Dirt People

This is what I look like waiting at the car dealership

I think judging other people is normal. “That’s not how I would have done it,” we think, watching someone else do it “wrong.” A lot of us harbor a secret belief that we would handle things better than just about everyone around us - even as we closely monitor ourselves for fuckups, because secretly we don’t trust ourselves to do things right. This is a hard way to live, and it’s one I’m actively working on letting go.

I have spent a lot of time on my high horse in my lifetime. A high horse is comforting: I judge TV characters for how they are in relationships, I judge people on the road for how they drive, I judge my close friends and family for how they act. I’m not proud of this; it’s not a good look to always be thinking “I could have done that better.” Better according to whom? According to me, which assumes that I know better than everyone else.

Which is pretty much how I’ve lived most of my life. Do I really believe that I know better? No, when I ask myself directly. I respect other people and know I make mistakes. So why do I judge others’ actions so harshly?

Because of what my brain does to cope with moving through the world. Through a combination of things I saw my parents doing, things I saw the world doing, and ways my anxiety and OCD try to maintain complete control, it feels reassuring to just assume that I know best and that I could, if I just had control over everything, get everything in order.

It’s easier to have compassion for ourselves when remembering our behaviors are how we learned to deal with what was going on around us (thank you to my couples therapist for that gem). These coping mechanisms leave us with low capacity for actually handling anything, AKA seeing the full picture, accepting and acknowledging our mistakes, and then responding from our integrity.

We can expand our capacity for handling things, though. For me, there’s this really shitty window of time when I see myself clearly for the first time, and see my coping behaviors and how they make it hard for people to be around me. “OH NO, we can’t accept that,” I think. And then I might do two things, or both: 1) Make it someone else’s fault (usually my partner, because he’s the closest person in my life), a habit so ingrained I don’t even notice I’m doing it, and 2) Descend into self loathing.

Once I’ve seen my impact on my partner, the self loathing party can really get going. “I’m a trash person, why would my partner want to put up with my bullshit to be with me?” I think while I lie face-down on the bed. A short while ago, I sat in this mire for a full week. Then I told my couples therapist how the week had gone. She told me she thought I’d done a good job making progress. I could see she was right: I’d actually only been in the mire for like 3 days. I spent the rest of the week finding a level of self-validation and self-acceptance I’d never had before.

So: self honesty, then the mire, then big self-validation (which feels great, by the way. Way more powerful than waiting for someone else’s validation). Then, when you can do so with care for yourself, repeat. This is how we get stronger.

We learn judgment as a way of understanding the world and self-validating. But I'm finding that accepting how I am just like everybody else is much more liberating, connective, and joyful. It’s easy to think, and harder to embody.

I’m calling this “getting down off my high horse and being a dirt person.” I like this because it involves a horse (I love horses), and sounds fun, like we’re all rolling around in the dirt together. Accepting myself in my humanity and letting go of superiority as a self-soothing tool frees up all sorts of energy and brain space taken up by trying to figure out how I would do better than the people around me. My “positive self images” are really just the ways I can’t handle looking directly at myself, and they keep me small.

Instead, I refocus on figuring out what my therapist calls my “core self”: what I believe is important, what my values are, and how to act on those things. In other words, who I am in my inner and outer worlds, with my personal burdens and privileges - not someone else’s.

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My Patreon has some great tools for supporting you in the late spring and early summer! You can find meditations and Tarot readings for May-time there, as well as information about the Wheel of the Year Holidays and how to celebrate the seasons as a modern-day witch.

Village Witch’s Corner

My intention this week : 

Take good care of myself.

Question(s) I'm asking this week:

What does my body need? What about my very tired brain?

What I’m listening to:

It’s a recuperation week, so I’m listening to my No. 1 favorite podcast, My Favorite Murder.

Tiny Spell of the Week:

Lie the fuck down for a while. Notice how good it feels. Feel love for my bed.