(Just as a side note, I am NOT a clinical psychologist, nor do I play one on TV. If any advice is given, it is provided through my personal and anecdotal experiences, not through any formal training. Should you need deeper help and counseling, do not hesitate to seek out professional support. Taking that step forward toward inner healing can take many forms. Do what you find works for you.)
To be able to give yourself self mercy … seemed untenable.
For many years, I had struggled with the concept of “self-compassion”. It seemed very self-focused, allowing only one’s ideals and opinions inside the interior domain. To be able to give yourself self mercy if you fall, or understanding when your human frailty or limitations should get in the way of perfection seemed untenable.
But I learned over the years, that proper self-compassion is not at all selfish. In fact, it is a necessary part of growing in love. Without caring for one’s self, it is impossible to care for anyone else.
Compassion…
Compassion is the ability to willingly give to another when they have need. When a friend or family member is hurting, there is a tug within us to want to give comfort. Hugs, empathizing with their pain, helping them through the rough times is natural to most of us.
If our pets are suffering, we do whatever we can to compassionate them in their suffering. It is hard to see something innocent take on misery.
But self-compassion is not as easy. We beat ourselves up if we fail. And if we keep doing the same mistakes over and over again, we see no reason to find out why. Instead, we demand that we just STOP making the errors! Then berate ourselves with names like “you’re so STUPID!” “Idiot!” “Can’t you ever do anything right?”
But do we really deserve that mistreatment?
What is proper self-compassion?
As we grow older, we begin to reframe who we think we are based on what we have experienced. Our life lessons take the place of parental direction. The basis upon which we judge our views of our world rests only on what we have deemed necessary from our youthful training.
Those lessons are the core, unchangeable beliefs we have come to acquire as we experience the world around us. And how others have interacted with us.
If those experiences are filled with reprimands, corrections, identification of failures, we will believe it. Our wings get clipped from being repeatedly told or shown that we cannot do anything right. The repeated recordings of those words or actions become ingrained in our memory. And they shape our view of ourselves and the world around us.
Unless we begin to understand that the view may have been wrong.
Are we wrong?
While we may have failed in some things, it isn’t who we are. Instead of being rebuked for being incapable of meeting the expectations of others, perhaps it is time to see if those parameters even fit our capacity, traits, or talents. It may be that others have been viewing us unfairly all along. They do not know who we are on the inside because so few care to know.
It may be that others have been viewing us unfairly all along.
Unless we are willing to take the risk and see for ourselves for who we are, we will only become more confused about the turmoil inside us. We will be constantly triggered when the similarities of our past continually confront us in the present.
We need to fix our own self-perception. But how?
Steps toward proper Self-Compassion…
Real self-compassion is different than simply vocalizing mantras and a doing subliminal affirmations. It comes from recognizing who you are and what you are capable of doing.
To truly help regain inner peace, it takes a great deal of effort on getting to know yourself.
And understand, also, your limitations. If you keep pushing yourself along someone else’s path of success, you will only fail. They don’t have the same characteristics, needs, limitations, or traits that you do. Comparing ourselves to others only makes you more angry at yourself when you cannot achieve the same outcomes.
You aren’t them. You are you.
To truly help regain inner peace, it takes a great deal of effort on getting to know yourself. We see ourselves by titles, roles, and through the eyes of those around us. But we need to look deeper and find out what actually makes us tick.
Step one…
The first step toward self-compassion is understanding that you are none of those labels or failings other attributed to you. You are unique. Your interests, likes, tastes, beliefs, abilities, senses, and more are all keys to who you are.
Accepting that you are not perfect is the first and most important way to unravel this problem. You have to stop comparing your life to everyone else’s. You aren’t them.
Once you accept that there is no perfect individual, including yourself, you are free to begin your journey toward discovery.
Second step…
Understand that you have limitations. We all do. Discover what those are and work toward focusing on your strengths instead.
What did others say about you?
For example:
The problem may be that others have seen you with a slanted view and didn’t take into consideration that you aren’t them.
- Do you struggle to understand nuances or jokes, and people call you a “Debbie Downer”?
- Do you get stressed easily being around large crowds of people, and people call you anti-social?
- Are you not a person who enjoys or are able to run everyday for exercise, and others call you lazy?
- Or maybe you can’t tolerate certain foods or smells, and people said you were intolerant or picky?
- Maybe people are impatient with you because you don’t learn something fast enough and call you “stupid”?
The problem may be that others have seen you with a slanted view and didn’t take into consideration that you aren’t them. So instead of living with those labels, see them in a different light. Write them out in a column on the left side of a blank piece of paper.
Then set it aside.
Then find out if any of this is true…
As you go through the next few days, begin to observe yourself against those descriptions and see if they really fit. Maybe add other things you may have not been aware of as the practice continues.
