Our view on self-love (thanks to the self-love bloggers) is mostly directed towards relaxation and unwinding. This works for sure because, after a long week of adulating, we all could use some rest to recharge. However, this is a different approach to self-love. In this direction, we look at self-care and self-love as work. Daily work. Hard work.
Let’s face it, we have grown to give ourselves less than we deserve and it will take work to get us back to that point where we view ourselves as valuable. For some of us, this is a new concept, difficult to grasp because of how we moved from being ill-treated by those around us and simply carried it on and enabled this type of treatment in adulthood. This post is for everyone who feels that they could put in more work in showing compassion to self. If you have felt this way then you are aware. We cannot stop at awareness though. We have to actually put in the work to change and that is the tough bit about healing. Slowly and consistently we will get better at showing ourselves love and these steps will help you take a look at what you need to work on so as to give yourself that love that you have been longing for and even searching for in all the wrong places.
Self-compassion is about trust, acceptance and respect. Often times we look outside ourselves for these three things and other people fail in one way or another and instead of us seeing that it is up to us to give ourselves these three things, we end up feeling shame and fear which makes us less respectful, accepting and trusting of ourselves.
Trust
As children, the first people we trust are our parents. In a previous book review on the Four Agreements, we looked into the process of domestication and how we take on everything that we see those around us do. We agree to imitate them because we trust them. To show us what is right. We later grow up to realize that they too are human and with fault. They too were made to make agreements by those they trusted as children and could only pass on to you what they had agreed to believe. The interactions we have as children and even in adulthood all fail to give us the solid trust and we ought to realize that we cannot ask of what we ourselves do not give ourselves. This is a painful realization because how many times do we ask people to trust us with their property, money, lives and hearts while we ourselves do not trust ourselves?
This opens up room for a general exercise. For the next few months of 2019 (Yeah we are not so far from 2020), only ask for what you yourself are giving to yourself. For some, this might mean that they will not ask for anything from anyone for the rest of the year and that is okay as long as you are working on giving these things to yourself. Don’t ask for honesty, if you are not honest with yourself, don’t ask for love when you are not giving it to yourself.
We need to trust ourselves fully and this includes trusting our feelings. They are real. They may not be permanent but they are real and most of the time they come up because we are running away from dealing with uncomfortable situations.
We need to also believe that we are worthy for us to show ourselves some love. Trust that doing things for you makes you better and is not in any way selfish. Trust that you need compassion for yourself for you to be a good friend, parent or partner.
Acceptance
To live in acceptance is such a powerful thing. Accepting yourself and the season you are in currently and accepting that you are flawed and still need and deserve love regardless. Accept that you need to show yourself some love despite having denied yourself of it for so long is so important.
We also need to accept that it will not be a one day fix and that it will take a lot of time and work to accord ourselves love. We ought to accept that it will feel foreign and maybe a little self-centred but as long as you trust that you are deserving, then the world also has to accept that you are working on yourself and let you do it.
Respect
Self-respect is important for various reasons. Once we respect ourselves we know that our actions must match the love we show ourselves. It is much easier to respect others (a skill that also works in your favour in the end) once you have self-respect on lock.
What ways are you depriving yourself of love?
Your thoughts
We have thousands of these in a day and so we need to pay more attention to how these thoughts we have shape our actions and feelings. Part of paying attention to our thoughts include not trying to numb how we feel. Sometimes it seems like the reasonable thing to do because we cannot handle it when it shows up but we need to deal with these feelings that we are feeling. We need to find a name for the feelings we feel because if we do not know what we are feeling then it is hard to know what or who made us feel what we feel.
Paying attention to our thoughts means noticing when you start to judge yourself for feeling pain, anger, shame and confusion. These are just feelings that every human being goes through. They are not what define us. They are feelings that pass eventually. Noting when you start being negative and then replacing that notion with the temporary nature of these feelings is important because then we can see that beyond the dark clouds we are under things get warm and sunny afterwards.
Your actions
Sometimes the things we do show us that we do not have a lot of compassion for ourselves. The thing about showing compassion for self is that it will show in how we act. How we treat ourselves and how we interact with others.
Engaging in self-destructive behaviour is a clear indication that you are not showing love to yourself. I’ll give a common example (I hope all the readers know the value of staying hydrated)
If you don’t drink water, your inaction will have you with chapped lips, dry skin, your joints will be in pain, you will feel weak and distracted. It will show that you do not care for your mind and body. Your health will deteriorate and it will affect your interactions with those around you as well.
The same goes for overindulgence in alcohol, work, food and whatever vice you are using to self medicate. How you treat your body will show the level of compassion you have for yourself.
Self-compassion shields us from the disease of perfectionism
If you are kind to yourself then you realize you are human and you will make mistakes. The thing is we let this fear of not being perfect, stop us from even trying and it boils down to not believing in ourselves because we are not trusting of our capacity. Once you know that perfect is not what you are working for then it is easier to show yourself more love because you can now measure your progress instead.
The link between self-compassion and addiction
If we cannot accept and respect ourselves, we are likely to look for ways to validate ourselves and most of these ways are self-destructive. In a book I am currently reading on addiction: Lost Connections by Johann Hari, the author shares that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety but connections. When we take a deeper glance at it, we realize that we feel disconnected from ourselves and even from others once we do not trust, accept and respect ourselves. We feel disconnected from those around us because our actions show the lack of respect and acceptance we have for ourselves. Some decide to isolate themselves or use money, sex, food, alcohol and drugs to numb the self-doubt and hate. Addiction is a shame cycle. We feel shame that we are not even enough for ourselves and as we earlier established, those around us fail at giving you all we need when it comes to trust, acceptance and respect.
In my opinion, practising self-compassion for most of us is hard work because that muscle has rarely been put to work if ever. It is also difficult because there is no manual on where to start. We have little or no training on how to be kind to ourselves. As Africans, we are brought up to be of service to others and selfless. His makes it hard because we grew up with people who lived by the same belief and tolerated a lot to make those around them comfortable.
Other than using Google to search for self-compassion exercises, I believe that we could use our selflessness and the advice we give those closest to us and use it for ourselves. Imagine your best friend came to you with the same dilemma you are going through when it comes to showing yourself love, what would you tell your friend to help them get out of feeling this way? That is the exact thing you tell yourself when you go through a phase where you feel that you are lacking in self-compassion
Another thing that helps us experience more acceptance of ourselves is by writing down the things we believe we are gifted in. You will be surprised at what you can come up with if you do this with a clear mind. You can replace the need for perfectionism with hard work and see what path that leads you to. We can turn what you consider you being gullible to you trusting which means all you need to do is channel the same to yourself.
We can focus on the fact that we are caring and generous and work on sharing these gifts that we freely give to others to our deserving selves.
You are worthy and I hope that you devote your energy to showing yourself love moving forward no matter how loud your self-critic gets.
Love,
Sabali
#WellnesswithSabali #wellnessblog #wellness #selfcompassion #selfcareiswork #selflove #selfcare #healing #learning #respect #acceptance #trust #selffirst