I remember hearing about this in a podcast (agh, I cannot remember which one, perhaps the one with 616? On Spotify). It's a beautiful and sad story where he shares about his last visit with Terry and how he managed to quit smoking. (They connect, I promise. I'll have to try to find the episode.)
What really struck me personally was the way that he did it: by placing a carton of cigarettes in the freezer, so that if he ever decided he was done quitting and wanted to say "f%#@ it, I'm getting a cigarette", the option was there.
To me, dealing with some addiction issues of my own, what this was was permission. It was taking this part of the self, the part that I personally detest, that I regard as weak and gluttonous and hungry, always hungry, it was taking that part and saying that it was okay that it was there.
I have a container of edibles and a bottle of whiskey in the freezer now.
And I'm not fixed, I'm not healed; I'm just better. Thanks to his sharing that story, I got to do the same. I stopped fighting myself so much, and just took those parts of me and held them. They're here. They're never going away. But that's all that they are, all that they have to be. There.
I'm not punching myself and being surprised at the welts anymore.
I think this relates to a problem that we can all relate to.
Because whether we like it or not, we have ugly thoughts. Ugly feelings. We look at a stranger and we are automatically on guard because they represent the possibility of any negative outcome. Because they are not familiar and therefore not safe (biological instinct). We look at ourselves in the mirror and hate what we see. The weight, the marks, the twists in the wrong places, the hair that will never be tamed. We watch someone fall apart and hate ourselves because there's nothing we can do but watch and tell them that we love them. We fight with teeth and words because somehow we think that will help us. We have so many instincts seared into our folds, and not all of them are appropriate anymore.
There is nothing we can do about quite a lot of it. And yet we still detest it. We look at the freckle on our arm and it is an enemy because it is there. We look at the instinctual fear and hate ourselves further.
What Neil taught me, with sharing this story, is that we can hold these things without making them anymore than what they are. Just a carton of cigarettes in the freezer. Just an addiction. Just a freckle. Just an instinct that can be worked past, and suddenly a stranger is a friend.
We cannot make the things we dislike about ourselves the enemy without making ourselves into one.
When I heard that story, it inspired me to look at the mirror and just accept what I saw. That I am what I am.
And it doesn't mean I don't want to be better: I do. Always. But it means that I have a starting ground to improve, and I'm not fighting myself in doing it.
So thank you, Neil, for sharing the ways you've learned to hold yourself.
And thank you, for listening.
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