The first person/third person thing rings true. I tend to judge my own moral failings and mistakes much more harshly than I would the same things done by somebody else. To some extent I think that's justified--my own behavior is what I can control, so it makes sense to give it more scrutiny--but I can carry it beyond all reasonable bounds; I still sometimes castigate myself for things I did when I was 8-10 years old, and some things I did and said in my late teens and early twenties, 15-20 years ago when I knew significantly less about the business of living, still evoke such raw feelings of shame that they're hard to talk about.
Visualizing my actions in the third person would tend to make me judge myself as I would another person, and I'm much kinder about that.
On the other hand, there are also people for whom it's the other way around, who judge themselves much more kindly than they do third parties. I think they are colloquially known as "assholes". I wonder if the exercise would be as therapeutic for them--it might dampen their assholery.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 03:40 am (UTC)Visualizing my actions in the third person would tend to make me judge myself as I would another person, and I'm much kinder about that.
On the other hand, there are also people for whom it's the other way around, who judge themselves much more kindly than they do third parties. I think they are colloquially known as "assholes". I wonder if the exercise would be as therapeutic for them--it might dampen their assholery.