Week 07 Tuesday Task: An object?

[rejectionchallenge]

Cameron suggests that you make this phrase a mantra, or motto if you don't do mantras: Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong.

I'm not super-keen on being an object, even to myself (how does that work?) and didn't much feel like having Gollum's voice in my head all day anyway, so I encourage you to adjust this phrase to better suit what actually makes you strong.

Cameron's idea here is that we think that being hard on ourselves will make us strong, but sometimes it just smashes and bruises us. Sometimes being kind to ourselves makes us strong. I agree with this even though I have trouble living by it. But I can't really jump on board with "precious object."

If you have a phrase that works for you, watercolor or crayon or calligraph your phrase and post it where you will see it daily. You can be as hard on Cameron as you want to this week, but go easy on yourself.

Did you do your morning pages today?

Comments

[arguablylost]

Wow, I really drew back from the idea of calling myself a precious object. That was uncomfortable.

[inkdust]

I will let Cameron keep her precious object and counter with Mary Oliver. "You do not have to be good." http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_wildgeese.html

Instruction to kindness without the weird.

[perfectworry]

I don't like the phrasing of treating oneself "like an object" (how odd; it also reinforces, to me, that her target audience is apolitical, probably middle+/upper class, women), but I see what she's going for here, and being gentle with yourself instead of always "tough love" is important. I mentioned in previous comments that I once mostly stopped eating because I felt like I was "wasting" that money and basically didn't "deserve" good food. Spoiler: it made things worse, not better.

I'm trying to think of a constructive way to revise her mantra, without the "precious object" part. I like the poem inkdust linked to, "You don't have to be good." I'm not religious, but I do like this line from Psalm 139:14: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made."