Self Compassion and Emperor Norton I

 

This week in a program/course I am doing on mental wellness we are exploring self compassion. Self compassion or being your own best friend is pretty easy for me. I am grateful for that. My inner critic is not mean or cruel like so many people face and really the worst it gets is being the inner critic of indifference. If anything my inner critic will just say something like "ok, so what?" which is much kinder than many other people's inner critic.

Now some of my strength in self compassion comes from the fact that I have an almost uncountable number of compassionate voices in my head. And while the faces change over time they include a collection of characters, creators, places, actors, public figures, etc. Here is a list of 20 just off the top of my head, in no order at all.

1. The Doctor
2. The Tardis
3. Babylon 5
4. JARVIS
5. Gideon (from Legends of Tomorrow)
6. Neil Gaiman
7. Robbie Thompson
8. Lin-Manuel Miranda
9. Graham Moore
10. Wentworth Miller
11. Kay Spiritual Life Center
12. Holy Covent UMC
13. Chicago itself
14. Pete Buttigieg
15. Chasten Buttigieg
16. Loki
17. Ganesh
18. The universe herself
19. Gods in all of their shapes and sizes
20. Stories and Myths and Dreamings

But part of me wonders if some of my self compassion comes from something outside of simply having so many compassionate voices in my head. 

I am reminded of Emperor Norton I (the Sandman Comics version) who was born Joshua Abraham Norton (c.1818 – January 8, 1880). and was a well-known character in 19th century San Francisco, he issued his own currency which he sold to tourists, and published decrees.

In reality and in Sandman, Norton was a failed businessman on the verge of ruin and despair. For the purposes of the Sandman story, his delusion that he was, in fact, Emperor of the United States was instilled by Dream in the course of a wager with Desire and Despair.

In Sandman the lesson was without dreams Norton neither experienced desire nor despair. On the other hand I am pretty much the complete opposite and have so many dreams that I often times am made up of more dreams than reality which seems to work out to be about the same thing.

I am not sure how I got the keys to Dream's Library (which contains every story that never was, such as that novel you dreamed of writing but never did, sequels to books that were never published, etc.) but I think I have, or if not the keys I have found a window I can climb in. And I have to wonder if frequenting Dream's Library so much is why my inner critic is so gentle.

All I have to say is if you have a mean inner critic I home you find the compassionate characters and compassionate stories about yourself so that you can become friends with yourself.