Have you ever been really tired? Or really sick? Or really busy? Or just really, really did not want to do something? We all have. When we are overwhelmed, we need to start to rearrange our priorities. However, there may be another voice in our head that is shaming us. It may encourage us to think badly of ourselves if we do not do EVERYTHING that we think that we are supposed to do, that we are, somehow, a failure.

When I am working with someone who has too much to do, and is struggling with it and has that shaming voice in their head, I ask them if their best friend were in the same situation, would they shame their friend? The answer is almost always, “No, of course not!” My follow up question is, “What makes you different?” The answer is always some form of, “but those rules do not apply to me.”

My question to you, looking at this logically, why do those rules of compassion only apply to others, but never us? Why do we always put ourselves under the most stringent (and ridiculous) rules?

The answer often lies in the rules that we grew with, the role that we played in our families. We were given or decided to take on the role of taking care of everything. Children cannot take care of things because they have no power. They are not developmentally ready to take on the tasks involved in running a family. So, they “fail”. The true failure is the idea that they should even have that role. But these kids learned early on to take on too much, no matter how they are feeling.

What I suggest to my clients is that they begin to treat themselves the same way that they treat others. Give themselves the same amount of compassion and grace that they allow for others. To tell that voice in their head to tune the volume down just a bit. And then notice how they feel. It is okay to take care of yourself. It is okay to be responsible for what is yours; to not be responsible for what is not yours. It is okay to forgive yourself.  Please take care today!