Last week while I was deep in thought, I had a breakthrough. I realized that I have spent as long as I can remember, viewing treating myself with kindness and compassion as making excuses for myself. It was a sad realization but a powerful one. The more I process, the more I see that it is tied to a lifetime of feeling unworthy. Now that I’ve identified this subconscious thought process, I am working to tune in and consciously change how I treat myself. I am working on choosing kindness and compassion instead of shame and judgment when I make a mistake or don’t check something off my list. I’m learning to dust myself off and get right back up.

An internal dialogue surrounding a misstep in parenting might look like the one below:

Me: Oh man, I can’t believe I just lost it with the kids like that.

Also me: You had a terrible night, you haven’t drank a sip of water yet, you didn’t even make time to brush your teeth...hello migraine!

Me again: Stop making excuses for your failure, you are an awful mother. You’ve basically set them up for a ruined childhood.

I wouldn’t even let myself finish the statement in which I was attempting to be compassionate. I cut myself off before having an opportunity to treat myself with kindness. I was under the impression that I would be a better person if I accepted the blame for my error. No excuses, accept the blame and move it along. How sad is it that many of us treat ourselves this way? Placing blame allows us to feel in control. And if there’s anything I’ve learned in therapy, it’s that feeling in control is easier than feeling helpless. Many of us will quickly pick up or place blame to get things under ‘control’ instead of allowing ourselves to feel helplessness.

There are many things that can lead to feeling helpless. If you are a parent, the truth of the matter is that you cannot control your children. Our inability to control the behavior of others frequently leads to feelings of helplessness. If you don’t have children, you may find yourself struggling with your inability to control a spouse, friend, coworker, or parent. Heck, disregarding people all together, you like most of us may just struggle when things appear uncertain. I’m sure at least one situation in your personal life has come to mind. Can you go back and re-examine it from this new lense?

I’m going to share with you what my therapist told me, ‘helpless doesn’t mean hopeless’. I believe that allowing yourself to feel helpless instead of fighting for control with every fiber of your being, opens the door to learning to treat yourself with compassion instead of shame and judgment. Not being able to control everything comes with our humanity. The only thing we can actually control is ourselves. No matter how far along we are in the shame and judgment thought process or conversation, we can always stop in our tracks. When we become aware of the path we’re going down, we can make a conscious choice to shift into compassion and kindness. But before we can extend that to others, we must extend it to ourselves.

My therapist turned me onto Brené Brown’s work and it has completely changed my life. I love what she has to say about compassion. You can read it below.

"The definition of compassion that most accurately reflections what I've learned from the research is from American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön. In her book The Places That Scare You, Chödrön writes: When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us....In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience—our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror. It has to be this way. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity."

This doorway into the way I treat myself and why I have a hard time choosing compassion and kindness is one I’ve just opened. I am at best a novice. But I am unafraid of failure. And to be completely honest, I can’t believe I just typed that sentence. I am very much a ‘color between the lines’ type of person. It is marvelous and miraculous that I’ve been able to shift in this way. But I’ll say it again, I am not afraid to fail at learning how to choose compassion and kindness. Each time that I fail, I will gain more experience. In time, I’ll have a bank of experience to draw from.

I am working with intention, I choose the work. Instead of choosing to use blame to feel in control, I’m going to work to accept that there are times when I will feel helpless. It comes with the turf as a human. Feeling helpless is hard and unpleasant but like everything else in life, it is not permanent. And if releasing my desperate need for control can connect me to compassion and kindness, temporary discomfort is irrefutably a price worth paying. If you would like to start changing the way you talk to yourself, I invite you to try incorporating this week’s ‘fruits of inspiration & grace’ (FiGs) into your life.

I am grateful that you make the choice to join me in this space where vulnerability is chosen over perfection. I believe that we can change our lives in ways beyond our imagination if we choose to treat ourselves with kindness and compassion instead of shame and judgment. Are you ready to open that door? You are worth it. Nothing other than existing means you are worth it. There are no prerequisites. If you would like to receive a practice scenario that explains how you can apply this reflection’s 4 FiGs in your life, you are invited to subscribe to the ‘FiG 4-1-1’ newsletter here or follow along on Instagram.