Have you ever seen one of those memes that asks, “If you could go back and give three words of advice to your eighteen-year old self, what would it be?”

Of course, some people say, “Buy Apple shares,” or “Get into property,” but mine’s much simpler, “Just shut up.”

When I think back in embarrassment over all the things I’ve got wrong in my life, it’s mostly the things I’ve said that I kick myself over. If only I’d just kept my mouth shut, I wouldn’t squirm every time I think of those particular incidents.

We all have that critical voice inside us, the one that constantly harangues us over our faults, misdeeds and those times we should have done something and didn’t.

A friend of mine has given her inner critic a personality. She calls it “Fag Ash Lil.” She visualises Lil, standing, thin and bleached blonde, hipshot, one hand supporting the elbow of the other, while she lifts a cigarette to the pinched painted lips below inimical eyes.” When my friend described her, we could all see her, and suddenly, the steam of invective coming from those lips didn’t seem so bad. How could we take Fag Ash Lil seriously? She’s a figure for pity, not one to heed.

If I were to visualise my inner critic, I think it would look more like Jabba the Hutt; a squat, toad-like creature, but the constant criticism would be the same.

Last week a very kind comment on my blog about goals suggested I was too hard on myself and that I should take a couple of days a week where I didn’t beat myself up. I think that’s very sound advice. I think Saturdays and Sundays would be good days. Those are the days where I don’t have so much time anyway – and Jabba only comes out when I have time to think!

But back to saying the wrong thing. I never mean to get it wrong – I never mean to be nasty or critical, to dominate a conversation or to make it all about me (although these blogs inevitably feel like that). Staying silent would be hard. In an online course I recently attended, there were questions asked. Only two of the twelve of us regularly answered, but the idea – from both of us – was to make it easier for others to contribute. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes ours were the only voices, which was both sad and frustrating, because I would have liked to have heard what the others thought about what we had been learning.

At over sixty I think I’m beginning to accept that we are all human, including me. There is no imperative anywhere that says that I alone need to be perfect. None of us need to be perfect, we just all need to do our best. And when we are critical of ourselves, I think it’s helpful to visualise that inner voice and give Jabba and Fag Ash Lil a couple of days off.

Mary

A Moodscope member