What is it that you really need to hear?
Start there with Self-Compassion on the way to Self Love
The above quote is some point that bell hooks made, which said that, if you are unsure of how to self-love or offer compassion to yourself then first start with what you are desperate so hear from another.
This resonates with me and I think it will for many people.
I will say though that for me, personally, there are parts of my childhood and upbringing, influences from a patriarchal society, and modeled behavior from my mother as well as my lived, embodied experiences with trauma—that have made self-compassion difficult for me.
I have written about it before, but again, those who have PTSD or CPTSD, traumatic experiences that have shaped them physiologically—mind-body-spirit-integration, we have a very difficult time in not feeling broken and shamed.
Trauma survivors desperately crave compassion—arguably true for much of humanity, sure, but this inner, hollow, God-foresaken state that often accompany trauma victims/survivors are what make the compassion from others and from self so vital, so critical.
However, when your nervous systems are shot to hell and you have anxious attachment or have had our systems rewired to feel anxiety, we often times are unable to relax into trusting ourselves. We are unable to acknowledge that though we feel broken and shamed, we aren’t, that we don’t have to be, or at least not to dwell there.
Sure, we all have different points where we feel shamed and brokenness, and we crave and yet lack compassion for ourselves.
But I think the difference is that with trauma survivors, much like those with anxiety versus generalized anxiety disorder, and those who are depressed versus have major depression/major depressive disorder, is that the latter ones are conditions, not temporary feelings.
They are not a state of being that you exist in.
Similarly with OCD, some have those tendencies from time to time, but the condition is a person who lives in that state. Perpetually.
I would argue that those with trauma live in a perpetual existence of shame and brokenness, that is, unless they heal and get therapy and transform, helping themselves by doing the hard work to calm their nervous systems down.
That is the difference.
I think about how the above question would apply to me—truly, what would I need to tell myself? That I crave to hear but I need to give to myself?
I think that —you are enough. You have done enough. You don’t have to earn rest and your worth/value cannot change despite whatever your laurels, accomplishments or accolades are now and despite whatever they may be in the future.
You are okay, now, just as you are. You are safe.
I put the above pressure on myself and I am clear about why—
For me, I’m the—
1-The adult child of an alcoholic who took on the hero role. Recognized as belonging and being loved and accepted for being a good child and succeeding.
2-Me, the child of a patriarchy who internalized those messages of a woman’s role in service to others. And I saw them demonstrated in my mother, that you live to serve others, your husband and your children.
And even though I knew that she didn’t want that for me, what she had, her life, and she always told me that I deserved and could have more, also—
We internalize behaviors of what the adults around us and parents do, versus what they say.
I think that that is part of the emphasis behind when we tell children—do as I say and not as I do.
Sure, on the one hand—it’s hypocritical.
On the other hand, we know that our behaviors and how they are observed and understood by little ones have all the more weight and effort to shaping behaviors than empty words.
Have you thought about it? What do you really need to hear from others? How can you give it yourself? Fill up your own cup and recharge your own batteries?