self compassion revelation

 I was thinking about fashion experiments I did as a youth, like, this one time, probably in 7th or 8th grade, I hot glued a bunch of seed beads in a star shape on a tank top and wore it to school the next day feeling like hot shit and then when my friend saw it she was like "uhhhhh what are you wearing..." and I realized oh no I have done a mistake somehow, and she explained that it looked sloppy, the lines were uneven, the hot glue was kinda blobby, the beads were all facing different directions, it just looked jacked up for so many reasons. I felt embarrassed, stupid, humiliated by my overconfidence, and when I recall that memory, I feel that shame again. For the last couple of years, there's also been compassion for little me, for their pain in that moment. I'm confident that little me didn't deserve to feel so ashamed about this thing. But today I realized, I also feel admiration for that younger version of me. She made a craft that she was SO excited about, just so tickled by the idea that you could hot glue seed beads to a piece of clothing and then have a new piece of clothing, that she didn't pause to do quality control, and she felt like such hot shit and she believed in herself enough to immediately rock it, and that's awesome. It feels very peaceful and warm, to think about this experience that has always felt like shame, and also feel not just understanding but appreciation and admiration for the version of me that did the 'bad' thing. The shame is not gone, and I think that's important - the shame is still there, but now there's also understanding, and admiration, and compassion, and warmth, so the shame takes up so much less space. I can't make the feeling of shame not happen, but I can cultivate other feelings. I can add more good. That's nice.

Here's a photo of a table of tshirts from our garage sale this weekend - 2/3 of them are ones I printed on, and 1/3 are just used graphic tees; I sold zero tees of any kind but I still bought a bunch more plain tshirts because frankly I'm having a delightful time making shirts and the more I do it the better I'm gonna get at it, and that's cool.

Originally posted July 6 2026