My changing relationship with self-compassion
I’ve been thinking recently about how self-compassion shows up in my life. And how, for me, it was the necessary foundation of all the healing that followed. Without self-compassion I believe I’d still be stuck in anxiety and shame the majority of the time.
I took Kristen Neff’s Self-Compassion test today. And I’m proud to report that I scored a higher than average 4.2 out of 5.
That high score has been hard-earned. Five or six years ago my score would have been way down at the other end of the scale. Back then I was unknowingly holding onto so much shame that I couldn’t bear to think about myself at all. Except to wonder—What’s wrong with me? Why do I find everything so difficult?
After publishing my last post I suffered an intense vulnerability hangover. I felt embarrassed and terribly worried about what people would think of me for writing about anger.
In the past that feeling of shame would have been enough for me to stop writing, hide myself away, and give up on this whole blog thing. Now I have enough self-compassion to nurse myself through the feelings of vulnerability and shame. And I’m going to keep sharing my story in the hope that my writing helps someone out there feel less alone.
How I used to treat myself
In my 20s I had very little self-compassion:
- I minimised the impact of big events in my life. Divorced parents as a child? Two Christmases, what’s not to love?
- I tried to rationalise away my painful emotions with logic. Telling myself I shouldn’t feel sad or scared. And shaming myself for still feeling bad when that didn’t work.
- I had very little sense of who I was as an individual. As a result I didn’t understand that I might naturally differ from those around me. I was sure I was “supposed” to be just like everyone else.
- I was intensely self-critical. I habitually told myself I was rubbish and pathetic.
- When I wanted to do something I was scared about I mercilessly bullied myself into it. I told myself my fear was foolish, instead of acknowledging it as human.
All I knew was that “everyone else” seemed to be getting on with life and thriving, while inside I felt more and more anxious and ashamed to be me. “What’s wrong with me?” was my motto. I vividly remember that every time I went to the cinema, I came out wishing I was the characters in the film instead of me.
That’s one of the ways I know my inner work over the last few years has been worthwhile. It can be hard to remember how I used to feel as a way to measure change. But it’s easy to compare my thoughts now to those old thought patterns.
Now if I ever do fall into the comparison trap, I always end up feeling glad that I’m me. Glad that I’m making my own choices and my own mistakes. That I’m living my life my way.
The pain of a vulnerability hangover
I had a serious vulnerability hangover the morning after publishing my post Why am I angry that I’m angry?. Had I just massively over-shared and shamed myself? Had I accidentally let everyone think that I have an out of control anger problem? What would people think of me?
I’m reliving all the awful churning sensations in my stomach just writing about it now.
I was incredibly grateful to receive some positive feedback on my post that morning. The feeling of relief that someone found value in what I’d written was immediate and huge!
Brené Brown coined the term vulnerability hangover to describe the icky feelings that come up after exposing parts of your authentic self and regretting it.
A vulnerability hangover is “that feeling when you wake up and everything feels fine until the memory of laying yourself open washes over you and you want to hide under the covers…”
Brené Brown in her book Daring Greatly, describing the morning after giving her TEDX talk on the power of vulnerability.
A vulnerability hangover is a response to shame, to the fear of social rejection. It’s the knotty feeling deep inside you that stops you wanting to look other people in the eyes. It’s the fear of the judgment and humiliation you expect to find there.
Combatting shame with self-compassion
In the middle of my vulnerability hangover, I drew on all my self-compassion to soothe myself.
Self-compassion can be described as an extension of kindness and nonjudgmental attitude toward oneself during difficult times.
Anna Bruk
Three things in particular helped me stay kind to myself:
Firstly, I reminded myself why I started this blog
I’m choosing to share my own journey towards healing and self-connection in the hope that it helps others on the same journey. Reading other people’s vulnerable shares helped me keep going when I was feeling lost and scared.
If my writing can be some comfort for just a handful of people on their own healing journey. If I can provide just a little solace or a sense of shared humanity. It will have been worth putting my story out there.
Secondly, I told my husband how I was feeling
“Shame hates being spoken”
Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart
Silence is oxygen to shame. Not voicing your shame helps it grow inside you and fester. Speaking my worries and feelings of shame out loud helped me remember that this feeling was just the inevitable consequence of putting part of myself out there into the world.
In addition, looking into the eyes of the person closest to me and seeing no judgment there helped enormously.
Finally, I took some deep breaths
Sometimes it’s the simplest things that are the most effective. I took some slow breaths deep into my belly. Then I focused my attention on the calming sensation that spread through my body. Deep breaths are a great way to tell your brain there’s no immediate danger present. They help me ride the waves of emotion without dissolving into panic or out-of-control anxiety.
Self-compassion as a foundation for healing
Self-compassion has done far more than simply giving me the tools to look after myself in the present. It’s also helped me process past emotions. And it’s allowed me to integrate parts of me I was too afraid to let surface. That in turn has freed up a lot of energy that I used to use to keep my feelings tightly locked up inside.
When I look back over the last few years, I can see that my real healing only started after I’d found self-compassion. To move forward I needed to find empathy for both my adult self and younger me. That empathy allowed me to finally provide a safe space to release the feelings I’d held pushed away deep inside for so long.
Without self-compassion it was far too painful to look at my patterns of emotion and behaviour. Because in my self-critical state I would add a big dollop of excruciating shame on top of everything else that I was feeling.
With self-compassion I was able to hold my feelings up to the light and work through them without that cruel self-judgment getting in the way.
Learning about the inner child
The turning point for me in building self-compassion was discovering inner child work. In particular a book called Homecoming by John Bradshaw.
In the book he describes a series of exercises to get in touch with the younger parts of you—your inner child. Your inner child is the part of you that holds onto the memories, beliefs, and emotions from your early life, likely without you being consciously aware of them.
The exercises guided me through visualising this younger self at different ages, from an infant up to adolescence, and becoming aware of what was truly going on for me at each stage. Crucially that was often different from what the self-critical side of me felt “should” have been going on for me. Self-compassion helped me bridge that difference.
Building my self-compassion
I’m naturally sceptical. That meant the inner child exercises sounded quite woo-woo to me. But at the same time I was drawn to the concept. By that point I was aware that some of what I was struggling with might belong to my past rather than my present. So I decided to put my scepticism to one side and go through all the exercises as described.
It was intense emotional work. I realised a lot of things that I hadn’t let myself believe until then. As just one example, of course my parents’ divorce had affected me. It turned out I had feelings of grief, anger and guilt from that time in my life that I was totally unaware of.
As I worked through the book I started to see how I hadn’t learned the tools I needed to manage my big emotions. And it became clearer how that had affected how I showed up in the world at different ages. Afterwards I was able to think of myself with much more kindness and understanding.
An ongoing journey
At the time I thought to myself “Woo! I’ve done my inner work now.”, but of course that turned out to be only a foundational step in what I now realise is a lifetime’s journey. Each time I put myself out there a little bit more I bump up against the next unhealthy coping mechanisms that I need to work on. Now I’m confident that I can navigate anything that comes up using all the different tools I’ve learned over the past few years.
How kind are you to yourself? Check out Kristen Neff’s website for a range of practices for increasing your own self-compassion.
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