3421: Kindsight by Eric Teplitz on Self Compassion, Personal Growth and Emotional Healing

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[00:00:30] This is Optimal Living Daily. Kindsight by Eric Teplitz of ericteplitz.com. And I'm Justin Malik, the guy that reads you articles or book excerpts covering personal development or self-help, how to live a better life and a lot more. It's always with permission from the authors or websites. And with that, let's get right to it as we optimize your life. Kindsight by Eric Teplitz of ericteplitz.com.

[00:01:01] Have you ever noticed it can be far easier to treat other people with kindness than to do the same for yourself? You might be able to hold great compassion in your heart for others as they face life's difficulties, yet be merciless toward yourself whenever you feel you have fallen short in some way. Why is this? Why do we internally beat ourselves up in ways we would never think of outwardly doing to someone else?

[00:01:25] Back in the 90s, Chris Farley captured this phenomenon brilliantly in a recurring comedy sketch called The Chris Farley Show on Saturday Night Live. If you've never seen it, google the segment in which he interviews Paul McCartney.

[00:01:38] In the sketch, Farley plays a version of himself who is endearingly sweet but nervous to the hilt as he interviews his celebrity guests. His character gets so upset over his own performance as interviewer, he literally smacks himself on the head and berates himself out loud for asking such stupid questions. His guests have to reassure him he is doing fine just so he can proceed with the interview.

[00:02:02] The sketch was lastingly impactful because, through the genius of Farley's physical comedy, he laid bare a nearly universal psychological experience of self-denigration.

[00:02:14] While it may seem obvious that treating ourselves this way is unhelpful, counterproductive, and even harmful, it can be a hard habit to shake.

[00:02:24] Something I've noticed upon revisiting old journals of mine is that I seem to be able to generate a great deal more compassion and understanding for my younger self now than I was able to do for myself at the time.

[00:02:37] I could, and did, judge myself harshly for perceived mistakes and flaws, when now I'm able to see things a bit differently.

[00:02:46] I could see, for instance, how needs of mine were not being met, and so of course I behaved the way I did.

[00:02:53] I could see how I had not yet built certain psychological muscles and had not yet had the benefit of more life experience, so of course I was less skillful in certain areas.

[00:03:03] I could see how I could not predict the future, but still can't.

[00:03:06] And so how was I to know certain things?

[00:03:09] I'm also able to give myself a lot more credit for things I was able to do and accomplish, in spite of what were, at times, trying circumstances.

[00:03:18] I can actually be impressed with my younger self now over things I did not fully appreciate about myself then.

[00:03:25] I have a theory about all of this.

[00:03:27] Just as it is hard to have the presence of mind to say or do the perfect thing in the moment you are having a particular experience or encounter,

[00:03:36] it often occurs to you hours later, right?

[00:03:38] I think it is harder to be kind to yourself in the midst of difficulty than it is to do so later on,

[00:03:45] or when the difficulty is otherwise being experienced outside of yourself,

[00:03:49] say by another person or even fictional character in a movie or TV show.

[00:03:55] In other words, it seems there's a relationship wherein a certain amount of distance optimizes our ability to be compassionate.

[00:04:03] That distance may take the form of physical and or mental or emotional separation from the pain being experienced.

[00:04:11] This would explain why it might be easier to have compassion for a younger version of yourself,

[00:04:16] since in a sense, that younger version is a different person from the you that you are right now.

[00:04:23] The term I use for this phenomenon is kind sight.

[00:04:27] I thought I had coined it myself years ago, but a quick Google search suggests otherwise.

[00:04:31] Kind sight to me is the ability through the gift of hindsight to look back with greater compassion and kindness toward oneself and or others.

[00:04:42] The wisdom derived from your own lived experiences combined with the distance provided by the passage of time

[00:04:48] can allow you to see through more understanding eyes and a more loving heart,

[00:04:53] how you or someone who may have hurt you did the best they could at the time,

[00:04:57] given the resources they had or lacked within themselves.

[00:05:01] Kind sight can allow you to release some of the baggage from the past

[00:05:05] that may be weighing you down and move productively forward.

[00:05:09] I believe the world would benefit from a lot more kind sight.

[00:05:13] In order to move on from our own mistakes, be they real or imagined or presumed,

[00:05:18] we must be able to forgive ourselves and love the person who made them.

[00:05:23] We must afford ourselves the same understanding and compassion we would give to any other person

[00:05:28] we deeply care about, more in some sense, that we would even bestow upon a complete stranger.

[00:05:34] Take a moment today and offer yourself a generous heaping of kind sight.

[00:05:39] A younger version of you buried deep within might just be yearning for it.

[00:05:48] You just listened to the post titled,

[00:05:50] Kind sight by Eric Teplitz of ericteplitz.com

[00:05:54] and I'll be right back with my commentary.

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[00:07:07] Thank you to Eric for this post.

[00:07:09] He brings up a really good point about looking at old journals.

[00:07:13] Just like him, I would guess that if you had a journal from,

[00:07:16] let's say, 10 years ago and you read it today,

[00:07:19] you'd probably feel more compassionate, understanding,

[00:07:23] and want to sort of calm your previous self down in that moment,

[00:07:27] explaining that everything will be fine.

[00:07:30] It's okay to make a mistake.

[00:07:31] You know, basically words of encouragement.

[00:07:33] But in the moment of actually writing that journal,

[00:07:36] it's a different story.

[00:07:39] You're living in that moment and unable to see it from an outside perspective.

[00:07:42] But 10 years later, it feels like an outside perspective since so many things have changed.

[00:07:48] You have changed.

[00:07:49] And just understanding this, this thing called kind sight,

[00:07:52] might just help us be more compassionate towards ourselves today.

[00:07:56] So I appreciate Eric's words of wisdom.

[00:07:58] Hopefully this one can have a positive impact on you today.

[00:08:01] Have a great day.

[00:08:02] Thank you for listening and being here.

[00:08:04] And I'll see you back here tomorrow as usual,

[00:08:07] where optimal life awaits.