On Self-Compassion & Change

Hello, Lovelies.

On this Mother’s Day here in the U. S., I want to celebrate and call attention to the mother of all healing modalities, the key to sustainable change-making and liberatory learning: compassion, which begins with compassion turned inward, towards ourselves.

We all have parts inside that are hurting. Scared parts. Insecure parts. Lonely parts. Angry parts. Grieving parts, sad parts. 

And yet, we rarely give these parts of ourselves the kindness, warmth, and tender affection that we would to a friend or beloved suffering likewise.   

Instead, our inner dialogue with these parts of ourselves tends to be shaming, critical, impatient, and cold. This dialogue expresses itself as the “inner critic,” or that voice that’s bent on figuring out “what’s wrong” with us in a misguided attempt to “do better,” “be better,” “up-level,” “improve,” or “change” ourselves. 

Here’s the thing: in my own life, and in working with clients and students, I cannot point to a single instance in which the punitive, impatient, striving quest of the inner critic—no matter how well-intended—has catalyzed lasting healing, happiness, creativity, motivation, joy, or liberation of any kind.

What does engender positive growth is a conscious, intentional turn towards ourselves that is loving, mindful, and kind, directed at the very parts of ourselves we feel most reluctant to claim or acknowledge, let alone be nice to. 

Maybe it’s the part of us that’s addicted. Maybe it’s the part of us that binges at night or calls the ex-lover we know is bad for us. Or maybe it’s the part of us that’s brittle and exhausted, that loses patience with our kids or partner just when they need us most. Or maybe it’s the part of us that’s tangled in a lie we don’t know how to get out of. Maybe it’s the part of us that feels aimless, distracted, undisciplined, caught in a pattern we see but aren’t yet free of. 

It sounds, I know, counter-intuitive: meet these parts of ourselves that we really don’t like, aren’t proud of, with care? Won’t we be letting ourselves off the hook? Making things worse? 

Actually, no. When we meet our flaws with self-shaming and disregard, we in fact reinforce the deep-down insecurities and fears that give rise to these habits in the first place, habits that are tethered to old beliefs that are themselves vestiges of coping mechanisms that once served us. When we bear down on ourselves with yet more disapproval, those deep-down beliefs about our own unworthiness or incompetence are simply affirmed; we may enjoy a burst of will-born change, but soon enough we’ll be back where we were, feeling even worse for having “failed,” yet again.

For example, my client who came to me having struggled with bulimia for most of her life. She was nearly paralyzed by shame because of her eating disorder. She hated herself for it. She’d tried, over and over, to stop, had been in therapy, but could never find the purchase she needed to heal her bulimia for good. Her inner voice was full of self-recrimination: “You’re disgusting.” “You’re gross.” “You’re broken.” “You’re a fraud.” Reinforcing these thoughts was the belief that “no one” could see her when binging or purging—that is, that she herself didn’t count as someone.

Bit by bit, she learned to meet her urges to binge and purge with an energy of acceptance, rather than resistance. Mind you, meeting her urges with acceptance is not the same thing as acting on those urges; by turning towards those urges with an attitude of compassionate presence, rather than hostile resistance, she opened up a space for presence with herself, and in so doing, made room for herself to notice how she was feeling without either repressing those feelings or acting on them. In contrast, the practice of self-shaming she’d been engaging for years eliminated the possibility of noticing, without judgement, her urges, leaving her instead at their mercy: she could either repress them (using willpower, which will exhaust itself), or act upon them. 

Shifting her self-talk from hostile to compassionate initiated a process of healing that changed everything for my client. She discovered that there were parts of herself that were in desperate need of acceptance and love, and that she was wholly capable of giving these things to herself. In fact, the practice of self-compassion that she learned unleashed a depth of joy, connection, belonging, and ease in her life unlike anything she’d previously felt. Her relationships with everyone dear to her deepened significantly. Her health bloomed. Her courage and confidence radiated. And she healed her bulimia. 

On this mother’s day, and in the days that follow, I hope you’ll take a moment to pause, become still with yourself, and shift your self-talk from shaming or critical to compassionate. This can start with something as simple as suspending judgement in favor of curiosity: instead of launching into the habitual reel of disparagement, try asking yourself any one of, or all of these questions instead: What’s going on for me here? What am I really feeling? What is it that I need? How can I comfort myself? What is the most loving thing I can do for myself right now? Then observe… Watch your body soften, your heart open, and new, perhaps even surprising solutions make their way to you.

If you’d like to deepen this practice with guidance, sign up here for my FREE Weekly Full Potential Journal Prompts— thoughtful, intelligent, research-based prompts that will be delivered to your inbox early every Monday morning.

If you’d like to experience an even deeper dive into the practice of self-compassion and making sustainable changes in your life, sign up here for a FREE, no-strings-attached 60-minute Breakthrough Session with me.

Happy Mother’s day to you, whether you are a mother or not. Each of us knows what it’s like to love, to create, to learn, and to grow. I celebrate this in you, and in the Oneness that nurtures us all.

Love,

Kirstin