hazard in the way of our positive self-esteem.

Speaking to myself? “You are the worst–no discipline! What is wrong with you anyway? Can’t you ever get it right?”

I reread those words and think OH DAMN. Those are some harsh words! You would never say that to another living soul.

So black and white! My thinking about my own self allows for no shading between black and white. The judgments stand starkly. Either/or. I am either right or I am wrong. I am a success or a failure.

This applies to so many areas in my life–how I talk to myself about my weight struggles, my housekeeping, my energy levels, projects I want to do and haven’t done. My writing.

The gentleness of self-kindness as I hear its whisper in my heart is appealing. It fits my soft steps taken into this new year. When the judgment comes into my heart and brain, it’s followed by the smile of “self-kindness.” And my heart lifts a little.

Life can leave us with so many tangles to untangle emotionally and mentally. It takes time, patience, and for me, a licensed therapist.

We’re worth the time and effort.

I’m worth the persistent patience it’s taken to get to this place of peace I get closer to each day.

You are too.

The Bring Your Own Beverage Conversation: What is an area where you are so much nicer to complete strangers than you are to yourself? (And if you’ve already figured out how to treat yourself as kindly as you treat others, do tell!)