be more patient with myself

I have a hunch that this is part of the depression phenomenon. Goes that one, this one is healed by implication.

No patience with self. No mercy for self. No empathy . No understanding. No excuses. Whatsoever. Hammer away, all day…

I sense a growing grace for myself, inspired by the slow but sure degeneration of the physical dimension… There is no choice but to have patience with myself if my whole body aches the day after I’ve run several errands at neck-breaking speed and still managed to do more than I planned. Then it’s crystal clear: I’ll have to slow down… bones, sinews, flesh, all conspire to retire!

I strive (or try to – here’s the problem) to become a polymath, talented in a wide variety of disciplines – for me, that includes reading, writing, 2D art, 3D modeling, instrumental music, music composition (and sequencing), game design, Go, lucid dreaming, meditation, and programming, although I’m certain I’m missing a few things. I’m alright already in a few disciplines – writing and Go, for the most part.

My problem is that it’s enjoyable to do things you’re good at and painful to do things you’re bad at. If I were able to eliminate all expectations and all sense of time, I could chip away at these skills and enjoy the moment regardless of how terrible my performance was. I may only be able to make stick figures, but practicing them enough will make me better and better until I am churning out Rembrandts.

I can’t suspend the judgment, and because I can’t suspend the judgment, I cannot suspend my sense of time. Because I can’t draw terrible stick figures without thinking incessantly about how they’re not living up to quality of what I want to draw, every moment is unenjoyable, a minute feels like an excruciating hour, and I always give up after no more than fifteen minutes. This goes for everything where I am worse than I unrealistically expect myself to be.

I can give hours of my time to other people at the drop of a hat. My patience for the antics of others is usually respectable and sometimes even admirable. But with myself, I can tolerate no less than immediate perfection at all times. How do I convince myself after drawing one single squiggly line on a page that all is not yet lost, that I can still improve, that it is unfair to compare that little streak of graphite to the finished work of a professional illustrator?

Patience with myself is an ongoing and severe struggle. My therapist taught me to sit in a chair, facing an empty chair, imagining my ‘guilty’self in the empty chair and attacking, reprimanding and chastising my other self as much as I want to – making the covert self-talk overt. Then, when everything has been expressed fully, I move to the empty chair and take the role of defendant, stating why, how and what I was thinking and doing. Needless to say, I repeatedly find that I’m OK with my self and my doings. Helps a lot, but I simply can’t do it on my own – need the audience.

The more I practice this, the more patient I am with the pace of my life in general. Is this what laid-back feels like? Still feel guilty…

I actually think that I might have lots of patience with myself! It’s more the context that determines the level of impatience than anything else. For instance, I am extreeeemely patient with myself in allowing myself enough time to make decisions about relationships. I like that.

Today I’m glad I’m not me, because I wouldn’t survive my thoughts! Scolding parent all day long…

breathe… just be… breathe. Next time.