Over the years, I’ve learned that forgiving myself for a variety of seemingly terrible things is key to my emotional sanity and well being. This goes along with everything we thought we knew about living a “good” life and getting what we wanted out of life. Forgiving myself for breaking those boundaries that I had ingrained my mind was crucial to realizing my full potential.
I forgave myself for resting a lot. Sleeping in is one of my favorite things to do, and when you’re living the life of a renegade, you’ll hopefully realize how much rest is needed to energize yourself, and take advantage of it. Well, I should say how much MORE rest is needed. In the corporate environment, I was always trying to sneak in a nap when I got home from work, but the difference is that now I don’t beat myself up for taking them. I can’t believe how many times I called myself a bag of garbage for how often I overslept or fell asleep right after dinner, only to wake up again at 2 A.M., ready to kickstart my day. You know what I’m talking about. Stuff my face on the couch and 10 minutes later… zzzz
What I do now is sleep in a schedule that comes naturally to my body. That happens to be about 1 A.M. until 11 A.M. And don’t you start judging me now, because you already know I don’t care what you think! When I sleep this glorious, 10-hour routine, I get the most productivity out of my day. This schedule allows me the most energy and mental function I can possibly have. This goes along with doing things in your own time, but since it’s common to feel bad for how much rest you’re getting, I figured it should go into the guilt chapter of the book. I like to think I’m making up for all the times I went to work on 5 hours of sleep after being a ball of stress the night before. About what? Well, work, obviously. The only thing that hit me twice in one punch, keeping me up at night and making me tired the whole next day.
Speaking of guilt, that’s something I’ve given up a lot of, too. Guilt is a terrible feeling that hurts you and you alone. When I was at my mother’s deathbed, we talked a lot about guilt. She brought up things she’d done throughout my life that she felt intense remorse for, and I couldn’t believe she’d been carrying things around with her through all this time in her heavy trunk of life, of which I cared so little about once I heard them. I vowed to stop holding things in the back of the elevator in an endless queue, to keep a clean slate in terms of my emotions.
I’ve also experienced guilt that I wasn’t living the life I was expected to live. Long after my mother’s passing, my dad finally believed I could work for myself. But it took many years and a lot of doubt before I got to this point. During those years, I was afraid I was letting him down by not taking the well-traveled, tried-and-supposedly-true path instead. We had many discussions about health insurance, bi-weekly paychecks, and other “securities” that the well-traveled path held. I knew he had broken down those expectations when I was offered a high-paying salary at another corporation, far away from home. He said, “You aren’t going to take the job, are you?” I think we were finally on the same page that day. Like hell I’m going to give all this up after I (we) knew I could do it on my own.
Forgive yourself when someone judges the decisions you’ve made to enrich your own life. First of all, those bitches are just jealous. But secondly, you’ll find that a lot of people will judge you or be shocked that you’ve taken this obscure, dirt path. It’s really not all that common, and most of the reason it isn’t more common is fear. Fear is our greatest enemy. Fear of disappointing someone that means so much to us. Fear of not getting paid. Fear of never being able to retire because we’re so bad at financial decisions. Fear of actually becoming a full-blown super-actual finger-licking success. Yes, we’re afraid to fail, and we’re also afraid to succeed. Take their surprise as a hint that you’re leading the pack and setting the trends now.
Be able to forgive yourself for losing track of time. Forgetting to open the mail, ignoring voicemails, neglecting your bi-yearly dental appointment. This is all forgivable and these are all things I was anal-retentive about in a former life. There was just something keeping my ass in line back then that is gone now, which I constantly find fascinating. I don’t think I can completely put into words the mind-shift I endured, but I hope this book’s explanation is a close second. Now I’m amused when I remember doing laundry every Sunday, thinking my week would be terrible if I forgot to wash every single clothing item. Sure, that was fun looking at my entire wardrobe at one time — but that was when I cared about what I was going to wear the next day.
Something that has taken me a while to learn is how to forgive myself for mega business blunders. And boy, do I have many examples. I’ve spent tons of money on items that didn’t sell. I’ve spent tons of money on displays for trade shows that didn’t work as my vivid imagination planned for me. And then I spent more money on trying another route, and it failed too. I’ve spent tons of money on advertising that didn’t yield a single return. And those are just examples of what I wasted my money on. I’ve got plenty of failures that didn’t cost me anything except my self-pride. I’ve exhibited at shows that had zero attendees (think: a band playing to an empty arena. Uuuuugh.)
But, there is light at the end of this money hemorrhage tunnel, and that is forgiveness, and tax write offs. I have to tell the condescending, “I told you so” voice inside my head to fuck off, and move on. And keep my receipts.
Your indecisive, messy, unorganized self is perfectly okay just the way it is. Stop beating yourself up for things that are beyond your control, but also for not being interested in doing things that are shitty to do. Be done feeling disappointed in yourself for ignoring something that actually sucks, like poop games at baby showers. There is a reason you don’t want to do it. Because it sucks. It’s not fun. Would you rather pretend it didn’t suck, and then wonder why you were so lazy that you couldn’t bring yourself to do it? Call a spade a spade. Don’t get yourself a guest spot on Hoarders, but it’s not healthy to get down on yourself for dumb stuff. Stop now.
