I hear it a lot in my sessions, “I don’t know how to do that,” or “What does that even mean?” or “How do I start?”
They’re talking about practicing kindness and empathy towards oneself, they’re talking about compassion.
Imagine what your life would be like if you were able to enact kind thoughts and gestures towards yourself in every day struggles great and small: the day your lover rejected you for another; the moment you knew you’d made a mistake and over-cooked the turkey; the argument with your family member that sent your anger over the edge and mean words came pouring out of your mouth…
What would happen is you could simply find a way to have compassion for that facet of your being that underneath it all, hurts, plain and simple?
The Obstacles to Self-Compassion
Oh, there are many. When I started asking around, here’s a short list of some of the responses:
- Old fears of punishment if things aren’t “perfect.”
- Stories like, “That’s just self-indulgent and weak minded” or “I should know better.”
- Expectations that one should be stronger, smarter, more spiritual (what does that even mean?!) or forgive easily; just fill in the blank.
- And, as stated above, simply not knowing how to or what this would look like.
In my sessions with clients, here’s what I observe are more obstacles:
- Completely denying their feelings
- Making themselves wrong for whatever experience they are having
- Beating themself up with “shoulda, coulda and wouldas”
- Minimizing the true impact of their experience
These are defenses meant to shield you from pain, I get that. Yet, the problem with doing any of these things is that it skirts the issue of the very real pain and suffering that is happening in those moments.
How We Learn To Take Up Arms Against Ourselves
I once saw a little girl, she couldn’t have been more than 7 years old, jump mistakenly into the deep end of the pool. She wasn’t a strong swimmer and began to flail about trying to get her head above water. She started to panic and cry, yelling for help.
Fortunately, a lifeguard quickly jumped in and saved her from drowning. Poor thing was crying, shaky, panting and disoriented. I could hear the lifeguard asking if she was ok while rubbing her back and comforting her tears. As she started to come back to her senses, her mother came toward her shouting at her about disobeying her orders, about not paying attention and about being irresponsible.
Her mother snatched her up, publicly humiliated her with her words and actions and the girl started to drown again, getting sunk by her mother’s outpouring of fear, anger and blame.
Sounds horrible doesn’t it? It was horrible to witness and my heart went out to both mother and daughter. They were both hurting, one from fear for her survival and the other from fears of loss.
Yet, don’t we so often take on the attitudes and behaviors of this mother toward ourselves? We point an aggressive sword of shame at our vulnerability and tenderness; we shield ourselves from the reality of our pain through blame and anger and we buy into to a story line that makes an enemy out of where we most feel afraid, lonely or lost.
We have learned to be at war with ourselves through a myriad of ways. The time is now, to end this terrible war and unlearn what we’ve been taught; to stand up to our inner dictator bully and send the love inward.
Cultivating Self- Compassion
When my clients say that they don’t know how to practice kindness and understanding towards themselves, I always ask one of these two questions:
“How would you treat your best friend if s/he came to you in the same situation you’re in?”
Or,
“If a little kid came up to you troubled, crying, lost and hurt, what would you do?”
Isn’t it true you would treat your close friends and young children with loving attention, patience and kindness? (This is where you nod “yes.”)
So, stopping the war within starts with treating yourself as you would your best friend or a young child.
“Yeah but, I’m not my best friend.”
Oh but Sweetheart, you absolutely need to be in order to liberate yourself from the cycle of a no-win and costly war.
If you go to war with yourself, everyone loses, most especially you. There’s nothing attractive, loving and enlivening about giving yourself a swift left hook to the jaw (“Ugh, I’ll never get this right!”), or an uppercut to the gut (“I should have known better.”), which is basically what you’re doing whenever you allow meanness and malice to run rampant on your sense of self.
The liberation that can happen when we bathe ourselves in the same tender, loving and attuned light that we would shower on our friends is nothing short of luminous, gleaming beauty. And, once you can get past the stories you’ve learned that to do so is self-indulgent, weak-minded, ridiculous etc., it will feel so good you will wonder how you’d ever gone so long without it.
“Yeah, but, I’m not a young child.”
Listen, I know this and you know this. What I also know is that rooted in our big emotional upsets and/or incessant negative self-talk are as yet unhealed wounds from our younger days. The times and places in us where we feel deep sadness, overwhelming anger, and debilitating shame, here, our inner kid asks for the best, most loving kind of attention and presence available.
Just imagine yourself patiently sitting with a young child, holding their hand, maybe rubbing their back and being a loving witness to their pain.
Now imagine you sitting with your young self, your vulnerable self and doing the same thing. What is that like? Being fully present with another is one of the truest and simplest gifts of healing there is. There is nothing more soothing as being with someone who’s opened their heart fully to your suffering, allowed it to touch them, and loved you for it anyway. This is how self-compassion begins.
On Becoming Beautiful
We are like diamonds with many facets to our being; each aspect of ourselves crafted into a beautiful, luminous whole. Our battle wounds and scars, grooved canyons of loss and white hot desert of lonelier times, even these aspects of our self add a depth and dimension to who we are as beauty embodied.
As Elisabeth Kubler-Ross stated,
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.“
Choosing to end the war we have with ourselves begins and ends with the tender art of self-compassion.
In the comments section, please share your thoughts or stories on ways that you’ve begun to enact more compassion towards yourself and what it has brought you.
As always, I’m so honored you’re hear.
Love and Light,
M.