Be Kind To Yourself.

Today I learned something.

I'm much kinder to others than I am to myself.

I didn't really apply what I wrote last Friday to myself very well over the weekend, but I will save that for a Friday ramble. I'm still processing it.

processing with my art journal using chalk inks, old photos, copic markers and stamps.

But Monday, a little lesson hit home. 

I was sitting in the radiology department for a chest X-ray. One of those, "let's do this just cause we don't want to miss anything "kind of X-rays in the long road to figuring out my heart palpitations. Anyway, I was sitting, waiting for the nurse to escort back one other patient and as 

the patient was maneuvering herself  on crutches toward the chair next to me..she fell. One of those holy-cow-she's -going-down-without-anything-to-braek-the-fall kinda falls. Those are just down right scary. So what ended up breaking her fall was my wrist and her crutch. 

Ouch.

She took a few seconds to register what had happened and then said , " I'm o.k. Ohhhh, that hurt." and began to cry. The nurse and I got her up and all I could do was rub her back and say, "oh....oh. Oh... Oh. So sorry...oh.." you get the picture. What else do you say to someone you don't know that has splatted down in front of/on you?

As I went into the X-ray I looked over at my new friend and I must have looked concerned/still panicked, which must have still been enormously embarrassing for her because she shortly said, "I'm o.k."
 I totally get it. Don't look at her anymore, she has had enough humiliation.
.

Have you heard of Uppercase Magazine? Holy moly. So full of creativity and cool lettering for journaling.

But here's the deal-io, as Brenna would say.

A sweet friend said to me that I need to treat myself like I would  treat this woman in X-ray.
 I'm guessing this would be along the same lines as being kind to your best mental patient self, like I wrote about here.

Could I treat my best clumsy, awkward, I don't know how to maneuver crutches self nicely?
More than likely, I would tell myself some not nice things out of pain and embarrassment.


 Can you imagine to another and saying, "Seriously? You couldn't get yourself in that chair without falling all over a complete stranger. Oh my WORD."
Good Lord, I would hope we wouldn't do that.

So what IF we said to ourselves, "Oh. Ohhhh. I am SO sorry. That must have hurst. You'll be o.k., don't worry."

Once we start loving ourselves, it makes it oh so much easier to love others. I know

 this. Really I do, but its more head than heart knowledge.

 

the friends in this photo? they love each other. i can tell.

Oh, wait.
 Then there's the whole thing of accepting love from a God who says he will take me just as I am: falling down, clumsy -crutch needing me.

It's a tough thing to do when you are hell bent on getting yourself up by your own bootstraps.

I think the boots aren't fitting so well anymore...