Today’s episode is guest hosted by Leslie Sainz.

Transcript

I’m Leslie Sainz, and this is The Slowdown.

According to my therapist, I am “a master at discounting my own experience.” As a perfectionist, the first time I heard her say this, I thought, “So, you think I’m really good at something?” It’s not that I inherently doubt my self-worth; for as long as I can remember, I’ve poked fun at myself to introduce a certain lightness into difficult or tense conversations. But it turns out that, try as I might, humor is rarely the way through a problem. Instead, it’s more like having access to luxury amenities on the way to the destination. Like flying first class on your way to tenderness and self-grace. Humor gives you more leg room, better quality snacks, and personalized service. But you’re still in… turbulence.

In my experience, relying on humor has eased, if only moderately, the difficulties of taking care of myself amidst the polycrises of our time: late capitalism and widespread fascism, rising individualism, environmental collapse, and live-streamed violence in Palestine, and Sudan, and many other areas of the globe that deserve but don’t receive international media coverage. Just… to name a few things. Sometimes, this means allowing myself to feel a little bit (or a lot a bit) silly when I reach for things like personal affirmations or body scanning to temper my worry.

I am prone to catastrophizing, all-or-nothing thinking, labeling, and a few other unhelpful thinking styles. Like so many of us, my internal monologue is rarely kind. Something I’m working on is not “fusing” with those unkind thoughts or treating them as fact. Instead, I rely on something more comical, and, effective—inner child work.

Imagine saying something unkind to your child self. Brutal, no? Now, think about how child-you would like to be consoled. What do they need in order to feel better? What tone would you use when speaking with them? After you’ve sat with these questions for a few minutes, ask yourself: what would happen if you always spoke to yourself this softly?

When I first started this exercise, I found myself referring to child me as “baby girl.” Now, when I need to parent myself, that is, meet my own emotional needs, I always address myself as “baby girl.” Like: “Baby girl, now’s a good time to do the dishes because you know you feel crummy when your environment feels cluttered.” The challenge can be determining when I need to parent myself, and when I need to let myself off the leash, so to speak. Isn’t that the thing about needs and boundaries? That you only learn what they are when they haven’t been met?

Today’s exquisite poem infuses the Petrarchan sonnet with playful existentialism and self-soothing. It’s Nietzsche meets Anti-Eat, Pray, Love—and as a work of translation, it defies impossibility.

Fuji, Ararat
by Legna Rodríguez Iglesias
translated by Eduardo Aparicio

My friend, she texts me in a chat.
It’s better if I stick around. 
Love is not really love, or so she’s found. 
But I believe in love. Poof goes our chat.

I’m off to Mount Fuji, to Ararat.
I toss back four shots of booze.
I tell myself: You will see, no more blues,
fear not, poor girl, little cat.

On my way up the hill I saw an abyss. 
I saw an abyss on my way down the hill.
So what if I lose myself in the mist?

I will swap couches and metabolism.
I will swap laxatives and pain pills. 
I believe in love. I believe in tourism.

"Fuji, Ararat” by Legna Rodríguez Igelsias from MIAMI CENTURY FOX © 2017 Legna Rodríguez Igelsias. English translation © Eduardo Aparicio. Used by permission of Akashic Books.