Embracing My Flexible Self-View
I’d be the first to admit that, growing up and in my early adulthood, I would not have won any awards for my ‘flexible self-view’! I was infinitely self-critical, defensive, and my self-confidence was pretty low. When something went wrong or I was at fault, my snap reaction would be deflect and blame someone else. The thought that I had done something wrong brought up so many negative thoughts and feelings, I could feel almost sick; my coping strategy became avoiding accountability and blaming others.
I can pinpoint the moment this started to change and when I started to be a little kinder to myself. I wish I could remember the exact source (it may well have been social media), but the gist of the visualisation exercise is as follows:
“Imagine present-you standing in front of younger-you, and showing them empathy and kindness. Picture your current-self wrapping your arms around your past-self, and reassuring them that they were doing the best they could. Show younger-you compassion, and forgive their mistakes.”
Being able to forgive my past self was a real revelation to me! Seeing, but not getting caught up in, my difficult past-self stories and knowing that whatever I had done in the past, I had been doing the best I could at the time. We are continually learning and growing, and I’m sure most of us can look back and think of many things in our lives we would now do differently. But we are different people now – we’ve learnt and experienced more about the world, about others, and about ourselves. We think and feel differently than our ‘past-self’, just as our ‘future-self’ will in 5 years, 1 year, and even 1 week from now.
The take home message for me was that I had the power to respond differently to my critical self-narrative. I could notice and accept my ‘berating mind’ when it showed up, remember to engage my ‘flexible self-view’, and let go of the anguish I had been carrying, safe in the knowledge that I have the power to do better moving forward. Every day is a new opportunity to commit to acting in line with those things which are important to us - and dwelling on pain about things we’ve done in the past is probably not helping to do this!
When I think about the positive influence this has had on my wellbeing over the past few years, I am truly excited about the possibilities for the young people who get to learn this skill – the Flexible Self-View - from the word go! Empowering the next generation to avoid the self-inflicted mental turmoil so many of us adults put ourselves through, and freeing them to focus fully on living a life they want with a sense of self-worth, joy and vitality.
Emily Goyen is a consultant behaviour analyst with 10 years experience supporting children and young adults with developmental disabilities. Her interest in mindfulness and mental wellbeing approaches began after finishing university, and these have shaped her personal and professional development since. She is passionate about improving emotional resilience and psychological flexibility for the next generation. Emily is Director of Operations at Connect PSHE.