Five-time Oscar-nominated actress Amy Adams stars in a new HBO series that began this fall. It is entitled Sharp Objects. She plays Camille Preaker, a journalist with a dark past, whose life is filled with unresolved family trauma. About her character and her own life, Adams said recently, “I don’t have the same darkness and depth of internal anger, but that sort of sadness that drives you to be unkind to yourself? I think I have that.”[1]
Let’s unpack her words for a moment. The character she portrays, Camille Preaker, has a dark past, unresolved family trauma, and a depth of internal anger. I don’t think we need advanced degrees in psychology to understand how such a person could develop a tendency toward self-unkindness. But what about the actress, Amy Adams, not the character she portrays? She has a “sort of sadness” that drives her to be unkind to herself. “A sort of sadness?” If that is all it takes to develop that tendency toward self-unkindness, there is a good chance that we are all in that boat.
For those of you who did not hear all of my three previous sermons this High Holy Day season, I am focusing on kindness. I started broadly, with kindness to the environment. Then, I spoke on kindness to strangers. Last night was on kindness to intimates.
As I moved from the broad to the narrow, it makes sense that I would end with a sermon on kindness to oneself. And let me say, this has been the hardest one for me to write. Why? Because it hits so close to home. Amy Adams is right. No one is immune from treating oneself unkindly.
Do a Google search on unkindness toward oneself and you’ll get all kinds of hits: Silencing Your Inner Critic: You Don’t Need to Torture Yourself to Grow, The Self Kindness Project, and The Cost of Self Unkindness are just some of the articles I found.
They all have the same theme. If written in the first person, it’s, “I hated myself my whole life. I was miserable. And here the steps I took to turn my life around.” If written objectively, it’s, “You don’t have to hate yourself. You don’t have to be miserable. And here the steps you can take to turn your life around.”
Sounds easy, right? But it’s so hard.
And yet, if we are going end the cycle of self-unkindness, if we are going to break away from old habits that hurt so much, if we are going to accept that we have suffered pains and losses that have led us to treat ourselves to harshly, then we have to confront our past, grab onto its proverbial bull horns, and shout at it, “you will no longer control me and how I see myself.”
The German writer Hermann Hesse, can guide us with this. He wrote, “You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation … and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it; do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.”[2]
In Judaism, two concepts, two mitzvot, form the core of how Jews must behave in relation to others. The first is chesed, meaning with “love.” The second is rachamim, meaning with “compassion.” From these two, we get the idea of gimilut chasadim, meaning “acts of loving-kindness.” One of the prayers from our morning liturgy, Eilu D’varim, identifies the ten mitzvot for which there is no reward in this world for performing. One is gimilut chasadim.
If loving kindness is so important for us as Jews, and we know it’s how we must relate to others, then why can’t we turn it inward and treat ourselves with that same loving kindness?
Rabbi Yechezkel ben Yehuda Landau,[3] in writing about sin, concluded that God forgives everything. Think about that. No matter what we do wrong, no matter how far we have strayed from the right path, God is willing to forgive us.
And yet, even when we have done nothing wrong, we still beat ourselves up, simply for being.
We remember the voices of parents, grandparents, teachers, rabbis, and others who told us we were not good enough, we were a disappointment, and we’d never get it right.
Last year, on our Yom Kippur forgiveness cards, members of this community sought forgiveness from God for:
being so closed off I don’t even know what I am feeling.
feeling unworthy and undeserving.
not taking responsibility for myself.
not believing I was strong enough.
struggling with forgiving myself.
S’licha is the Hebrew word meaning “forgiveness.” The author David Blumenthal reminds us, “It is an act of the heart.”[4]
I don’t know about you, but a lot of stuff sits in my head. I might get it up here [point to head], but there seems to be a roadblock to bringing it down here [point to heart]. I have been trying to figure out how we can clear up that roadblock.
The author Kristin Neff, in her book Self Compassion, writes, “Whenever I notice something about myself I don’t like or whenever something goes wrong in my life, I silently repeat the following phrases:
This is a moment of suffering.
Suffering is a part of life.
May I be kind to myself in this moment.
May I give myself the compassion I need.[5]
And whenever she feels inadequate, she repeats these words:
May I be safe.
May I be peaceful.
May I be kind to myself.
May I accept myself as I am.[6]
Let’s hear these again:
This is a moment of suffering.
Suffering is a part of life.
May I be kind to myself in this moment.
May I give myself the compassion I need.
May I be safe.
May I be peaceful.
May I be kind to myself.
May I accept myself as I am.
Can you say these words or something similar to yourself? I know it seems hard. But what other choice do we have?
There’s a website called Brave Girls Club. You can subscribe to their Daily Email Truths, many of which begin with the words: “Dear Tender-Hearted Soul.” This work of self-kindness requires all of our heart and all of our soul. We have a phrase for that in Hebrew: b’chol l’vav’cha uv’chol nafsh’cha. These words may sound familiar.
That’s because they are from the V’ahavta, the paragraph we chant after the Sh’ma. The V’ahavta is about love – yes, love of God with all your heart and all your soul – but how can we love God if we cannot love ourselves?
A character named Hernando in the Netflix show called Sense8 reminds us: “In the end, we will all be judged by the courage of our hearts.”
Kindness to ourselves requires that courage within our hearts, usually accompanied by deep change, starting with how we think. The writer Tak, who maintains the website The Intuitive Elephant teaches us: “If we can change our thoughts, we can change what we say. If we can change our words we use, we can change what we do. If we can change our actions, we can change how we live. So by changing our thoughts, we can change our lives.”
