I’ll Get You My Pretty! Not. Kindness Challenge Week 2
Grim, that is how the Kindness Challenge’s self-compassion week felt! Self-love week was joyous while unloved and unseen parts bathed themselves in self-love, enjoying the warmth and healing. But self-compassion the sacred act of suffering with the suffering parts of myself…totally sucked!
To support and encourage the suffering parts, I required “face” of self-compassion. A familiar icon that personifies hope so the barely mobile suffering parts have a guru to crawl toward, to look at, to connect to self-compassion’s healing powers.
Having faith that an idea would emerge, I continued my daily tasks. With a few twists of her magic wand somewhere from my subconscious she created an opening and emerged. It was the famous Dorothy’s compassionate and guiding force along the Yellow Brick Road to see the Wizard of Oz. Glinda the Good Witch.
Glinda was the perfect self-compassion guru! She was present, loving, peaceful, and wise. She gently shared wisdom while radiating confidence in Dorothy’s innate intelligence to untangle her disorientation. I hired Glinda! She was now the “face” of my self-compassion.
With Glinda The Good Witch hired, I bravely confronted my wicked witch part that criticized me bitterly, judgmentally, and ragefully. The infinite criticism stopped me in my tracks because I believed my wicked witch! This wicked witch filled my stomach with pain and body with paralysis.
Glinda The Good Witch of self-compassion ascended wearing her ballgown, twisting her magic wand while her tiara sparkled. I felt an encouraging shift. The paralysis was melting. The wicked witch of criticism was so righteous and self-centered she didn’t see self-compassion also known as Glinda silently emerging.
Once my mind’s eye glimpsed Glinda surfacing in the periphery, I internally shifted my attention toward her. The simple act of placing my attention on Glinda slowly diminished the wicked witch’s voice and rage filled energy. Glinda’s compassionate energy took root within me. I sensed my task was to remain focused on Glinda’s compassion. This simple action of sliding my attention away from my critical wicked witch would cause her nasty effects to fade. Glinda stood by my side until my complete attention was transferred from self-criticism to self-compassion.
With my face turned toward Glinda, she gently placed her guiding hand on my chin and another on my cheek. She asked me to mentally review my entire day not only a slice of it. To support my imaginary walk thru my day, with reverence and care, she slowly turned my head from the left to the right. I could see the ruins of darkness and anger at my left which was the damage caused by the critical inner wicked witch. The day’s landscape transformed as my head was guided right. There was brightness, a sense of peacefulness, a quiet rhythmic productive feeling, and a necessary sense of relaxation as well.
My self-compassion guru was showing me that my day contained a variety of feelings, mishaps, and accomplishments. This guided tour, made me realize that my inner wicked witch arrives via her broomstick to criticize me when I am hyper focused on a real or imagined unsuccessful event. Inviting her to stay and listening to the wicked witch’s negative claims is like drinking a potion that shifts my perception away from the rightful day’s events and experiences and turns them into the critical wicked witch’s truth.
When I access, welcome, and live the energy of self-compassion, my critical inner wicked witch melts…just like in the Wizard of Oz movie. Her power is stripped in the face of caring and wise self-compassion.
As I ingest this astounding realization of the power of self-compassion, I can hear Glinda say to me as she said to Dorothy¦
“You always had the power my dear you just had to learn it for yourself.”