The Importance of Baby Steps

A blogger friend made an important observation about my post Five Things You Can Do To Feel Better About Yourself. She said that in her experience, using tools such as those I wrote about is a great way to help yourself when you’re feeling pretty good but can be hard to implement when you’re in a negative space. So how do you make these tools “reliable when (you are) in an unreliable state?” I believe my friend was correct when she said she needed to take baby steps.

This means you have to give yourself a break. When you’re depressed or just feeling down about your life it’s easy to be hard on yourself for everything you do, or don’t do, without any regard for what’s truly important. Part of you is complicit with the negativity and will do all it can to continue the negativity (see my post on the Anti-Me). If you are aspiring to implement new tools into your daily life you could very well beat yourself up every time you realize you’ve forgotten to acknowledge yourself or taken a step to feel better. So you have to give yourself attainable goals and start slowly. And above all, BE GENTLE with yourself.

Here are some practical things you can do to start taking baby steps towards feeling better:

1. Choose one new skill to focus on and don’t try to add anything else for at least a week, maybe even a month.

2. Give yourself credit for doing it when you do and if you start beating yourself up for not doing it, try to find a voice inside yourself that can simply repeat: Be Gentle.

3. Make a sign (this could be as simple as using a sharpie on a piece of blank paper or the back of an envelope) that says “Be Gentle With Yourself” or a reminder to use another tool of your choice.

4. Remember that in the beginning you may only try your new tool once in a whole week. This is still very much an accomplishment.

Every step gets you closer to feeling good about yourself.

 

The Alchemy of Experience

As Spring emerges in the form of buds, crocuses, warmer days and singing birds I have been pondering the growth that was happening before all of these outward signs. The earth began warming weeks ago, sending life into the topsoil and the roots of the plants now sprouting. Birds I’m now hearing began flying North as their winter havens in Mexico and South America grew hot and the sun’s position changed.

These last few weeks I have been thinking a lot about the changes I’m beginning to detect within myself. Increased self-confidence, clearer sense of purpose, a heart opening with awareness and deepening compassion. It is very clear to me that these changes are not the result of some sudden shift but rather reflect on the work I’ve done over the last several months integrating some of last year’s life altering experiences.

Two events stand out as significantly effecting my psyche (presenting research in front of peers at a conference, and childbirth). Just after these events occurred I remember thinking “when am I going to get the benefits of these experiences?” Like many people, I wanted to have the experience and then immediately have access to the wisdom I’d gained.

Our psyches do not work this way but instead must go through what Jung compared to an alchemical process of transformation. To sum up a very complex theory, the process begins with the addition to the psyche of new experiences, thoughts and feelings and the subsequent “brewing” that creates change and growth in an individual happens over time on a mostly unconscious level. While this “brewing” is taking place it often appears as though nothing significant is happening in the individual’s psyche. Dreams may not be remembered as frequently, the individual may sleep more than usual and may even appear to be mildly depressed.

We can do the following to aid this process of integration:

Journaling about our experiences and feelings that arose during and afterwards.

Any practice that helps us be more conscious in our physical bodies, such as massage, acupuncture, yoga, walking and dancing.

These things can “heat the waters” of the unconscious but ultimately our experiences have to “cook” until they’ve been transformed into useful wisdom.

As Spring arrives, make it a practice to notice how you’ve changed during the apparent stillness of winter. Think back over your experiences of the last year and try to identify where your new awareness and skills originated. By bringing these connections to consciousness you will acknowledge more deeply the work you are doing all the time to grow in wisdom, compassion and awareness.

Happy Cooking!