I pretend I’m someone else
I pretend I’m talking to a friend to find my compassion for myself.
It’s taken me a long time to realise I didn’t have compassion for myself and almost as long to realise I should. During these realisations I also accepted (with some shame and some compassion) that I’m not good at it.
In fact, I was terrible at it.
We can’t be good at everything and rather than spending hours staring at the ceiling traversing the caverns of my past to determine why and how this happened, I simply accept it.
My mum calls it radical acceptance. So I practice radical acceptance and deal with it. [Although it sounds simple, this took a long time!].
I have found a trick that helps me.
Whenever I feel like I need to be compassionate towards myself, I pretend it’s a friend in that situation not me.
I picture one of my friends in my mind….I rehearse in my head what I’d say to that friend (it’s OK), how I’d behave (hug) and how I’d lighten the situation (mild humour).
I then say and do that to myself.
I feel the coil around my chest start to loosen and my breath returning.
The shame and fear seep out of my body and get absorbed into the earth.
My soul clears and I become the me I want to be.
