I am finding it surprisingly hard to talk about self-compassion. It involves digging through things that have helped me in the past and naturally reminds me of feelings and memories from the past.

Things were really hard for me back then. It hurts to think about. And my brain does not want to let go because it hurts.

I have PTSD and the mechanism for PTSD is based on avoiding the pain. Intrusive thoughts happen because I don’t want to feel the pain and avoid it.

*trigger warning*

I went through a lot of severe abuse with my biological mother and I was not accepted by my adopted family. And I was raped by a close friend. Initially, I coped by believing that my mother was the only bad person in the world. But after a person I trusted harming me, I was terrified of everyone and felt nothing was safe for me. I hid and numbed the pain with prescription medication while waiting to see a therapist to deal with the trauma. The pain was unbearable. I hated myself for not being able to cope or protect myself.

The level of trauma was what made it difficult for me to cope, as well as the lack of healthy people in my life.

It wasn’t my fault. Just the result of a genetic lottery and being born to someone incapable of being a parent.

Sometimes good people go through horrible things. I’m lucky in that I got help to get through the pain and things are a lot better for me now.

I don’t hate myself anymore. I’m proud of myself for doing my best to crawl out of that dark hole.

Sometimes the past hurts. Sometimes life has it’s ups and downs. I’m trying to be gentle with myself. I even love myself, but sometimes I just wish that the past didn’t hurt.

Hi Anita and Jana

I really appreciate the little community that is building up here. 🙏

Yes, at some point in their life, I believe so.

It is very damaging when external validation isn’t received growing up, especially when criticism is involved.

It is important to go with the flow and stay flexible for sure. What about plans and rules makes you feel nervous Jana?

Strength

Emotional resilience

Overcoming difficulties

Being honest with yourself and others

Physical strength

Looking for help

Admitting when you have made a mistake

Weakness

Lack of physical strength

Something that someone is not good at

Doing the easy thing not the right thing

Success

Developing new skills

Working hard

Having everything you need

Living a good life

Being happy

Love

Failure

Not passing a test

A part of the learning process

Giving up

Living a bad life

Hi Jana and Anita

Thank you for your kind words Anita. 🙏

Jana, you did a good job with reframing the negative thoughts. 😊

I did quite a lot of introspection. Defining my values because a lot of negative thoughts were based on judgements that others might make. Societal expectations and whatnot. My personal values and beliefs are more gentle.

An exercise that Jana might want to try could be defining what the following things mean; weakness, strength, failure and success. See what you think? I did this type of thing when I was in a good mood, so I wouldn’t be harsh on myself.

My core belief was “I’m not good enough.” I kept lists of compliments from people and wrote down the ways in which I am good enough. It really did take time and consistency doing these things to modify my beliefs.

I also worked on planning my life, what I wanted to do with it. Skills to acquire. The kind of person I wanted to be. Goals.

Therapy certainly helped, but I did the bulk of my work on self-compassion outside of therapy. The goal of therapy is to teach you to be your own therapist, so it gave me the tools.

I did exposure therapy to help me to tolerate distress. I found distress tolerance useful for a bunch of different scenarios that helped with my self-compassion. Being a tutor, studying, working helped address my fears of failure.

The basics of exposure therapy are that the more something is avoided, the greater the fear of it. It confirms that you were correct to fear it. When exposing yourself to fear or distress. You’re aiming for a level you can tolerate for about an hour. Which is how long it takes for the body to start to calm down around these things. You note how you feel at the start and after the hour is over and compare the results. The goal is to start off easy and steadily work your way up as you become more confident. And it is okay to do things that make you feel more comfortable. I brought my dog or a friend.

I found external validation helpful personally, because it made me start to believe that if others liked me, then there might be something to it that I can’t deny. It doesn’t take you the whole way though.

I also had some therapy for intrusive (unwanted) thoughts. It was helpful for me to understand the basics for these things happening. The more distressing it seems, the more important it seems to your brain and it is more likely to reoccur. So ultimately, being calm about negative thoughts occurring reduces the chance of them reoccurring. For me they are also more likely to occur with the following factors. Sleep deprivation, pain and hunger. Ultimately, the trauma was the origin.

From my perspective you are managing your life perfectly well Jana. To have your own business is impressive. Having a loving partner, a lovely dog and good relationships with your parents is a beautiful thing. Financial difficulties everyone goes through at some point in life. These things come and go. I think that everyone has their own individual hardships. Yours are just different from theirs.

