Ok, so you said something stupid.
Or harsh.
Or embarrassing.
Or hurtful.
So, you did something selfish.
Or unkind.
Or callous.
So, you got angry.
Or teary.
Or flustered.
Or turned on.
That makes you a ….human being. That’s just the kind of animal we are: clumsy, flawed, easily hurt, prone to making mistakes, poor communicators, and generally terrible at managing our emotions.
The reality is that most of the time when people hurt us or we hurt someone the intention is not to hurt – it just happens because we are clumsy human beings. For example, we think we are excellent communicators but take the research showing that in 40% of cases people don’t get sarcasm in emails and text messages. That leaves room for a lot of potentially hurt feelings when you consider that with sarcasm we say the opposite of what we really mean. And unfortunately no amount of winking smiley faces seems to help understanding 🙁
My point is that we – as a species – are clumsy and imperfect but we still deserve kindness and compassion. I see too many of you giving yourself a really hard time for not being perfect. Not being the perfect parent, or partner, or worker, or son, or sibling, or daughter, or whatever.
As psychiatrist David Viscott observed: “One of the lovely things about becoming a psychiatrist is that you learn everybody has all kinds of thoughts, fantasies, and wishes and that having them doesn’t mean very much – certainly not nearly as much (or awful) as too many people think. You can have sexual thoughts about people of the opposite sex, of your own sex, animals, and trees. You can have aggressive thoughts about nuns, a baby in its mother’s arms, even your own baby, especially your own baby, about your parents, especially your parents. You can have hatred for people you are supposed to love and for people who have just died. You can have perverted, twisted, kinky, obnoxious, selfish, stupid, childish, obsessive, and violent thoughts. The presence of all these thoughts in fantasy is only another proof of the fact that you are human and have feelings.”
So, expect to have all kinds of thoughts and urges and expect to stuff up. We all do. Don’t give yourself such a hard time about it. And mainly don’t take it very seriously…