Trying Not to Be So Hard On Myself (You Too?): Everyday Magic, Day 1,130

It doesn't take much to turn my inner bitch mites (great phrase from my friend Sara) upon myself. Sometimes the smallest error, flaw, or mishap sets them to biting, leaving tiny welts or itchiness for hours.

To mix metaphors, maybe you've been in the same leaky boat at times also? I mean, who hasn't been brought up to be exceptionally hard on themselves or otherwise warped by the traumatic or haphazard dangers of their particular life as well as life at large?

Having just turned 66, I thought I would have been more, well, together by this time, but I keep discovering new ways that we're delicate creatures teetering on the searing and tender edges of harsh self-judgment at times.

Funny thing is that as a writer, I'm easy-peasy on myself. If I can't remember a word or figure out how to say something, or I just don't have juice to revise a poem or essay, I tell myself, "No sweat, sweetheart. Why don't you take a nap, and when you wake up, let's have cookies and tea?" Perhaps because writing has always been a refuge for me, the room of my imagination is furnished with a plush easy chair and festooned with purple Christmas lights and a sign that says, "Welcome back, darling! Here's some cozy slippers and a fleece blanket, and oh yeah, your laptop or journal so happy to see you again."

Off the page, it can be more like a Russian brutalist-style room painted dark grey with brash lighting, and it's always too hot or too cold. I might wake up in this space at 2:17 a.m. or thereabouts, cross-examining myself about something I said or didn't say, and whether I hurt someone or my motives weren't pure enough. I repeat things too much in a meeting to make my point, then grill myself on why I did this and if it caused stress for others.

There's a lot of material. I just called out, "Hey, Ken, when do I attack myself most?" as he was loading the dishwasher.

"Oh, when someone insults or otherwise attacks you on something that triggers old stuff from the past, even when you know the attack isn't true."

Yup, that's a deal, and let's just say there's a lot of old stuff, like bad toys in an attic that suddenly come alive and start crashing into each other. But because I've had ample practice with being hard on myself, I've also put together a wondrous treasure chest of long-term leaps, practices, approaches, or charms for lightening up:

• Talk back to the stupid, inaccurate, or twisted voices that wake me up in the middle of the night by telling them, as my friend Anne suggests, in a good-natured tone, "Knock it off, you guys! I'm going back to sleep."

• Yoga. There's nothing that breaks me away from twisting riddles of trying to fix issues that likely aren't mine in the first place or simply taking a needed break from what is mine and just being a body again.

• Remember that those voices, to paraphrase the I-Ching (in Carol Anthony's translation) might just be clamouring inferiors, voices that are much less than our true nature yet can make a helluva lot of noise.

• Instead of listing woes to backhoe into the what-did-I-do-wrong pit, list graces and gratitudes, such as the old, warm flannel sheets of my bed, the tiny cat and tall man dreaming beside me, the fresh air with its winter edge on the other side of the winter, the kind lamp I can turn on if I need to find my socks

• Drawing something, painting something, cleaning out a closet or a drawer, or anything else that entails using my hands and not my words for a stretch.

• Yes, meditation, even if I fall asleep often in the middle of it or catch (or don't catch) my mind a hundred times rushing off to the races, can be a great way to remind myself that these thoughts are just some weather passing through.

Most of all, it helps me to remember that many of us struggle with the same, whether we're 16 or 66 or 96. We have so much experience turning the critical lens onto ourselves.

Self-acceptance and self-love aren't lightning strikes that change everything forever, but a lifetime series of tiny illuminations that bring us into the land of kindness, tenderness, and especially curiosity about the world and our own good selves.

What about you?