soon after we were married, donna and i went to england to visit some friends. one of our planned trips was to the beautiful lake district. donna she said this was one of the most beautiful places she had ever been, and she was right! the six of us found a spot overlooking the valley; the bare, smooth rock gave us a perfect place to have a picnic. it was one of those times when you say to yourself, "this is just too gorgeous to be real".
as any other tourist would do, we were taking pictures to capture forever what we were experiencing then. donna took the camera to take a picture of the rest of us as we picnicked. apparently she could not get all of us in her viewfinder. so has any camera buff would do, she backed up a bit. it must have not been enough because she continued to step backward... one step, two steps, three steps.
suddenly i realized that she was only a short distance from the cliff. she was going to fall to her death! i was so panicked, my body and my voice froze. this was a tragedy that only happens to other people.
and then i heard a calm, but firm voice saying, "donna, stop where you are.". it was a male voice, but it wasn't mine. our friend had realized the situation and used his voice in the same manner that he certainly has used with his children. he knew that yelling may have made her lurch backward. donna responded to his calm tone immediately and stopped... less than a yard away from the cliff. he had saved her life.
of course, after knowing she was safe, we breathed, cried, and hugged. we recounted what each of us had experienced during those terrifying seconds. and we 'encouraged' donna to be more careful. but most of all our donna was with us, shaken but safe.
how often do we yell at ourselves, saying words we would never say to another person, with the intention of helping us.. words like stupid, worthless, dumb, idiotic. we know how a person would feel if we used those words to shame them. so why do we use them on ourselves? maybe we think those words will snap us into shape. you know, tough love buddy!!
but perhaps we have become numb to those words. just like a doctor who numbs an area before doing a painful procedure, we inflict pain even though we cannot immediately feel it. but the wounding has been done. and the pain eventually reveals itself.
what if we were to use calm, gentle, supportive words to point out a mistake we've made or to alert us to a dangerous decision we're about to make. what if we were to comfort ourselves out of desperation; to love ourselves into wholeness? what would happen if we were to remove those horrible words from our inner vocabulary, and replace them with words of love and respect.
i am not advocating that we avoid correcting ourselves. sometimes "stephen, that was not a very helpful decision you just made" or "stephen, what you said was not very kind" are appropriate and helpful. after all, self-honesty and self-discipline are healthy and adaptive qualities to acquire. what i am advocating is that we avoid shaming ourselves in the process, that we treat ourselves with respect as we are problem-solving, generating options, and offering self-forgiveness in order to clarify what we have done and to avoid making the same mistakes again.
i remember a sunday school teacher whose name was effie. what a kind and loving person she was! she taught us the 'golden rule' by pretending to put on a pair of gloves. as we placed the glove on the first finger, we would say 'do', the second finger, 'unto', the third finger 'others'. because we didn't have enough fingers to complete the rule, we had to button on the gloves in order to say 'unto you'. it might be a good idea to put on those same gloves on when we choose how to treat ourselves. i think the gloves will fit... well... like a glove.
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