In a Cherokee tale, a grandfather is talking with his grandson. The older man tells the younger that there are two wolves inside each of us, which are always at battle. One is a good wolf. It represents things like self-kindness, self-compassion, and self-love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like self-criticism and self-hate. The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second; then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?” The grandfather replies, “The one you feed.”
We can start any time to change. The longer we wait, however, the more we punish ourselves. And as we begin this process, we must always remember that it is exactly that: a process. It won’t happen overnight, in a week, or even a month. We have spent a lifetime feeding the bad wolf. It’s hungry. When we stop feeding it, it is not likely to walk away quietly. It will continue to run toward us, expecting food. Resisting will take a lot of effort. We will have moments of success and moments when we back track.
Be kind to yourself when you hit a snag and say things about yourself that are unkind. Think about the voice of your GPS. It remains calm, even when you miss your exit or make a wrong turn. It never reprimands you. I often expect mine to call me an Idiot. She never does. She simply recalculates the route. Imagine if we could do that for ourselves.
The negativity comes up, we “know” better, we try to put the thoughts out of our mind, but we can’t. What if instead, when the negativity comes up, we take a deep breath and say to ourselves, “just recalculate, just recalculate.”
I know that this won’t work for everyone. So find something that will work for you. The author Banu Sekendur suggests that you find three things to do to be kind to yourself. She gives the examples of “I will say ‘I love you’ to myself ten times a day” or “Everyday I will look at myself in the mirror and identify what I like about myself before I leave the house.” Whatever it is, make sure it reflects you. If you find it’s not working, don’t abandon the effort and start feeding the bad wolf again. Just recalculate. Find something that does work.
And remember this: The same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. Life is about what you’re made of, not the circumstances. You are strong. You would not have made it this far in your life, flaws and all, if you were not.
There’s another truth to remember. No one is judging you, except you. No one is obsessed with what is wrong with you other than you.
Brianna Wiest reminds us, “Every time you’re convinced the world is plotting against you, when it seems like every last person you know has the same, recurring thought that’s humiliating and awful toward you, remember that people are predominantly … concerned about themselves … [just] like you are, [at this very moment].
Also remember that you don’t have to do this alone. If you need a therapist, find a therapist. I maintain a list of professionals who can offer help – professionals recommended by therapists and clients in our community. If no one on my list can help you, I’ll reach out and see if I can find other referrals.
Also, if you need medication – anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, or something else – don’t be reluctant to find a psychiatrist or other doctor who can prescribe it for you. Using a therapist or taking medication is not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of being strong to get the help you need. Letting your pride or ego or fear of vulnerability keep you from getting the help – that’s the weakness.
Here is a final something to keep in mind: It is not selfish to focus on yourself and be kind to yourself, not matter what the voices in your head say. You might hear your judgmental or narcissistic parent telling you that it’s not about you – that it’s about them – and how dare you focus on you. You know what? That voice is wrong. It is about you, at least at the outset. You can’t focus on others until you help yourself. Flight attendants remind us of that every time we hear the safety instructions about the oxygen masks.
We are in the season of t’shuvah, turning or changing ourselves to become the people we want to be or we know we can be. We will never be perfect. We can’t be. We are human. Flaws will remain.
But we still can make changes.
T’shuvah involves many steps. The final stage of t’shuvah is accepting who we are and realizing that our flaws make us unique. Our challenge in life is not to hide who we are, hide our inner voice, or live like other people, but to become more like ourselves.
The great Chasidic master, the Ba’al Shem Tov taught, “Compare yourself not with anyone else, lest you spoil God’s curriculum.”
One of my favorite Chasidic stories involves Rav Zusya. He was old and dying. His disciples came to visit him and found him crying. “Zusya, what’s the matter? Are you in pain?” they asked.
“No, I’m not in pain.” He then told them about a vision he had: “I learned the question that God will one day ask me about my life.”
His followers were puzzled. “Zusya, you are pious. You are scholarly and humble. You have raised many disciples and have taken care of us. What question about your life could be so terrifying that you would be frightened to answer it?”
Zusya replied, “I have learned that God will not ask me, ‘Zusya, why weren’t you more like Moses, leading your people out of slavery?’ And I learned that God will not ask me, ‘Zusya, why weren’t you more like Joshua, leading your people into the Promised Land?’”
“Then what will God ask you?” his students cried out. Zusya sighed and said, “God will say to me, ‘Zusya, why weren’t you more like Zusya?’”
No matter what we think of ourselves, no matter what we see when we look in the mirror, we are all children of God with so much to offer. The poet Marianne Williamson teaches us this in her affirming poem, Our Deepest Fear.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves
who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small
does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine,
as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us;
it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
Life is process. Making changes in our lives is a process. Our souls are not the cold perfection of diamond, but the tumultuous organic stuff of creation. We struggle, forgive, take risks, succeed, fail, look in the mirror, turn away from the mirror, mourn who we were, and celebrate who we have become. As we let go of internal the voice that is cruel and punishing and unkind, we can weave the uncertainties of life, the shadows, the flaws, and the imperfections into the quilt of being – a beautiful quilt because it is a real quilt; a work of art, which says hineini, I am here and I deserve to be.
Shanah tovah.
[1]Interviewed in the Independent, July 2, 2018
[2]Wer lieben kann, ist glücklich. Über die Liebe
[3]18th century Poland
[4]Repentance and Forgiveness,” David R. Blumenthal, Cross Currents.
[5]Page 119
[6]Page 202