Rory is in terrible physical pain on the day of her big presentation.
She's really upset about it.
“I’m so pathetic to have manifested this now. I should be enjoying this moment and yet here I am, incapacitated. I just can’t let myself have the good stuff I create. I’m so angry with myself. And it really hurts!”
I'm wincing in empathy with her physical pain, but even more so, I'm wincing from her emotional pain.
It’s painful to listen to her be so unkind to herself.
I venture to ask her the Love question, unsure as to whether she can even hear it in this moment of self-flagellation, but surprisingly she does.
She asks me to explain a bit more and then she’s quiet for a while, thinking.
After some deep silence she says: “If I loved myself, I would tell myself, ‘It’s OK.’”
Her answer seems so short and simple I’m not sure she’s understood the concept...
But then she adds,
“It’s OK that I got hurt at this time.
It’s OK.
I’m not bad or stupid.
It’s just where I am right now. It’s my pattern. I’m working on it. It’s OK. I’m OK.”
Being kind to yourself when your body isn’t functioning the way you wish can be really hard.
But being unkind to yourself because you judge it for being the way it is, can be even harder.
If you loved yourself, what kind thing would you say to yourself about your body and health now?
