Humans 101

A Meditation on Not Being a Dick to Yourself

It’s possible to hold yourself accountable with compassion

Mollie Birney, M.A.
Human Parts
Published in
5 min readApr 27, 2020

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A woman at an aquarium looking at fishes in a tank. Cast in bluish light.
Photo: Kohei Hara/Getty Images

A few days ago, I was sitting at the piano. It had been a while. I used to play pretty regularly, but these days I’m not what you’d call a musician. I’ll jam with my husband every once in a while, noodling with things by ear and messing around with chord progressions, but it had been years since I seriously sat down in front of a piece of sheet music to see if I could still sight-read.

Side note: Don’t get the impression I’m some kind of Renaissance woman here, it’s not like I nobly pursue the arts in my spare time because I’m virtuous and well-rounded. I only ended up at the piano because we’re quarantined in a pandemic and my husband and I had run through all 24 seasons of America’s Next Top Model, and now I was bored.

So I pulled out a Bach prelude, prepared to go as slowly as I needed to go, very maturely laying the groundwork for a nonstressful experience by reminding myself to breathe and be patient with myself. I was the very picture of emotional evolution! Pema Chodron herself would’ve been proud, and I made a mental note to tell my husband what a good job I’d done of practicing the shit I preach.

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Mollie Birney, M.A.
Mollie Birney, M.A.

Written by Mollie Birney, M.A.

Clinical Coach in private practice — life coaching with an eye towards mental health. @molliebirney www.molliebirney.com