I’ve heard it said, many times, that if you don’t feel good about yourself, you’re harder on others. I’ve accepted it as sensible psychobabble, I thought. But then this week I really saw it, perhaps for the first time… If I’m living in a way that disappoints me, therefore living in self-condemnation, somehow that condemning voice is all I have to offer.

I’ve kept finding myself scolding my kids. They do scoldworthy things, no doubt. But discipline, and scolding, are two different things. I really, really don’t want my scolding voice to be my main investment in them… their inheritance from Mom, replaying into adulthood. They do, as we all do, internalize and echo their parents’ “naming” of them. “You’re very grumbly today Mommy,” my littlest said to me the other day. “I think the problem is your hooaht (heart). So just take out the bad stuff, and throw it away!” (Demonstrating the process with dramatic gestures.)

Why am I so negative? It hit me yesterday: I lie in bed instead of getting up early to read and exercise. I put off exercise. I snack on empty calories. I don’t work very hard to enter my children’s world and play with them, even though I take care of them and “manage” them. I really don’t approve of much of anything in the way I’m getting through the days. No wonder I’m in a negative frame of mind.

These are all ways that I used to be more on top of my game, but I’ve slid in the name of showing myself grace, and not being so type-A. Now I’m too type-whatever-the-other-letter is. The good news is, these are things I can change. And will.