Self-Compassion
Opens The Door To Self-Healing

Until we learn self-compassion, we aren’t loving ourselves. Being out of love with ourselves is the cause of all our spiritual / emotional / mental / physical wounds. When we aren’t loving ourselves, we feel disconnected from our Source, which is Love Itself. Once we’ve opened up our end of the conversation with our Source, have acknowledged our wound, and have become willing to take responsibility for our lives, then awakening compassion for ourselves is the next essential step in our healing and wellbeing.

Like most of us, you were probably taught that you should have compassion for others, but were you ever taught that you need to have compassion for yourself first? Most of us weren’t. And the truth is, until you have compassion for yourself, you won’t be able to bring it to others. Then when we try to be compassionate with others and fail, the inevitable result is we add yet another layer of self-judgment upon ourselves.

When Your Inner Being Calls For Self-Compassion

When something happens and we feel strong negative emotions, often there is an old wound from childhood that has been triggered. A door to the unconscious opens and stands ready for us to enter and BE with ourselves to heal the wound. Our conditioning often tells us to ignore the door and distract ourselves in some way by reaching for an addictive substance or behavior.

“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures [including ourselves!] and the whole of nature in its beauty.” Albert Einstein

However, when the pain gets so great, eventually we find ourselves at a site like this one, or looking into the pages of a book, willing to do what it takes to heal and find our way to wellbeing.

All of our wounds stem from a false belief that we are separate from our Source. Ultimately, it is Source that does ALL healing. Therefore, the first step in any effective healing practice is to align ourselves with That. However, we still need to work WITH the Divine, to partner in our own healing. The human, psychological part required of you is to bring compassion for yourself, FROM yourself (more about this below), which unravels the core wound. Until then it stands unresolved in your energy field. For permanent healing we need to become conscious of our wound and be willing to bring love to this vulnerable part of ourselves, starting with self-compassion.

What Does Showing Compassion For Yourself Look Like?

Self-compassion means to fully BE with yourself in a deeply aware and non-judging way as a loyal and trustworthy friend. It is a willingness to be with yourself as a loving companion to your own pain. Self-compassion includes care, concern, solicitude, sensitivity, warmth, unconditional love, tenderness, acceptance, mercy, leniency, kindness, and charity for ourselves. Compassion for yourself is a softness that flows within you and permeates your emotional / energy wound with acceptance, unconditional love and intimate understanding.

No one in the world knows your feelings and hurts as well as you do. You know all the intricacies and tendrils of them, firsthand and up close. Because of this you are the one most qualified to bring love to this part of yourself.

Self-compassion is seeing your most tender wounds without judgment. Showing compassion to yourself is being willing to see / feel the reality of your pain without covering it up or trying to “fix” it. Once this level of self-love occurs, a door opens to the understanding of why the pain is there. As we lovingly befriend ourselves, awareness reveals the cause / effect dynamic that created the wound in the first place – a set of circumstances we experienced from which we formulated a negative belief about ourselves.

The power of compassion is seeing ourselves as Source sees us. Compassion is a God quality and when we tap into it, we have access to a very high energy field of healing and wellbeing. We get to intimately experience Source’s unconditional love for us. We discover what it is like to be loved totally, in every cell of our being, exactly as we are.

Why Do We Need Self-Compassion?

Until we consciously attend to our own psychological healing and wellbeing, energetic wounds or constrictions that stem from a feeling of being separate from Love remain in our energy field.

Others can love us and show compassion toward us, and yes, this does help. It helps us learn to open and receive. However, the compassion that does the transformational healing comes from within us. At the core of every wound is a thought / belief that we are separate from God, from Love – a fear that we are unworthy of love. It is a belief that we have accepted about ourselves. And you are the only one who can change that belief for yourself by experiencing the absolute truth of your Loveliness. This is what self-compassion does for you.

Although others may tell us that we’re good, beautiful, smart, etc., and that feels good, the wounded part of our psyche will still hold onto beliefs of not being good, smart or beautiful “enough” until we hear it from OURSELVES. All the affirmations in the world won’t work until we undo the core belief of being separate from Love with the experience of the truth that we are loved infinitely.

This completes a psychological loop that is essential for permanent healing, so that the energetic wound inside us doesn’t keep recreating itself. Until we heal the CAUSE of the wound (the belief of being separate from Source, from Love) with the Truth (that we’ve never been separate from Source and are totally worthy of Love, including our own) it stays in our energy field and keeps drawing the same painful scenarios into our experience.

