My husband had a piece in a gallery recently.
He stood there looking at it the way artists do — not at what it was, but at everything he'd do differently. I watched him and thought: nobody else in this room is seeing what you're seeing.
I do it too. Look at myself in the mirror and see the wrinkled shirt. Invite someone over and spend the whole time seeing the shoes by the door and the dishes in the sink instead of the people I love sitting at my table. We are the harshest critics in the room and almost always of ourselves.
I've been sitting with why that is, and whether we can actually change it. This issue is my thinking out loud.
TODAY’S PICKS
THE FEATURE
The Question Nobody Thinks to Ask.
Who do you matter to? Easy. But do you matter to yourself? Harder than it sounds — and the research on what happens when the answer is no will stay with you.
THE REFLECTION
The Case Against Your Inner Critic.
Most of us believe the inner critic is useful. That being hard on ourselves keeps us sharp. Turns out that assumption is doing more damage than you think.
My Reframe.
Something I've started doing: when I catch myself cataloguing everything wrong in a room, a photo, a mirror, I ask what I would say if a friend showed me the same thing. The answer is never what I was about to say to myself.
THE WILDCARD
The Invention That Created The Self.
Most people think mirrors are about vanity. Historians think they're about something much bigger. This one stopped me.
My answer:
My husband still can't look at that painting without seeing what's wrong with it. I've stopped trying to convince him otherwise. But I did ask him once what he thought other people saw. He was quiet for a long time. That's the whole issue, right there.
