Self compassion

[sigiriuk]

Hello everyone
Being kind to myself regardless of my successes or failures, seems to have no logic.
But after some thought, I wonder if that inability to love myself unconditionally is due to emotional damage.
I suppose most kids take it as a given, and don't ever need to justify respecting themselves.
I need to try and accept that my struggling is due to damage.
Peace
Slim

[Dee]

Yes, I would say it is due to trauma.  I am working really hard to love myself, or sometimes just like myself.  This isn't something that I can just do, but I can work on it.  Sometimes I say affirmations I don't believe.  It's the idea of fake it until you make it, I hope if I hear it enough I will believe it.  I also try to write letters of compassion to myself.  I do really well until I am 11 and then I have a harder time.  Still, I am trying, and I do believe it will come.

[woodsgnome]

Sometimes, it's hard to find much that truly is 100% logical; despite the line that of course the world makes perfect sense if, if, and if such and such happens. That rarely occurs, though, so where's the logic there?

In the case of cptsd, we've experienced a jolt to the assumption that it all makes sense. I thought so, kept searching for answers, and there's just no way I'm capable of finding any sense to what happened along the supposed linear path to happiness.

Maybe that's the false belief, not the other way around. Goes back to acceptance, I guess--not as resignation or defeat but as an invitation to put a new prism on one's life path, and that includes putting the self-kindness back in.

Being kind to oneself doesn't require knowing who's right/wrong or any of the judgements our inner critic insists we make. And NO--it doesn't mean I'm always kind to myself. I'm human--I forget. Hating myself was drilled into me; all I can do is slowly unravel from that extra burden--it's a remnant, but not definitive of who I am or want to be.

My own self is indeed the least logical to blame when I feel overwhelmed. So being kind to myself is perhaps the ideal starting point for finding any clarity to my life story. We all are capable of that kindness, as much or more than heaping our self-abuse on top of the other traumas we endured. That's where I begin to see meaningful logic for a change--when I can be kind to myself.

Being kind to self does make sense; it's only out of abuse-derived habit that it could be otherwise. 

[sigiriuk]

Thank you both
So in summary, most people naturally find it easy to be kind to themselves.
But we struggle.....

[woodsgnome]

Sorry if I made it sound easy. It never is; it can be fairly complex and even contradictory or illogical sometimes. But our capacity/potential for  self-compassion is part of our makeup. It's like a hidden companion on the journey that we have a tendency to forget; especially given the stresses that arise from traumatic episodes that still haunt us.

Perhaps it's like radically accepting the notion of befriending what we've tried so hard to avoid or shoo away--fear, grief, pain, etc. I could never consider certain emotions as friends during past events, but now I can relax and consider them as having been in the same boat as mine. I reacted as my human self, and they from their own nature; and I'm  now more aware it was the abusers who laid the track, and I'm free to find my own way now. Pain, grief, etc. can still follow, but I'm better equipped to handle them now. It may seem strange to personalize emotions like that, but it's helped me find a way to cope.

Knowing that painful memories etc. will still come knocking, I'm better able to see them and learn from them now. But it takes loads of patience, fortitude, and massive amounts of self-compassion.

[asyouwish]

I struggle a lot with self-compassion.

It's something my therapist has been trying to get me to be basically since I started going to her. She keeps talking about how important it is to be kind to your inner child and to stop negative self-talk. So far, it's been pretty impossible for me.

It's so connected with trauma, and emotional abuse, and all the things we went through as kids. My therapist says I'm just repeating the things I learned as a child. All the terrible names my FOO would call me, or things they would say about me. And I'm convinced of it, because of them

So, yes. After having experienced a non-nurturing childhood, self-compassion is more difficult than it is for someone who's feelings and self-worth were validated growing up.

But we can work on it! My therapist uses the strategy of asking, "Would you say that to [best friend]?" Of course, I say, "No! Never!" And she sits back triumphantly like, "Then never say it to yourself." So, think of yourself or your inner child as someone you love and care about, project them onto your self-talk, because you're so much kinder to other people than yourself.

Does this really help? Eh, I'm working on it. I've only recently gone NC with my FOO, so they're still in my head. But I'm working on it.

[sigiriuk]

Thx everyone.
Woodsgnome - I was feeling a bit yukky when I wrote my first reply...no reflection on your post.
Asyouwish, sounds like good advice for me to try out.
And Dee, I like your idea of writing letters of compassion and doing it chronologically.
Hope you are all well.
Slim