Self-compassion is the first step towards compassion for others. For me – associated with early times in my emotional recovery – it goes with other ‘Selfs’: Self-awareness, Self-knowledge, Self-forgiveness, Self-acceptance and dare I say it….Self-love!
Before, I mostly judged the world the way I judged myself – criticising, judging, blaming and resenting others and, to a far greater extent, damning, berating, belittling and shaming myself. And walking this road of general condemnation suited me pretty well for several decades.
But when I made a decision to choose change, reintegration, growth and healing, part of that change meant becoming more positive, loving and kind – towards ME! Before that, any efforts to be loving, kind, patient and forgiving towards others seemed like ‘the right thing’ to do but the effort was teeth-grittingly exhausting and somehow rather false.
Two phrases helped with this process – “let it begin with me” and “keep the focus on myself”.
There can be a three-step approach to self-compassion :
- Awareness
- Acceptance
- Action
I needed to be honest about who I had become over the negative years – both the positives and the negatives. I had to share these findings with someone I could trust. I needed to understand and explore where some of this stuff had stemmed from.
I got angry for a while then sad for a while – talked about it, wrote about it, sat with it. I had to accept myself exactly the way I was – warts and all. Only then could I better understand myself, forgive and nurture myself – particularly my ‘Internalised Inner Child’.
One action I took to repair that disassociated relationship was to ask the Child to write a letter to me to tell me how she felt and then, as the Loving Adult, the ‘older me’ undertook to write a supportive letter back, acknowledging her feelings and promising to take care of everything from now on.
When this self-compassion was finally in place for me, I was then able to extend that understanding, acceptance and forgiveness to others and to do so genuinely – at no emotional cost to myself.
It was important for me to start with my own parents and step-parent, whom it had been so easy to blame in the past. If I could cut myself some slack now because I realised that a lot of negative stuff had come from my past parenting – then mightn’t they have experienced much the same through their own experiences of being parented? After all, we can’t give away what we haven’t got, can we?
Self-compassion has also helped me to believe that I am no better than anyone else and certainly no worse. Instead of standing on the rung of a ladder with others beneath me or above, I have put aside the need to compete and compare, and feel much healthier, wiser and kinder than I once was – either to others, or myself.