I use shaving as part of my self care routine. I always feel better after shaving .I think I look better and I know I have done something for me. However, even after doing that I sometimes still can't shake some negative thought.
Story Time
Human beings love stories, it is how we learn ideas. When we want to learn something, facts are great, but when we want to teach someone, stories are a much better way to open up their minds.
This backfires on us because we often tell ourselves only part of the story, the part that has the most emotional effect but it might not be the whole story.
Correct and Accurate
The stories that we tell ourselves can be correct from a certain point of view but still not accurate. For instance, you might love playing for your social basketball team, it could be the highlight of your week.
However, this week, you lost, and like me you are a very competitive. It makes you feel bad that you didn't win. You go over every play in your head thinking of what you could do differently. The loss is part of the story, but not the whole story. You might have lost but maybe you did play really well. Maybe you did everything you could and still lost.
The full story is that you played really well and uncovered other things to work on but despite that, you unfortunately lost. It will happen. You can do everything right and still lose and you will see people do everything wrong and yet somehow succeed (some people fall upwards).
All we can do is be kind to ourselves and try to tell the most accurate and complete story and they will have ups and downs, which is just life.
Moment of Gratitude
Because of covid, I haven't been able to see my big sister who lives in Australia. During covid she had her first child, who I also haven't met. This weekend she flew over to Wellington to introduce the newest member of the family to dad so I flew down to Wellington as well.
There was a big elaborate plan to sneak in my sister to surprise dad. I was also meant to be a surprise but was coming in much later. I knew that the grandson was the surprise and the excitement, I had no illusions on that, I was just a nice bonus.
It was lovely to see the little fella, he is nearly walking and thankfully when he did sleep in hit his head on the table it wasn't under my watch.
Shave well, be awesome, be kind to yourself and try to tell accurate stories.
Luke
