It's Me
- Lauren Shaw, PhD
- Jul 6, 2015
- 3 min read
Returning to work after the birth of my third child was brutal. Not only was it sad and anxiety-provoking to leave my tiny newborn, but I was exhausted. I mean, I was so, so, so tired. Plus, I felt like a complete and total spaz, like I was always running in twelve directions at once but never actually arriving anywhere. I say this to add context to the story that I am about to tell. Without this context, you are going to wonder how my brain actually processed what was happening so excruciatingly slowly.
I had been back from maternity leave for a month or two, and I was once again running behind schedule. I really despise being late, I even despise being almost late, so I was feeling stressed and flustered. I got to my office just in time to unlock the door and turn on the lights before my first client arrived. We sat down and started talking, and my first thought was that I could not believe how badly my client smelled. This was someone I had a history with, and they had always had excellent hygiene, so it seemed strange that they should smell so badly. We finished the session, and after my client left, the bad smell lingered. Potently. I opened up a few windows and picked up my second client. The stench still had not diminished in strength at the end of the session. I figured it must be something in my office. Perhaps I had left a snack in a desk drawer, or forgotten to take out the trash at the end of my last day of work. I spent a few minutes scrambling around, but could not locate the source of the smell. I saw my next client, and apologized for the mystery stench in my office.
After that session I went to the bathroom, and as I was washing my hands, I looked in the mirror. And I kid you not, I had baby poop all over my shirt. All over. I could describe it for you in vivid detail, but I will leave it to your imagination. Suffice it to say, the stench was me. Somehow I had made it to work and through three clients without ever coming to the conclusion that the awful smell was me.
I’ve had those moments of insight in life too. I know there is a problem, with a relationship, job, or situation. The problem is frustrating me, bothering me, causing distress. I find myself assigning blame, scrambling to find an explanation. And then, unexpectedly, I look in the mirror and see that the source of the problem was way closer than I had ever anticipated. It was me.
Honestly, it’s a painful realization. It seems to be human nature, a tale as old as a garden, a snake, and an apple. We want to blame, to place the responsibility and weight of a problem on something or someone else. And sometimes it’s true, the problem really is external to us. But sometimes, way more often than I am comfortable with, the problem is me.
This is bad news, and it is also very good news. As long as the problem is outside of us, we are very limited in what we can do to fix it. But when we see and own our role in a situation, there are things we can do. Try as we might, we cannot change other people. It’s not our job, nor could we be successful at it if we tried. But we can create and effect change in our own lives. We can think and work and pray and stretch and struggle and change our steps. We can ask for help, we can acknowledge our weakness, and we can move toward health.
When I finally realized that I was the source of the nasty smell, I could take action. I used a cancellation in my schedule to run down the road to Kohls and buy a new shirt. Without recognizing that the odor came from my shirt, I would’ve been stuck with it all day.
So here’s the take-away: before you accuse anyone else of smelling bad, check yourself. Trusted friends and family are our mirrors, providing us with feedback about ourselves that we would not otherwise have access to. Check your mirrors and see what your role in the situation could be. Take the action steps you can to create and effect change in your own life. And, please, if you see a new parent with poop on their shirt, let them know.
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