Self-Compassion Feels Illegal (But I’m Doing It Anyway)
The year I stopped being an emotional bouncer and let myself in.
This year I did something reckless.
Not the kind of reckless that lands you in jail or on TikTok with a neck tattoo. Worse.
I started being nice to myself.
If you’ve ever lived with a brain that runs like a hostile corporation—constant audits, zero PTO—you know what a mutiny this is.
Old Operating System
Here’s what life looked like before:
Rest: Failure.
Mistakes: Proof you didn’t deserve a chair at the table.
Belonging: Something you earned by tap-dancing through everyone else’s needs.
My self-talk had all the warmth of a fluorescent interrogation room. And creativity? Forget it. I hoarded drafts like a paranoid raccoon because “it’s not profound enough” was my personal NDA.
The Shift
Somewhere between a snowstorm in Prescott and hitting “publish” on Substack, something cracked. And then there was that one moment I didn’t expect at all—someone looked at me like I wasn’t just useful code. Like they actually saw the jokes, the weariness, the human. That mirror didn’t last forever, but it was enough to flip a switch.
Whatever the cause, I started practicing what I once mocked as woo-woo nonsense:
self-compassion.
And before you picture yoga mats and Himalayan salt lamps, let me tell you what it actually looked like.
What It Actually Looked Like
Self-compassion isn’t bubble baths and cursive affirmations. It’s this:
Rest
Then: Lazy.
Now: Necessary. I can nap without drafting a justification memo.
Mistakes
Then: A typo = existential crisis.
Now: “Oops. Fixed it.” (The earth continues to spin.)
Creative Work
Then: Graveyard of unpublished drafts.
Now: Two children’s book manuscripts, a Substack rhythm, and a short story idea that might break me in the best way.
Feelings
Then: “I shouldn’t feel this way.”
Now: “Well, I do. Let’s write about it.”
Why It Feels Dangerous
Because it rewires everything.
It burns down the old script where my worth was measured in hustle, usefulness, and apologies. It scares the part of me that believed shame was character and guilt was glue.
And danger is addictive, isn’t it? Once you taste what it’s like to live without that chokehold, you want more. You start scanning for the next false rule to break, the next cage to walk out of. The risk stops being terrifying and starts feeling like oxygen.
Honestly, it’s the riskiest thing I’ve done all year.
If I keep this up, I won’t just survive—I’ll startle the hell out of the version of me that thought suffering was a personality trait.
