Ok, let's just get the obvious out of the way. Yes, it's been two months since my last post. No, I have not been wandering Bora Bora, been locked in a dungeon or anything of the sort. Just plain old busy.
Which is kinda a good segue into my post. Why do I feel the need to explain to my few wonderful readers out there why I haven't posted recently? Furthermore, how do I know it's just "a few" of you out there? Well...yeah, that's a little easier to quantify, but my point is...there's always that evil, little monkey in the corner of my brain that screams about living up to expectations...and feeling guilty about it when I don't.
Sure, most of the time, these are self-imposed expectations - things that should make me feel more confident about life, but more often than not, they make me feel worse. Way worse. To the point it changes-my-whole-disposition-kind of worse. I should live in a better home, have a better job, wear better clothes, weigh less, have perfect hair, be the confident, perky, radiant woman I'm meant to be. But then I realize "should" is not the same as "is" and that's when the trouble starts. There is a fear of admitting "failure". Even now, there is a sense "I should not post this", "what will they think?", "what if this sounds lame and my point isn't clear?" But that's also part of the shame and feeds into the perpetual cycle.
Which is why, when I saw this article about self compassion, I felt for once that I'm not alone in my experience. And reiterating that "the secret to success is the ability to fail." Not to say that failure is the goal, just - that we all fail from time to time, no one is perfect, and we have to be gentle with ourselves. Easier said than done. Bad habits are hard to break. But it gives me hope - and I'm posting this so that maybe I can pass along that hope to someone else.