Kindness, love & the subtle art of not being a cat-murdering sociopath

I think overall, we all think of ourselves as kind, caring humans (let's leave aside those sociopathic corporate types that would murder their pet cat for a promotion, they don't count for the purposes of this post).  

However, I have come to realise lately, that in fact, this isn't even remotely true.   For beloved friends, kindness starts at home,  and home is where the heart is, literally.  You know, the heart inside you, on the upper left (I think), near your boobs.  Yup, riiiiiiight there.  

And so if I am even a little bit representative of this, then I can say that we are far too frequently not very kind.  To ourselves.  To the one person that actually matters (or should) to you. YOU. 

I have been reflecting a lot on this lately, kindness, self-love and how we speak to ourselves.  How, in the moments of insecurity and when shadow creeps up on us,  our subconscious is lightning fast to whisper things that say, "you don’t deserve this" or "what the FUCK are you doing you idiot?" or "you'll get it wrong, you ALWAYS get it wrong" or the dreaded "just admit it, you can't do this.  You're just not good enough".  Oof, that one's a silent killer. 

Now, admittedly, I am working really hard on this currently, I am really working to meet the shadow inside and give it an extra hard hug, instead of punching it in the face like I sometimes want to. 

When this angry or sad little voice of self-doubt rises in me now, I do my best to toddle off immediately to my little meditation cushion (with bright red stars from the fabulous Shanti Sundays in London) or the nearest quiet space, and try and work out just exactly where this little/large voice is coming from.   I mean where it's really coming from, not the words it’s saying, but where the actual source of its fear, anger, sadness, frustration.  What pocket of vulnerability within me is having the mini-eruption today? #hellolittlevesuvius

I try to let myself feel exactly what the problem is.  To actually experience it in my body.  Not just see it for how it appears on the surface.  For example, "I am too tubby to go on a date this week", is not really what’s going on, but what happens if I sit still for a moment and listen?  Listen and you will hear what is really at the heart of that limiting self-belief.   I find that if I wait and just watch, whatever it really is will poke its head above the parapet and say "hello", or perhaps a little more like Jack Nicholson’s character in the Shining shouting "hello motherf**ker, I’m baaaaaaaaaaack".  Crazy eyes and all.    

Give it space and safety to arrive darling one, and it will come.   The little monster within.   I suspect, if you’re anything like me, it’s less Ewok like; cute and fuzzy-wuzzy, and more Little Shop of Horrors man eating toothy plant variety.  You know the ugly little monster holding the grenade without the pin, waving it around saying “DARE ME TO THROW IT?”.  It could present as shame, fear, self-doubt, self-loathing, lack of confidence or a wild and wonderful combination of any of the above.  Like a cocktail you never ordered, that tastes like a mixture of Ouzo and sour cats breast milk.   Yeah, yuck. Just yuck.

So, what do you do? In these moments when you seem to be your own worst enemy, the one about to torpedo any chance of enjoying your day/week/month, what do you actually do?  Is there any hope of placating this two-headed hyperactive, super-vigilant asshole monster into some kind of more manageable bite-sized monster chunks?  Well, yes, yes there is.  I am glad you asked. 

Warning: the solution is super simple BUT is one that comes with time, persistence and practice.  HOWEVER, in the good news of the day, unlike a new pair of the latest Gucci Brooklyn loafers, it’s super practical, and importantly, free.

I am going to give you an example of when this situation happened to me really recently, and what I did about it, to try and shed some light on how some effective and easy solutions can apply to this kind of seemingly never-ending “baseball bat to the face” type problem.   Because let’s face it, no matter what kind of sexy kinky sado-masochistic tendencies you may have in the confines of your boudoir (perhaps that’s just me), in my experience, very few people are big fans of being mercilessly beaten about the head by their own crushingly caustic internal monologue.  It’s never a pleasant experience.

