Trauma Recovery 101: Self-Compassion

Yes, you. Start here.

I started writing memoir, and my life changed.

Understanding my own story finally helped me find the compassion for self I lacked for several decades.

Any idea how hard it is to recover when you feel like a piece of sh!t who deserves to suffer? Add to that the shame you get from every direction for treating yourself like a piece of sh!t.

As you were trained to do. By parents trained to do the same. Attracting people trained to do the same into your life from multiple directions. Including many healthcare professionals professing to help.

Deep streaks of self-loathing all around.

Self-harm is a natural consequence of self-loathing. Self-loathing is a pre-requisite for self-harm.

We Are Who We Surround Ourselves With

How you feel, including about yourself, is profoundly impacted by the people around you.

Especially in our earliest years. Having to do with mirror neurons and brain development. Genetics and environment. We’re all little science experiments testing the relative influence of nature versus nurture.

Mirror neurons — or their absence — play a profound impact in our lives.

Trauma affects our mirror neurons. Leaving some of us highly sensitive to the needs of others at the expense of our own needs. And others highly sensitive to our own needs and less able to see the needs of others.

We are all on a spectrum from extreme empathy to extreme narcissism based on a huge number of factors. Our early childhood exposure to trauma and the modeling we receive in our formative earliest years has significant impact.

Societal norms and systems also shape the networks in people’s brains. Including where individuals fall on the spectrum of selflessness to self-centeredness.

Because of the way brains develop, what we are exposed to during our earliest years and while in embryo can have especially entrenched and far-reaching impact. As can the experiences of our ancestors, as shown by recent advances in epigenetics.

We are what we were programmed to be without our consent. Until or unless we take conscious action to rewire our brains.

Self-Compassion Rewires Our Brains

To rewire our brains, we need to apply self-compassion when our brains — and others ’ — serve up harsh criticism.

Our inner critics and the outer critics who implanted them in our brains are attempting to maintain a status quo that does not allow room for self-compassion. Or true self-expression.

Too expensive. Too time-intensive. Too selfish. Too dangerous.

Unless you understand the costs and consequences of foregoing self-compassion. (Disease, abuse, premature death, catastrophic loss.)

Not only does self-compassion help fight all kinds of things I want to avoid, people who show compassion toward themselves have more compassion to show toward others.

It is about energy.

We are what we consume. We consume what we are surrounded by and what we give to ourselves.

Who Needs More Self-Compassion?

Most humans I know received too little compassion in childhood.

Most humans I know would benefit deeply from learning how to re-parent themselves with more love and understanding than their parents were capable of giving them.

Some of us get an invitation to do this as part of parenting our own children. Such a gift.

Even people who received excess compassion in childhood need more self-compassion.

Because excess compassion is usually a signal of inadequate compassion elsewhere. Also, excess compassion conditions children to seek compassion externally. Instead of from within.

The solution to what ails us all is more self-compassion.

If you don’t understand why you need more self-compassion, allow me to introduce you to memoir writing.

Which I write about every Monday here on Medium. Along with self- compassion on Tuesday.

On Wednesday and Thursday I’m on Substack writing about grief and gratitude.

For now, I’m writing on Instagram and Facebook about culinary therapy and brainfood on Fridays and Saturdays.

I’d be honored and grateful to have you opt-in for any portion of my content that feels valuable to you. I look forward to meeting lots of interesting people in several different spaces.

Craving Diversity Is a Trauma Response

Why so many platforms?

My life runs on diversity, and it adds enormous value.

Also it’s a deeply ingrained trauma response connected to how my nervous system convinces itself to feel safe in an increasingly complex world.

I do not feel safe unless I have a diversified portfolio, multiple revenue streams, and more data than anyone else thinks is necessary. I don’t feel safe when surrounded by a bunch of people who look like me. I lost my house and it prompted me to now have two. Risk reduction. Also, living in a different place each week teaches me so much.

People have been telling me I’m wrong for my trauma responses most of my life.

Including and perhaps most often the brilliant ones that saved my life.

Living, studying, and working in diverse communities is one of a boatload of ways I show compassion toward myself.

My nervous system was wired for diversity. Its absence makes me feel unsafe.

I feel safe in diverse spaces.

Putting myself in diverse spaces is one of the best ways I know to show myself love.

Connected to why I do it again and again.

Some other ways I’ve shown myself self-compassion today:

— walking in nature and sunshine

— dancing to music

— connecting to humans

— being of service to others

— setting and implementing reasonable boundaries

— buying myself flowers

—meditation

— animal therapy

— group coaching on money mindset

— 1:1 hypnosis and NLP coaching

— HYDRATION (tho I am thirsty on this walk and clearly need more)

— culinary therapy

— vision boarding

— living in a beautiful light-filled place where my body feels safe and my heart feels open.

You see, I sucked at self-compassion for a very long time.

And then I came to.

And realized I had a sh!tton of self-harm and harm by others to balance out.

Meaning I could apply nothing but compassion toward myself for the rest of my days and it still won’t be too much.

I am working hard to have self-compassion be my default reaction to the traumas of my life. Just as I urge for others.

Unfortunately, because of how my brain was wired in childhood, present-day triggers often re-ignite experiences of the past, eliciting extremely self-critical responses.

These self-critical responses saved my life in childhood. And now they stand in the way of my full healing.

Tuesdays Are For Self-Compassion

On good days — and every Tuesday — I respond to any and every self-harming thought I observe with an extra dose of self-compassion.

This works just as well on hurtful thoughts directed at me by others.

In time, I will learn to ignore them, too. Recognizing how little other people’s responses have to do with me. And how much they instead reveal things about those responding.

But that takes time. Again, because of how my brain formed.

I don’t know a single human who wouldn’t benefit from more self-compassion.

How will you show yourself care today?

Not only do you deserve it, your ability to serve others depends on it.

Do you struggle with self-compassion? Welcome to the club.

Part of my coaching involves helping clients develop and demonstrate greater self-compassion. Without it, we continue to self-sabotage and undermine our own efforts to heal.

I currently have two spots available for 1:1 coaching. Please book a discovery call to learn more.