Self-Punishment & Self-Grace

Self-Punishment & Self-Grace

It’s easy to look successful and sound successful especially when people are impressed by our feats. However, we don’t ultimately feel better by what everyone else said but by what we told ourselves.

When you think of yourself — what comes to mind?

𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆’𝘀 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴

1. In what areas do I feel like I failed myself?
2. Why do I feel like I failed?
3. How did I measure this failure?
4. Would I use those same parameters to measure someone else?
5. In what ways have I punished myself for failing?
6. Would I have punished someone else for this same failure the way I punished myself?

This is not to say you didn’t fail at a thing or two. However, we are many times more gracious to other people because we can SEE them (the effects of our actions on them) and we can STUDY them (paying attention to what makes them).

Unfortunately, the average person is oblivious to themselves because they neither look, see, nor study themselves with the sole intention of COMPREHENDING (not correct, fix or adjust) themselves.

I hope you slow down today and give yourself grace.

Punishment is as familiar to all of us as rewards are.

You will get a reward If you do what’s expected of you. On the flip side, you get a punishment when you ignore what’s expected of you/what’s not permitted.

Punishments are not wrong; they’ve curbed societal ills for generations but the fear of punishments can hold us back so much that we never explore what no one ever requires/expects from us.

You are not breaking any law or anything; just trying out new ways of doing the same right stuff. However, we have found a way to adopt punishments on ourselves even when no one is meting out the punishments.

Example: Your last relationship failed. You then internalize and reframe that failure into — I AM A FAILURE.

Remember the punishments you grew up with for failing? It turns out you still administer them to yourself now that you are grown.

That punishment can manifest as sabotaging your opportunities to be asked out or related with (locking yourself indoors — in the naughty corner) or even going as far as always choosing people who will never choose you back.

Example 2: You lost your job because of an error. You then, internalize that failure and tell yourself that you advanced too quickly in your career.

To punish yourself, you might begin to choose jobs that are beneath your expertise or charge lesser fees because you consider yourself unworthy or because you’re trying to ensure that another failure won’t be on a massive scale.

How to Offer Yourself Grace

1. Know the failure you’re punishing yourself for (go use the journal therapy challenge above to learn how to do that).
2. Identify the specific punishments you’re meting out for that/those failure (s)
3. Do the opposite of the punishment (this is hard if you’ve always punished yourself so don’t stop even when you fail to do the opposite)
4. Talk to yourself about the failure like you would a total stranger who you wanted to be kind to.
5. Start to date yourself (go back and read the quote above slowly to understand SEEING, HEARING & COMPREHENDING yourself)

Got any questions? Ask me anonymously.