I’ll never forget the conversation I had, over a decade ago now, with a couple of friends from vet school whilst sat in one of their kitchens. I can even still picture the kitchen fairly clearly, the crockery drying on the washing up rack and my friend making us a cup of tea. One of them was telling me how she’d read an email a colleague was writing, I think she’d seen it as she walked past one of the consult room computers. The email was one of reassurance, affirming statements, support, encouragement and then she’d realised the colleague was sending this email to herself…
Both friends laughed at this, made fun of the colleague, thought it seemed ridiculous and pathetic, I don’t think they were even kind enough to pity her at that moment.
I sat there slightly frozen, I’d struggled with my mental health, I knew what it was like to question how you were going to make it through the day. Really not sure what to say in this moment I shared how I’d recently joined a Facebook group where several of us had offered our spare rooms to anyone struggling. Again they made faces and laughed, thinking it seemed a bit weird, a bit extreme.
Fast forward to the present day and I want to say that both people involved would react differently now – they may not still have a full understanding of it but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t laugh in the same way these days. I think their behaviour at the time was a reflection of just how bad the stigma was around anyone who might have been struggling and I like to think we have seen a significant change over the last 10 years. They’re not bad or unkind people, just people who didn’t get it or know a different way to react.
As for me… I often think of the email this veterinary professional was writing and wonder if we wouldn’t all be doing a fair bit better if we wrote supportive messages to ourselves more often?
I say this not only from the reflection on my own experience but also the experiences of friends, colleagues and now my wonderful coaching clients. Time and time again I hear stories from people who are stuck, struggling, lost or having a bit of a wobble and one of the most common themes is the lack of self-belief and harsh self-criticism.
This also isn’t just me – there’s a lot of evidence these days that points to the benefits of self-compassion, talking more kindly and encouragingly to yourself and not clinging so tightly to what your inner-critic wants to tell you.
Wherever you might be in your career, whatever challenge you might be faced with I’m wondering what would it be like to write something to yourself? Some words of support. A reminder of how capable you are. Perhaps an idea of what you could tell yourself when those automatic negative thoughts creep in?
Oh and as for the worries that you might have people laughing about you behind your back if you were to do any of these things… Trust me, I get it. I also know that their reaction normally says far more about them than it does about you/me.
Again this isn’t me making stuff up, this is based on multiple psychological theories. People often react through the lens of their own emotions, experiences, insecurities, and personality traits rather than objective reality. If anything, we could question what happened to them that made them believe that ridicule rather than compassion was the best response here? Seems kind of sad to me.
So if you can recognise that maybe your thoughts are more geared towards the negative at the moment, the “I can’t cope/ I’m not good enough / everyone else is doing better than me” type of thoughts. Can I invite you to just give it a go – write something somewhere. It could be on a beautiful card that you post to yourself, it could be on a scrap of paper that lives in the depths of your bag but you know it’s there, it could be an email, it could be in the notes app on your phone. Just some small words of encouragement can go a long way.