So, I was riding on the train back to London from bonny Scotland, having attended at gorgeous Shamanic Immersion there for the long weekend.  Out the window of the train was the emerging super-blue-blood-once in a couple of lifetimes full moon of 31 January.   Brazen and bold and blood red.  I was blown away by the magnificence of watching this moon rise up over the sea outside my train window, lighting up the entire body of water with its incandescent glow. 

Until...I wasn't. 

Until I unexpectedly became preoccupied with how overweight I looked in my reflection staring back at me from the train window.  Whoa. Ummm what?  Cue immediate obliteration of a once in 150 years beautiful moment in nature, enter a hideous moment of "self-realisation" (read self-deprecation), somewhat like when you see those experiments of when people are showed beautiful nature images, interspersed with horrific violence and their brain patterns are mapped on a CT scan.    Total and utter brain box explosion with patches of red blooming everywhere you look.  What.the.f*ck. 

The ultimate mental hijack perpetrated by your own mind. 

Tricky little f**ker, isn't it? 

My internal response time to this sight was so quick I barely noticed it at first.  

For me, this time, two relatively new things happened here which were interesting.   Firstly, my mind did not automatically go into self-loathing mode, which goes to show that months of meeting my shadow with quiet kindness is working, slowly but surely.   Gone was the “shame highlights reel” of how many times I have thought or felt this “fact” before, how many times I had failed, the endless loop of self-flagellation that would usually follow an observation of my body that did not live up to the perfect standard I had set up for it. This was new.

Secondly, and for me ground-breaking, the formerly weaponized words inside my head were replaced with a feeling.   Something felt rather than something thought.  I felt it in my upper abdomen (the wobbly bit that had been the sharp focus of my attention moments ago), a wringing sensation, a not so subtle cry for help from my body.  

And so, I just let it happen. 

I simply sat there, watching my reflection with kind eyes initially, not inviting in thoughts or judgments, but feelings.  Just letting them arrive, watching them gently as they pulled into the station of my mind.    Coming and going, going and coming, just like the train on which I currently sat, perpetual motion of the emotional kind.

What was surprising was the lack of the surface to air missile level of internal verbal violence of days gone by, rather in its place was this far softer call to come into myself, and just be quietly with what was there. 

So I sat, and I waited.  I waited and sat.  Beckoning the sensation to speak, but giving it all the time it needed to feel okay with being out in the open.  Not rushing, just patiently waiting for it to come when it was ready.  Letting it settle into the space, where once a vicious self-esteem attack would have been waiting, was now a keening sensation, a desire to be truly heard.  And then it came, this small voice calling from within, only a whisper to begin with... 

“You are not loveable looking like this are you?” said the small voice to the pudgy reflection. 

It wasn’t an accusation or an assault, it was a genuine question.  A little longing echoing out from the chambers of my deepest-seated fears, asking me to validate its innermost limiting belief.  The belief that I was not perfect enough, good enough, thin enough, whatever enough, to be loved.  Loved by me, loved by another.  But yet, it wasn’t a statement.   This place of ultimate vulnerability had a voice, a voice that even though small and almost inaudible, dared to question the status quo.  As if, by being given the space to be seen and heard, it now also queried whether this long-held belief was possibly so ludicrous so as to be untrue.  Was this a possibility, indeed even a probability? Wow. 

Interestingly, this internal line of inquiry about my physical appearance, masked as a stealth attack on my self-esteem, was not apropos of nothing.   There is a reason my soul and my heart dared to ask such a bold question.  Recently, I had made a daring move of my own.  I had shouted out to the Universe, by various different methods (we’ll come to that another time), that in fact, I was ready for love.  I was finally, meaningfully, prepared to step into the space that I feared the most, and put my balls on the line for something that I truly longed for.   Love. To speak the words that I have for 39 years managed to avoid saying out loud “I would like please Universe, a love of my own.  One I promise not to launch a million missiles at from day one”.  Ballsy huh? 