As you begin to observe yourself, you will see a pattern emerge. Much of what you understood about yourself will begin to shift.
you will see a pattern emerge.
- Maybe you AREN’T the “Debbie Downer” everyone called you. You just see the world differently – perhaps more literally – than most.
- Crowds make you feel confined and stressed. That’s okay. Not everyone is an extrovert.
- Maybe you you get exhausted running instead of the endorphin rush others experience. It’s okay. Your body doesn’t work the same as they do. Maybe you are built for stretching and slow walks instead.
- Just because certain sensory input is repulsive to you doesn’t make you strange. Everyone has something they don’t like. Most of them just don’t recognize it.
- You’re NOT as dumb or mistake-ridden as you believed. Maybe those experiences you gained were from those who had not trained you in a way that made sense to you. Or they simply didn’t find that you met THEIR expectations, but you understood what was necessary to do the work. Perhaps you will find that you fit perfectly in another setting instead of the one you are currently in.
Once you begin to change your perspective about yourself, then you can begin to work on inner healing.
Third step…
This step takes time. But with practice, will help you gain the upper hand on any negativity you feel about yourself. I found this to be, for me, the most valuable tool in my mental health toolkit.
It is called a “Victory Journal”.
Find or buy a blank book. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, as long as it inspires you to use it every night.
In that journal will contain the small victories you accomplished throughout the day. Even the smallest one, like just getting out of bed in the morning, goes unnoticed to most of us. But for some, the struggle just to do even simple tasks is very real. Celebrate those small victories.
Highlighting those positive achievements will go a very long way to appreciating you to yourself. You aren’t worthless, and this is a great way to prove it to yourself.
Finally…
I’d like to offer the following video from a professional, clinical psychologist on just how to improve your life this year. His tips, including the “Victory Journal”, are ones he himself not only uses, but through his own personal successes and clinical practice have found them to be helpful to others as well.
These ideas resonated with me, and I began implementing them myself. They have made a tremendously positive change in my perspectives about myself, my relationships, and my past. I still fail, but I can now look back in that journal and see how I successfully managed similar situations in the past. Then I can gently remind myself to follow the same path next time. It is becomes a guidebook to inner peace.
There are many other suggestions that Dr. Scott Eilers gives as well both here and in many other videos on his site. I hope that you will find something useful that will help you begin your journey toward enacting self-compassion in a proper way.
I’m not broken.
In the beginning I spoke about how hard it was to give myself compassion. It didn’t seem like I was worth it, living daily with coworkers and strangers alike calling me “odd”, “different”, and other epithets. I had them so ingrained in my mind that I didn’t believe I could ever rise above it. Where did I fit in the world if I couldn’t achieve anything that looked like a victory?
When I got my autism diagnosis, everything fell into place. I wasn’t odd. I just saw the world through a different set of lenses. And I didn’t suddenly become autistic. I was always as I am today.
Just tainted by others who tried to “fix” me.
But with these steps I shared, I have come to accept myself for who I am. I am learning to self-care by giving myself the necessary space to live without someone else’s chaos or opinions. I am finding my “happy place”, be it in my office space at home, or walking in the woods.
I am learning to accept me for who I am. And forgiving myself when I fail. And those lessons I am learning about myself is changing my perspective of my behavior and outlook. I fail. I’m not good a personal relationships. But that’s okay. I’m not designed for that.
So sharing with you these findings are important to me. And I hope they serve their purpose in helping you as well.
Learn who you are. It is the most important thing you can do for yourself.
When we learn who we are, we find the means to make ourselves better. In turn, we affect everyone around us with our changed perspective. And if they, seeing our successes, become encouraged to follow our example, the world will begin to look differently as well. Not just to each one of us, but to everyone whose lives we touch.
Isn’t it time you took care of yourself in the right way? Learning to find out who you are, and how to attain that inner peace that is so needed to survive even one more day? It isn’t selfish. It is necessary in order to live with inner peace.
Isn’t it time you took care of yourself in the right way?
Dr. Scott Eilers and others are a good starting place to learn to regain that inner calm you deserve. Qualified counseling, good therapists, religious ministers, and sometimes intermediate use of medications can all help to give you the hand-up you deserve.
Then share your own victories.
Send us an article on how you began to recognize and accept who you are.
Submit your writings to us …share your victories!
- What were the obstacles in your life that caused you to suffer so much?
- What did you do to get out of your situation and begin to thrive in a world so set on molding you into what you are not?
- How did you learn to find yourself?
- What can you share to give encouragement to others and bring them out of their own darkness?
Join the journey by sharing your adventures with others. Submit your writings to us through the contact link above.
We look forward to sharing your stories with others!