Hi Jana

I’m glad to hear that things are slowly going back to normal for you. It is excellent that you are feeling more comfortable with yourself and are able to validate yourself too.

Congratulations on the new students!

It sounds like you did the right thing for you with that job.

Your boyfriend is very wise. I love the care and compassion you have for each other. ❤️

Hi Peter

To be clear. I don’t think you meant anything in a bad way. You are a good person, I trust that you act with love in your heart. ❤️

I only brought it up because it is an interesting to discuss the other side of the coin, one that I never used to be aware of until recently.

Ah I didn’t realise that the scenario with the key and theft was a metaphor.

Accepting bad behaviour would be to allow people to treat you badly.

I agree, accountability and responsibility are important. I just find that it creates less conflict when they are freely given. A good person will do these things without asking. Not necessarily when we want them to happen but with patience it generally happens when they are ready.

I have done a lot of research into healthy vs unhealthy behaviours. It turns out so many more things are classed as unhealthy than people realise.

For example, telling someone that you feel that they dismissed you, is itself dismissive. The person may not have had bad intentions or it may have happened unintentionally. It is coming at the situation with criticism and blame.

I’m finding that it important to have unconditional positive regard for others to have an open heart, mind, patience and curiosity during times of conflict. These things are tricky to learn to do.

I feel like a lot of hurt is avoided by simply disengaging and allowing cooler heads to prevail. As someone who values holding space for others to allow them to express themselves, it is me not taking care of myself and taking breaks when needed that has been causing myself problems.

I guess I can be a bit blunt. Whilst it is other people’s responsibility how they interpret it. It is also my responsibility to try not to unintentionally hurt someone’s feelings.

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been through things that have taken a part of your spirit and you have had to reclaim it. It is not easy to go through these things.

I think that sometimes what you want to achieve is important. In conflict there can be many different goals for communication. Is the purpose to express feelings? To stand up for oneself? Is the purpose to resolve conflict? Is the purpose to foster positive communication?

Sometimes only one thing can be achieved at a time and we have to make choices as to what we would like to prioritize. It is not possible to have everything work out in the way we would like it to because we are all unique uncontrollable individuals, so we have to make do with what is achievable.

Sometimes this means having to temporarily put feelings aside if the goal is to foster positive relationships.

Thank you for explaining! That makes sense. I would agree. All we can do is try our best! 😊

I feel like sometimes it is easier to identify with the ego (the noise and the pain), than it is the identity with the stillness and peace in the mind. Usually, for me when the pain is strongest. I’m working on changing that though. My experience is that whatever I choose to focus on I tend to identify with. Technically, both are part of the whole that makes up me.

I love the quotes by the way! Food for thought, indeed.

Hi Jana

Thank you for your kindness as well. 😊

Well I don’t judge people like that and personally I like calm quiet people. I can understand a desire to get to know people over time.

I have been through my own struggles too, so I understand these things.

I’m open to zoom or ms teams if you would like to meet virtually. 😊 My email address is tbthrowaway64@gmail.com. I don’t know how to look up an email address with Google via a username.

I’m glad to hear that you feel appreciated! You are a very special person ❤️

Hi All

Thank you for the fascinating topic Jana. 😊

I feel like it is a complicated subject.

I feel like a roadblock for me was self-hatred. Often when people are abused from a young age they start to abuse themselves. It is hard to accept yourself when you don’t even like yourself.

I worked hard on changing myself to become someone that I could be proud of and forgave myself too.

I got to the point where I liked myself but such acceptance is conditional and ultimately circumstantial.

As they do, my circumstances changed and I could no longer base my self-esteem on them. I was still the same person and had the same skills, but I still struggled.

Another factor for me is state of mind. This is going to be a unique one to explain. I guess I would say that parts of my mind are fragmented. And seem to be different ages. Another way to put this might be different levels of maturity.

It has always been a bit younger. Child, teenager, young adult. Now there is a new part mature adult.

I have heard recommended before to treat yourself like you are your own parent. I’m finding it rather helpful.

This is where I’m at now. Finally open to trying affirmations, which I have always hated because I couldn’t believe them before.

It is nice to be in a place where I can say nice things about myself without cringing. There is still a way to go, but it is nice nonetheless.

Good luck to everyone on their journey of self-compassion!