Time for some self compassion…

2nd May 2020

Cast your mind back to childhood and think of a time when something didn’t work out for you… Maybe an occasion when you made some mistakes and felt frustrated and inadequate. Or perhaps you made a wrong choice and got in trouble. None of these are a big deal, right? All part of learning and growing up. We interpret meaning from those childhood events based on how our parents or carers reacted towards us and these create our core beliefs about who we are.

If you were subjected to shouting and being told off for getting it wrong, how did that make you feel? Ashamed? Stupid? Incapable? No doubt more emotions on top! However, if you were given the chance to reflect on the outcome without being shamed and helped to understand that getting things wrong is a normal and expected part of life, chances are you will have found that learning experience to be more helpful! Now, the purpose of this piece is not to cast blame on our parents/caregivers for how they responded to us as children, but more to help us see how we now manage our struggles and difficulties and what we can do to improve the negative view we so often experience. The self-talk is a huge window into how we are treating ourselves and its time for an audit…

I wanted to write about self-compassion this week as it is one of the biggest blocks for many of us in terms of managing and regulating our emotions. Much of the time, we sub-consciously self-sabotage. We are not aware that we are mentally punishing ourselves for making mistakes, feeling upset and being angry and not matching up to our expectations leading to higher levels of anxiety and depression. This theme has been key for me this week, I have struggled, felt claustrophobic at home, fed up and frustrated about the situation and then subsequently beaten myself up for feeling that way! The language I use gives me the clues – the ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds and ‘should nots’, the lack of flexibility in my thinking and expecting the impossible to be achieved. Now, even though I know I am doing it, I still find it hard because then I beat myself up mentally and emotionally for even thinking that way! Isn’t the mind a clever thing?!

In order to process the tougher stuff – the hard feelings that surface, our self- compassion is a vital component! We really need it to have a better relationship with ourselves (and others) and we can develop this skill. For some reason we humans struggle to find a way to be kind to ourselves, as if we do not deserve the gift of compassion? If that resonates with you, think about how you might help a friend who was struggling, if you would respond with kindness and care, why are you not deserving of the same?

Compare a time in childhood when you were berated to a time when you were encouraged – which was more motivating and helpful for you? If we can learn to be kinder to ourselves as we are to others, imagine how much happier we could feel…So, how do we do it?

First, we must notice that we are not in a compassionate place. Take some time to reflect on the self-talk that has been your personal guide recently. What is the tone of the language? Is it negative and resentful? Are you placing blame on yourself (or others) for things not going your way? Do you feel that your expectations are impossible to meet yet you refuse to lower them because that would not be acceptable? Does this sound familiar? If you find the words ‘must’ and ‘should’ feature heavily in your vocab then maybe there is some work to be done here. So much of our self-talk goes un-noticed, its our subconscious mind working 24/7 and running the programmes that were installed during childhood which often means we don’t notice that we do it. It’s just how we have always been.

Kristen Neff -a leader in the field of self-compassion from the University of Texas at Austin has some wonderful resources to help us understand https://self-compassion.org/test-how-self-compassionate-you-are/. If you suspect that you could raise your own levels of kindness but you are not sure where you are on a scale then have a look at the self-compassion test on her page. My own suspicions were confirmed when I took the test, I am only moderately self-compassionate – this is not a huge shock, but I am a work in progress!

Awareness is key and once you start tuning in more regularly to any negative self-talk you can start to make some positive changes. Gabor Maté spoke on Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s podcast recently (https://drchatterjee.com/gabor-mate-is-coronavirus-showing-us-who-we-really-are/) about how we might support a child who was struggling with feelings of anxiety. He puts it simply that we don’t need to tell them not to worry or dismiss their fears, simply being present with them is important, the same is true of our friends/family, we don’t need to help fix anything for anyone, just be with them, accept them as they are. Can we do this for ourselves? Try the exercise again that I suggested in last week’s post – take some deep breaths and say to yourself, ‘can I be with this?’

Another method taken from Paul Gilbert’s book ‘The Compassionate Mind’ is to reflect on a time when someone showed you compassion – how did it make you feel? Or if that is difficult to consider, remind yourself of a time when you showed compassion to someone else. Imagining being compassionate can help our bodies and minds relax and this can be enough to put us into a calmer and kinder state so we can re-address our thoughts from a more supportive perspective.

This is not a quick fix, self-compassion takes regular work and reflection and we won’t always feel that we can achieve it every time, that’s ok.

When you wake up in the morning try and set yourself an intention for the day to be more self-compassionate, see what happens, let me know.

Until next time…

#selfcompassion #kindess #lifeocoaching #coaching #mindfulness #healing #eft