In a twist of fate that usually applies to a situation where you shout out the thing you want both most AND least, it turns out this brave move sparked a little restlessness in the soul that lay beneath.   More like a f**king emotional cyclone of Pam proportions actually.

What was really happening here, was not merely me body shaming myself into an oblivion.  No, not quite.  That was just a sneaky cover for my old friend/frenemy/nemesis: RESISTANCE to sneak in the door.

Resistance; you creeper, you. 

Always disguised as something significantly more sinister, resistance is actually a variation of our vulnerability popping up out of concern that it is going to get its head bashed in if we put ourselves back into the emotional fray.  

Vulnerability is scared sh*tless that you are going to bowl off and do something stupid, like inviting your deepest darkest fears (like the fear of being seen in your most naked self; love) in the front door and asking them if they want to come in, sit down and have a cup of tea.  “Would you invite Hitler in for brunch?” says Vulnerability.  Nope, unless you’re one of those strange Trump-voting alt right lunatics (which you are most certainly not if you’re reading this), no, you would not. Vulnerability makes a compelling case.  Until you can see it for what it is: Vulnerability is afraid.

To Poor Old Vulnerability, absent any subsequent soothing and assurance from you that all will be okay in the end, this is quite possibly the most catastrophically bad idea you have had ALL year.  Probably this decade.  And so…it panics.  It starts throwing up everything emotional it has available in its arsenal into your path.  This looks like shame, self-loathing, self-doubt.  It’s a very basic self-protection mechanism that is designed to prevent you from making the worst of all worst mistakes.  Being vulnerable.  GOD NO!!!  ANYTHING BUT THAT!

So, what did I do in the face of this incredibly intelligent master manipulator that tried to blow up my chance at love from the inside?  How did I combat this tyrannical terrorist come to ruin my fledgling flight to a new level of emotional connection with both myself and another before it began?

Well…I just let it be.  I sat in silence with all this churning, wringing and wrangling, and just let.it.be.

I sat and I observed this extraordinary defence system at play, without judgment, without harsh words, and just let it sink into my cells.  I thanked my body and mind for trying to so hard to protect me from perceived threats.  I assured my heart and soul they could carry on being soft, gentle, feminine and open, inviting love in the door, and that I would manage vulnerability and fear from hereon in. 

So, where there was fear, I applied peace.  Where there was cruelty, I applied love. Like a bandage for the bloodied and wounded, I just wrapped all that fear and shame in kindness.  Literally, I killed it with kindness.  For it’s not about dismissing all these feelings as irrelevant, or convincing them they have no place here, it’s about accepting them with grace, thanking them for their help up until now, and finding them a quiet little home within you.  Sometimes, I find it helpful to visulise this.  In this case, seeing their home as a million miles away from my tender heart, surrounded by there is a moat and a drawbridge operated from the outside really helped ;-)

So when this arises now, in whatever "not good enough" form, I treat myself with absolute kindness, tenderness and care.  I breathe.  I meditate.  I listen to inspiring podcasts, binge on Pema Chodron or whatever other inspiring human fits with that day's struggle. I eat wholesome food, and toddle out for a walk.  I say gentle things to myself, and remind myself of how this is temporary, and just a story, and like any good story, it will (for better or worse), always come to a natural end at some point.  I no longer reach for danger-zone comforts or numbing agents.  Essentially, I give myself the cuddle I want in that moment from the inside out.  I smile and remind myself of what a fucking amazing person I am, having the courage to face down those things that plague us all. No exceptions, just self-love all the way baby.

It’s not an insta-fix by any means, and practice makes perfect for sure, however, for you, if you can meet some of that fear with love, then you my gorgeous friends, will be well on the way to being so much more at home in the beautiful body that you call your own.   Fear can only conquer you if you allow it.  I'm not perfect, but I'm no longer striving to be.  I'm perfectly imperfect, just as I am, and so are you. 

Loads of love and light from me to you.

Miss Cook xoxo