Giving Yourself a Friendly Hearing

We strive to be good to our friends and lend a listening ear to our loved ones, yet can treat ourselves like a terrible boss at the smallest mishap. Philosopher and psychotherapist Eugene Gendlin reminds us that our inner-selves also need friendliness and a fair hearing when we fall short.

"If you are like most, you have treated yourself less like a friend than like a roommate you don’t like.

You grumble at yourself, insult yourself, get impatient with yourself when things go wrong.

You construct a model of the ideal person you wish you were, and then you condemn yourself because you are imperfect as measured against that ideal. “Oh, I’m just lazy,” you insult yourself.

'If I really wanted to get somewhere I’d work harder. I set up these good goals for myself and then I back off and flounder and make excuses.'

And so the lecture goes. Until you have focused, you haven’t sat down and asked in a quiet and friendly way what is really there."

-Eugene Gendlin in his book, "Focusing"

Warm regards,

-Mariya