Self-Care Era: Be Kind When You Make Mistakes

Stepping fully into your self-care era is a big and important commitment. It requires kindness when you make a mistake.

Let's dive right into this post. Bring your compassion.

It's All about Me - but not Really

Note: I'm going to use decisions that were personal to me as the backdrop of this discussion we're having.

But I encourage you to pause frequently and think of your own, because it will be so freeing if I can get you to let go of self-blame and jump into the pool of kindness, forgiveness and compassion.

If Only We'd Known

I'm going to start with the moment of my revelation. 

We were moving out of our old apartment (four of us) into two separate apartments. And for many reasons, that all had to do with illness, only one of us was the mover in chief.

But this close friend of mine wasn't yet sure of the way from our new homes, a few cities away from our old one, so I often went with her, and moved my own stuff a little at a time since we only had one car to pack up each time.

We'd set a move-out date, but one of my old roommates was in the hospital and then rehab so we had negotiated for 2 weeks more. Unfortunately, the person we talked to forgot to tell the boss, who scheduled for people to come out and empty the apartment one Friday, when we should still have had a week left.

We got there Saturday and a whole lot of our stuff was gone!

I'm the one who lost the least - my most prized possession that was still there was a pair of leggings I'd had for 10 years or more that was so comfortable I could probably sleep in them. But I also lost the dress, duster, shoes, purse and earrings I wore to my son's wedding last year. And other clothes I wanted.

In contrast, my friend who was in rehab lost a numbered painting that was worth thousands of dollars. She also lost everything we had just given her for Christmas.

But we all lost more than just possessions, we lost memory anchors.

So that was my first revelation.

You can never lose what something meant to you. Nor can you lose the memories attached to it.

When we gave my roommate the Grinch-themed Dr. Seuss Monopoly game for Christmas, we were giving her love and the future memory of us gathering in one or the other apartment to play games. We were giving all of us a promise that we'd still be just as connected as we were when we all lived together.

And none of that can be stolen.

But if we wanted to blame ourselves, there are plenty of different decisions we could have made.

(1) The friend who lost the most stuff could have rented a van for several days early on in the process and that would have taken care of most of what she and her roommate had.

(2) My friend who did the driving and the moving could have made different decisions about what to move and when.

(3) And why didn't I ask to shove that last bulging wardrobe bag in the back seat on the same day we moved my other clothes, even though I knew that room in the car was quite limited?

But now we're coming to my next revelation.

You can't blame yourself for not making a decision you couldn't know in advance was the one you should make.

Had any of us been able to predict the future, those are exactly the decisions we would have made. 
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Renovations & Second Mortgages

About a year after my mother died, my sister and I lost her home.

It was the one we'd grown up in and the one my son hoped to own someday because so many of his childhood memories took place there, too. We tried to save it, but because my mother died owing taxes on it, we would have had to pay a lump sum that was more than we could afford.

In the past, I had been critical of my mother's decision to get a 2nd mortgage so that she and my stepfather could do some renovations on the home. I blamed him for pushing her into it.

After all, why in the world, when my mother owned her home free and clear, would she go back into debt? But I found out from my sister that it may have been my mother's idea, not my stepfather's influence, that led to that decision.

But all I could think about for years was that that those mortgage payments could have paid her taxes.

We've been conditioned to blame ourselves and each other for things we couldn't have known.

She didn't know that they would get divorced, and thus lose the benefit of his monthly income, or that she would die 3 months after being diagnosed with cancer, before she could create a will that left the house to my sister or me. That home meant the world to her, and to us.

But we can grieve its loss without casting any blame.
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What about You?

Have you been thinking about your own choices and mistakes? I hope you are beginning to let go of blame and offer yourself kindness and compassion.

The Takeaway

We make the best decisions that we can make, given who we are and what we know at the time. And it's unkind to look back and blame some other version of ourselves for not being who we are now or not knowing what we now know.

See you next time!

Love, Jeanine