Note! ”Eggs do not freeze well…”

“Wait! Where is the food bag?”

Made it on time.
I was standing in the train entrance.
And then: I did not see my bright green bag anywhere. 

I had rushed to the train in Parkano and got in with my heavy grey backpack, ready to travel by train and ferry from Helsinki Stockholm to lead a weekend workshop there (which was great by the way!)  ⛴️
(And actually the rushing was silly – I had ample time and then decided to answer a voice message instead of getting my stuff out of the car).

Pete and I were going to be on the road for 11 days continuing to Amsterdam for another workshop after Sweden.
I did not want anything to go bad in the fridge or be thrown away.
So the bag was full: sandwiches, bread, lettuce, spinach, bananas, mandarins, dried mango, boiled eggs. Only my coffee thermos mug and raw bars were in the backpack.

There I was standing on the train which just left realizing my food bag was not here.
Nor is the bag with a gift to my son who I planned to meet for a late lunch before heading for the boat.

Oh no.

I felt this heat wave in my chest and creeping to my face.
I forgot the bags. 

Shame showing up.
I notice I blamed myself.

“How could I be so careless?”
“I took time from a busy morning to pack all this food and now I just forgot it!”

“I did not want to waste food and look what happened!” 

And even:
“What are we going to eat on the road?”
(As if there were not a restaurant car on the train and shops before the ferry terminal and the buffet dinner already paid for on the ferry…) 

Pete did not seem too bothered about the food.

At some point I stopped.
Took a breath.

C’mon.

It is just two bags left behind.
Not very serious. 

Then slowly came the thought:
oh, I am allowed to make mistakes.
It is not a big deal.
Mistakes happen.

I am not going to starve.

I noticed I still have this very fast judgy voice within myself.
My first response tends to be self blame – or blaming others and defending myself if that is an option.

Sometimes I can access other – more grown up – voices pretty fast.
Sometimes I am stuck for quite some time with the blamy unpleasant voice. 

At this moment I am just recalling what happened.
It is not such a big deal that I have that wound showing up still.
The wound around needing to be perfect, not make mistakes.
Or if I happened to make one – deny it.

I can give myself some compassion and love when my adult self is back online. ❤️

I understand how mistakes were not really allowed when I was a kid.
I am still learning to be more soft and easy going with myself.
My first response is not to take things lightly.

And I can just celebrate myself whenever I can take things less seriously. 

After the round trip to Stockholm and Amsterdam I returned to Parkano railway station and found a bag of frozen goodies in the car booth.

I learned: eggs, avocado and lettuce do not freeze well. 
Spinach, sandwiches, tofu and mandarins were still good to go after unfreezing.
And I made a smoothie out of the frozen banana. 

Nobody died.
Me and Pete got food anyway.

Let me ask you:
Are you harsh on yourself?
Do you tend to demand perfection of yourself while being understanding and compassionate with others?

Do you treat yourself differently than other people you love?
How or where did you learn self-blame?

Are you good at forgiving yourself?

Love,
Tuulia (& Pete) ❤️