A Bowl Full of Blessing
I am unbelievably hard on myself. I make critical judgments of myself. I take personally the critical judgments of others. I have unrealistic expectations and chastise myself when I fail to live up to them. I also chastise myself when I fail to live up to the expectations of others. Essentially, I tend to lack compassion for myself. When I got sick in November of 2011, I initially assumed that I’d caught a virus and beat myself up for not washing my hands better since I worked in a room full of toddlers. After a week had passed and I was still ill, I beat myself up for not having kicked the virus yet and cursed my weak immune system. But then two weeks had gone by, and then three, and then four. Some days I woke up feeling perfect and rejoiced that I’d finally won the war with that stupid virus only to discover that the symptoms returned in a day or two (three or four days if I was lucky.) I was fooled by this cycle over and over. Two months passed. I...