We talk about something called the Worry Bully in our house. He (or she) is that little voice inside of you that is constantly whispering things to scare you.
What if the thunder hurts me?
What if I get sick and throw up?
What if the bug comes back from the dead and eats me?
You get the picture.
We all have a worry bully. It’s just that the older we get, the more ominous our worries and the more wily the bully.
My inner worry bully hasn’t been bugging me this week. What’s been getting me is my inner jackass. You probably know that voice as well – it’s the one that tells you that you are never good enough. That everything you do is wrong. It’s the voice that insists on focusing only on the negative and on judgment and stagnation rather than on inspiration and light.
That jackass visits me a lot, and when I’m stressed or busy or tired or sick, she comes out even more.
Sometimes I lose my temper with my kids and my husband. (Shocker, huh?) When I do, I do my best to focus on the situation at hand. I try not to make global statement. I try to talk about actions instead of character. I have never used the word “ashamed” and I do my absolute best not to use the word “disappointed.”
But those rules don’t seem to apply to me.
I woke up at 4:45 this morning and taught for two hours. Then I fixed the girls’ hair and convinced some of them to stop laying in front of our heaters and to instead get dressed. I helped Goosie change her earrings for the first time ever, and then I searched our house and (eureka!) found her lost school shoe. I then organized a backpack for the second time, signed an assignment notebook, and listened to Goose read to me.
And then I sat down with a cup of coffee.
Lazy!
Why are you so worthless? Why can’t you do something?
Look at all that still needs to be done!
All the other moms do so much more than you do. They don’t sit around.
And I read those statements, and I hear truth. Even as I write them out, I wonder if they are the voice of my inner jackass or if they are the voice of truth.
But when I work really hard, and I really search for the truth, I realize that it doesn’t matter for me to get the judgment right. The problem isn’t in the label; it’s in the very act of labeling.
When I label myself as good or bad, lazy or productive, worthless or valuable, I’m trying to fit myself into a neat little box. This is attractive because if I can get into the good box, then I feel good. I can be proud of myself.
But that box has just as many holes as the other – because if we pride ourselves on our positive labels based on our actions, we will always be in danger of losing them and falling from our own grace.
Because none of us are perfect. We all make mistakes. We will mess up almost as much as we succeed.
So perhaps today, we all need to put those labels aside. We need to stop trying to be good enough. We need to stop trying to figure out if we are good enough. We need to stop trying to globally define ourselves.
And we just need to do the next right thing.
That’s a whole lot simpler, isn’t it?