Posts tagged compassion
Being Kind to Yourself
hen I was at my massage therapy appointment the other day my therapist said she felt I had regressed since my last appointment and asked if I thought the craziness of the Holidays had contributed to my tenseness. For the first time ever I opened up to her and told her that I was going through trauma therapy and that we were starting to get into some things that were really hard. I felt this was the real reason I was so tense, since I had been anxious and stressed out by some of the things that were coming up. She lovingly said, “Well, that would explain why your left side is always more tense than your right. That’s where your heart is.”
Our bodies manifest trauma in so many different ways. Part of the therapy (both group and personal) that I’m going through is to help me understand and break down the ways that my body and mind react to and process this trauma. Each week we practice a new skill for understanding and dealing with triggers when they happen. In the middle of the written information for one of these skills was a small quiet sentence: “Doing this skill can be a huge challenge for trauma survivors, so be very kind and gentle with yourself!”
Huh. Being kind to myself…I realized that even though it seemed like I should understand this, I had absolutely no idea what that entailed. The thought kept coming back to me throughout the week and after my massage appointment. I started thinking about all the ways in which I am super hard on myself. I am very rigid with my ideas of how I think things should be and have little flexibility when they don’t go that way. I am really hard on myself about my body pain and often do things that aren’t helpful to give myself a temporary fix. I give up on things that don’t immediately grab me or that I don’t succeed at right away. I could go on and on. The point being: I fail epically at having compassion for myself.
As an experiment I thought about the idea of having compassion for my pain. What I discovered was that—just by changing my thinking from a negative viewpoint (of hurt and frustration) to a positive viewpoint (of compassion)—I reacted by caring for my pain (wanting to stretch and do yoga) rather than relying on the same destructive habits (cracking my neck and “beating up” on my back). I considered the other ways in which I could be kind to myself: not setting unrealistic expectations, allowing myself the freedom to be flexible, and even not being frustrated about not being compassionate with myself is compassion in itself!
This is still all very new to me and I have to really remind myself to slow down, challenge my perception, and enjoy the process. I would love to hear the things you do to be kind with yourself if you feel like sharing (as a reply, reblog, or by going to this post and leaving a comment below). ♥
