This morning I tried my hand at a new skill: making buckwheat crepes. I followed a lovely video done by Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, and everything was going along smoothly. The sunshine is out, the birds are singing, and I’m making…crepes! I fantasize about buckwheat crepes becoming the specialty I am known for. Friends invite me over for the weekend for my crepes. Working along with the video, I don’t accurately gage the batter pour and I learn lesson number one: crepes are best consumed as extremely paper-thin, delicate wrappers and are meant to highlight the delicious insides – otherwise they’re just pancakes. Undeterred by imperfection, I shred some goat cheese, and before the thick-ish crepe cools (quickly) sautee some spinach (where was my sous chef?). Oh well, I have time to perfect my new skill. Sitting down to a floppy pancake looking thing with cold cheese I optimistically tuck in only to discover the reason why it is always a good idea to wash even pre-washed spinach.
There is a worm in my crepe. I humbly power through the rest of my breakfast, anxious to be done.
It’s Virgo time. A time when we, Celestial Beings having fallen from heaven to Earth, want to improve our self, get better at who we are and what we do. If we follow the urge, invariably this involves learning new skills, bettering our self — and falling short because we know starting something new doesn’t mean we are going to get it perfectly right the first, second or even the third. That’s not the point. As any Virgo knows, self-acceptance, self-forgiveness must go hand in hand with simply trying. Sometimes though, through fear, negative self-talk or criticism, we sell our self short and stop short just of flying.
I had a hard week. My book proposal was rejected by a publisher: in a “don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out” kind of way. There was subjective criticism given, criticism that had me fruitlessly searching for a kernel of constructive helpfulness. I couldn’t find it. It was in many ways, how not to break up with somebody. If your heart has been set on a guy or gal, an “I don’t think we’re a good fit” suffices. If you have half a heart, you don’t feel the need to justify this by saying: you’re arrogant, and you could really use some therapy. After all, that person is probably right for someone else –who sees their arrogance as confidence, and with whom they will work out their mother or father issues. Simply, they are not right for you.
When we meet The Critic, inside our self, or in the world, its delicate business. On one hand, there’s always room for improvement and we are the first to know it. That’s the curse of knowing we are perfect in Spirit, but as human beings we are essentially imperfect. When we hear constructive criticism, the kind where the sting hurts, after the sting has passed we can step back see its truth. If we take time to let the words settle, we know the difference between our own insecurity and someone else’s clumsy attempt to justify a rejection. Destructive criticism, on the other hand, is short-sighted and it lacks heart. It is not helpful. It is not delivered in the spirit of helping you: be you but better, nor to see yourself more clearly.
Dealing with The Critic within is hard. Even though I know what I know about my good work, I have had to, daily, tend to the pain of an unanticipated slight. I have to quell my self-doubt. This is what the Critic has done for me: in their clumsy, unskillful criticism they have helped me understand where I still lack belief in my self. Had I fully possessed inner security, the outer Critic wouldn’t have fed my inner Critic’s pain. A rejection? It would have rolled right off of me. I would have laughed, “hahahahah…it’s your loss!” and moved on to the next guy. In some moments, this is the person I would love to be.
But I am not that person. Criticism has always hit me hard, mainly, as I’ve come to realize again through this interaction, because I lack what some get in childhood: recognition, approval, a feeling of being okay no matter what. Those of us have to work a little harder when these things pop up. I suspect we spend lots more time with our journal, our cat. We spend more time learning to go gentle, and when we are torn up we learn to allow our self to feel the pain of the sting, to process the criticism, not immediately jump to “when one door closes…” thinking when we fear that will spiritually bypass our truth. We learn we have to go all the way back to the time the first seed of self-doubt planted itself in us, then love our self even more.
Along with beginning new health routines, Virgo New Moon is a time for gently tempering our human inadequacies, self-doubts and imperfections with self-love and self-acceptance. It’s not an easy task. Because to be able to see the difference between who and where we are and who and where we want to be also means we can see that the only victory of following the long arduous path of self-improvement to self-perfection is in the small steps taken. Virgo doesn’t receive accolades for learning how to make a perfect crepe, how to publish a book, or vigilantly self-healing when she discovers yet another human ouch. Motivated by perfection she accepts that on some level that perfection is an impossibility, and sometimes good enough isn’t just settling… it really is good enough.
GetYourBigOn.com – features a great article about silencing your inner critic, and a beautiful poem.