Last year, while on furlough, I decided to embark on a mission of self-discovery, examining the parts of myself that I was less familiar with.
(In hindsight, I think this was an attempt to rediscover a buried joy within me, after my passion for life had began to rot in a job I felt miserable in, but which also felt inescapable.)
Fairly quickly, though, I realised that there was an enormous roadblock: My traumas. I couldn’t dive too deep without addressing them. So that is what I tried to do.
…
Anthropomorphising my negative self-talk, looking at it like a person who’s just insulting me all the time.
…
I realised that for all the love and support I have always given so freely to other people, and for all of my attempts to avoid being dismissive, cold, and unfeeling, I was still unrelentingly cruel to one person. Me. I hadn’t yet learnt how to apply that same spirit of care and support to myself.
So I was faced with an important question: Why are you so loving towards other people, yet so cruel to yourself?