STOP SLAMMING DOORS ON YOURSELF

08-01-24

This morning, I reached around to shut the garage door and I slammed the door on my toe. 

Blood began to drip from my toenail and over the top of my toe. 

A pool of blood began to collect in my shoe. 

As I hobbled back into the kitchen to grab a paper towel, I thought… (well besides, “FFFK”)… “Wow.”

I am not going to lie.  It hurt like a mofo. 

As the edges of my toenail turned crimson and the pain hit me, I became very aware of how often I hurt myself.

No, I don’t run into walls or shizzle like that.  I’m not a total ditz…(am I?)

What I mean is that, I slam doors in my own face, and shut myself down, hold myself back and set myself back.

I am my own worst enemy.

I have slammed the door on so many amazing opportunities, I am embarrassed to admit it.

I went to a writer’s conference just 2 years ago, to learn how to be a better writer.  And my one piece of writing that was read out loud by the editor during a masterclass, then shared with the founder of the conference, who passed it on to the publishers at the conference, who told me they were interested in working with me to publish it. 

I slammed the door before they could send me their proposal.

See, I am not talking about slamming the door on just my big toe.

I am talking about how easy it has been to hurt myself and then hobble away, missing the entire opportunity to correct it.

This is what I thought at the time the publishers approached me, the second day of the writing conference:

Well, I came here to the conference to learn how to write and now you are telling me you want to publish my work?  Um, I think I need MORE TIME to make this harder…yea, that sounds right.  I’ll have to get back to you when I am actually ready…NEVER.

SLAMMITY SLAM SLAM SLAM!!!!!

I have hurt myself with slamming self-talk:

I’m too old.  Slam.

I’m too slow.  Slam.

I don’t have enough time.  Slam.

I’m not ready.  Slam.

I don’t have money.  Slam.

I don’t know everything about everything.  Slam.

No one knows me.  Slam.

I don’t know how.  Slam. 

I don’t have anything anyone would want.  Slam.

I don’t think I am the only one who does this…

I am talking about the way we slam ourselves over and over again. 

These things hurt us, more than a stubbed toe. 

Slamming ourselves hurts our spirit.

And then injuries appear in many forms.  

Perfectionism. Procrastination. Worry.  Fear.  Depression.  Anxiety.  Stress. Self-hatred.  

And then the bleeding begins:

We sleep too much, or we can’t sleep at all.

We overeat.

We get busier.

We put things off day after day after day into decades.

We overspend.

We waste time, money, energy and focus.

We show up late, or not at all.

We become distracted and lose clarity.

We are no longer reliable or flexible or resilient.

We lack drive.

We cultivate a scarcity mentality.

And we get a bad attitude.

All this slamming causes us to turn against ourselves; slamming the door on our ideas, our creativity, our passion and our dreams.

And eventually, we will become numb.

As I wrapped the bandage around my big toe, it throbbed.  

Just the pressure of the bandage caused it to hurt.  That pain is necessary. 

That pain reminded me that I am injured. 

It reminded me that I have to administer some self-care.  No one else is responsible for me. 

The pain triggered my self-awareness.   

There is little I need to do to heal my toe.  My body is designed to heal itself. 

But the pain helps remind me to be mindful, to take care of my own needs, and not to reinjure myself or make it worse.

Just because I injured my own toe, doesn’t mean that I deserve to make things worse. 

There is no shame in slamming the door on yourself. 

What the pain has allowed me to realize is that I do not want to slam the door on myself anymore. 

I slam the door when I doubt myself. 

Every time I slip doubt into my day, my workflow is interrupted. 

My creativity crumbles and it takes so much to restart and get in the zone.

I slam the door when I judge myself.  I am my worst critic.

I will nitpick until I have eliminated everything.

I literally did this to my eyebrows.  I kept tweezing and picking, one tiny hair at a time, until I almost didn’t have any eyebrows left. 

I did this in one day and now my eyebrows won’t fully grow back in.  I used to have full eyebrows and now I have tiny patches. (Promise you won’t stare at me. I am already mad at myself!!)

My self judgement is a firing squad.

When I put myself under my own scrutiny, I will annihilate my work. 

When I was in school, I had a bad habit of destroying my work after I had completed it so there was no evidence of how terrible it was. (Even when it got an A plus.)   

Ok, hopefully you aren’t this neurotic, and YES, I am working on this.  (Hence, hiring my own coaches to keep me from burning myself down.)

Also, it is important to notice the micro slams. 

You know…

The tiniest of things we do that hurt ourselves and compound over time.

Like not going to get a physical or to the dentist or to get a mammogram or a pap.  Slam.

Hey, if I have to go, so do you.  It’s not fun, but it’s necessary.  And it’s not about finding out if something is wrong.  It’s about a discipline of self-empowerment.

Or like telling yourself you don’t have the money to invest in your development, yet you go to Starbucks every week.  Slam.  Every dollar adds value or takes value away from your life.

Like smoking and drinking.  I know you want to say, Christina, a glass of wine a day is actually healthy.  Go ahead.  Say that.  And when you pour a glass when you need to “unwind”  and when you need to “relax”  and when you need to “calm down”  and when you need to “have fun”  and when you need to “pair it with good food”  and when you need to “enjoy yourself”  and when you need to “decompress”  and when you need to “get in the mood”  and when you need to “feel better”  and when you need to…. you get it, right???

It's about the compounding slams that create tiny cracks that are basically hairline fractures in your progress. 

Don’t make things harder than they need to be.

By the time someone calls on me as a coach to fix their problems, it’s way late in the game.

All the slamming has created a reverb been cracking under the surface. 

And then, boom.  Houston, we have a problem. 

Now you need to fix more than your big toe with a flesh-colored band aid.

So, one sore toe and probably a dead toe nail later, I say, “Thank you, Universe. God. Door stopper.”

I get it.  Bloody toe-nail reminder.  Stop. Slamming. Self. 

Here’s to saving big toes all over the world…