Be good to yourself, or no one else will.

Me, Myself and I

by Irma Walter May 2010

Be good to yourself, or no one else will.

A good memory can be a curse.

Be good to yourself, or no one else will.

I used to be locked into strings of associations, all of them negative spending up to an hour, lost in past memories and bad ones at that ... Every mistake, every foolish decision, every shameful situation would come up and pass before my mind's eye, while I would judge myself. The Stupidest Idiot on Earth was my verdict of myself.

Be good to yourself, or no one else will.

Actually, I felt worst over the time wasted. When I would jerk up out of my negative thinking, I could remember the last disheartening thought and - by association – trace back a long string to the very first one. It was all there, crystal clear, but the hour had gone by unnoticed and my most vervent wish was, that I would be able to recognise the onset and stop it right there.

Be good to yourself, or no one else will.

It worked sometimes, by a stupendous effort of watching my thoughts and self-talk. I felt like I was being my own police officer and life wasn't much fun.

Be good to yourself, or no one else will.

Looking at this or that blunder, wishing that I hadn't done it, wishing I had been wiser beforehand.... I suddenly realised that regretting the situation that had afforded me wisdom couldn't have possibly been avoided by the wisdom that I was about to gain from it. That's mentally shorting my life circuits.

Be good to yourself, or no one else will.

The issue was that essentially I was a different person after acquiring wisdom, so I had to treat my past self just like I would another person. Y'know, I would never lambast and crush another person as hard for their mistakes as I did myself. Never. With others I was a picture of patience, an engaging listener, a soothing healer.

Be good to yourself, or no one else will.

So the most momentous decision of my life was to treat my past self like a stranger. The police officer's efforts shifted from sternly watching The Criminal to kindly treating The Traveller. Whenever thoughts of past errors and failures would cross my mind, I would think: well, nothing really grave happened. Probably those situations were the lesser evil. If I hadn't gained wisdom from those, then a greater evil would have befallen me.

Be good to yourself, or no one else will.

Instead of being caught up in nightmares of past mistakes, I would slowly start to ease up on myself.

Be good to yourself, or no one else will.

Then a more stunning thought befell me: my present self would turn into the past self of the future. Get it? The one I was being today, would be the one I would remember tomorrow as being the one who made the bed I was about to lie in. I started reckoning with

my future self as well. Would I be proud of myself? Well, I had all the options open to make it happen.

Be good to yourself, or no one else will.

And I stopped banking on my future self. Whenever there was a chance, I would take the shit today and leave a clean slate for tomorrow. I would even provide for my future self, little seeds of kindness that would sprout up in my own pleasure or happiness later. And the next day, I would turn around and shout back to my past self: well done, old house, thanks for being a chum.