Empathy for our past-selves

Good morning gorgeous. I'm so delighted to see you on this late-summer morning. The sun is setting earlier, and we're starting to full panic about the end of summer. But don't worry darling, soon it'll be time for pumpkin-flavored things and scary movie blanket-forts. There is so much crisp goodness to look forward to, it'll be glorious. Today I want to talk a bit about self-empathy.

A lot of the women and people in marginalized genders I know were brought up with high expectations of their behavior. Smile, make them feel comfortable, be friendly, demure, polite, subservient, get straight fucking A's and don't screw up. Being perfect is hard damn work, and spoiler alert— completely impossible. So a lot of us fucked up along the way. Sometimes in little ways, and other times in bigger ways.

The most people pleaser-ey among us remember every fuckup, every awkward comment, every career misstep. We bolt awake at night remembering something we did or said. It could be 15 years ago, or just last month, but we'll lay awake replaying it in horrifying 3D. As we tell ourselves these stories about our innate badness, they stack on top of each other. It takes a toll.

We're conditioned to forgive a lot of things other people do to us, but we aren't taught to self-forgive. We work on everything else, but we rarely make space to tell ourselves that we're okay. We give out our empathy like tickets at a carnival, and never keep any for ourselves.

It's time we kept a little of that empathy.

We should look at the versions of ourselves as chapters in a book. Different versions of ourselves over time who are constantly evolving and growing. Yes, that was you who did that, but not you today. You have a lot more experience and information past you couldn't access.

As Oprah and Maya Angelou say: Once you know better, do better.

It's key to see our past-selves for who they were— someone doing their best with limited life experience. Someone making mistakes and learning. Someone young and messy and kinda stupid at times. Someone to laugh at a little. Someone not to be so hard on. Someone trying their goddamned best. Someone you've learned so much from.

Here's a little mantra to try out:

Dear past self,
I forgive you.
You didn’t know any better.
You were young, and dumb, and wasn’t easy to be you.
You were doing the best you could.
You fucked up a bit. Okay, maybe a lot. But that’s okay.
You’ve grown, you know better, and now you’ll do better.
You can rest easy my dear, I forgive you.