As we make ourselves and our healing priority, we begin to see WHY we’ve done or said things we’re not proud of. We see that our reactions to situations aren’t because we’re “bad.” We see that we reacted because we were in pain and didn’t believe we had any other options. This realization itself opens the door to self-compassion and wellbeing.

“Be compassionate with yourself. Take small steps. Begin healing your own thoughts and feelings. Every time you heal a judgmental thought or feeling of separation, it is felt by every mind and heart in the universe. Your healing belongs not just to you, but to all beings. When you come to peace, world peace becomes immanent. If you have a responsibility to others it is only this one: that you come to peace in your own heart and mind.” Paul Ferrini, from Love Without Conditions, pg 57

How Do We Do It?
Where Do We Start?

For many of us, self-compassion is a brand new concept. It is not something that is usually modeled or taught in our childhood or even in our adult lives.

Each circumstance in our present-day life that triggers emotional pain is an opportunity to practice self-compassion and be with ourselves on a deep and intimate level. If we stay with this introspection, we uncover the core shame that lurks in the depths of each of us, giving us the opportunity to heal it.

The next time you are triggered by an event or a person…

Ask for help from your Higher Guidance.

Dear Source, help me to heal this wounded part of myself.
Please help me learn to love myself here, where I am hurting.

Fully accept whatever happened when you were triggered.

Fully accept ALL that you’re feeling, as well as all that you did, said or thought. Also, fully accept whatever the other person did, said, felt or thought. Accept all the circumstances that happened. Mentally rehashing it all, wishing it hadn’t happened, hanging onto thoughts that it “shouldn’t” have happened, or resisting the fact that it DID happen is a waste of your precious energy that could be focused toward your healing. The fact is that whatever happened HAPPENED. When we accept that we can move on and progress in our healing.

Remove your attention from the other person and open your inner awareness.

We are responsible for everything that we’re feeling, thinking, saying, or doing – not the other person. Later in the healing process you can address your connection with the other person(s) involved and bring compassion to them as well.

For now, turn your attention 180 degrees from the usual outwardly focused perspective. Remove it from the outside world and the appearance of other people and bring your attention inside. Open your awareness. Your awareness is the perspective or “eyes” inside you who sees everything neutrally and non-judgmentally. It observes everything but is not engaged in any of it. This is The Watcher.

Find the willingness to BE with yourself. Make yourself priority, especially your hurt child inside, your core wound.

As you let go of the movie of the outside world and other people, at least for now, focus on being just with YOU. Look at the circumstance that triggered your reactions and negative feelings, and…

Ask inside…

What am I feeling?

Invite and acknowledge all of your feelings, whatever they are – anger, sadness, fear, resentment, envy. Don’t judge any of it. It is simply energy moving through you. It is neither bad nor good. It is just energy.

As you’re feeling in to what is going on inside you, notice the familiarity of the feelings. Look back to a younger time in your life when you felt these feelings. At some point, you will feel yourself as a young child who still lives within you today. Notice that the feelings this young you is experiencing is because of certain events that happened. You are not wrong for having these feelings. They are the natural result of things that happened

Now, be a friend to this little one inside you.

Experience the part of you who is a loyal, compassionate friend who loves you unconditionally. It may take some patience to find this aspect of yourself, but I assure you, it is there. If you “think” there isn’t love there, then gently release that thought and view your Heart from the perspective of The Watcher – the neutral observer within you. At first you may just feel a sensation of warmth. Keep your attention in your Heart, let go of thoughts and just observe. Gradually you’ll feel tenderness, light, and space as well as warmth.

With this love from your Heart, imagine yourself sitting down beside this little one, letting them know you are here just to BE with them.

Hello little one. I’m here with you. I’m just going to be here with you as you feel this. I’m not going to leave you. I will stay with you as long as you want me to. We can feel these feelings together. You are not alone.

I’m not here to try to fix or change you. I just want to be with you as you are. I love you as you are. I have no expectations of you. I’m just happy to be with you as your friend. You are very important to me and I love you very much.

Bring your hurt child into your Heart.

Literally. S/he is suffering because she thinks she is outside of YOUR heart. We may think that we suffer because of lack of love from others, but that is never the case. Our suffering actually comes from thinking / feeling we are outside of our OWN love. Nothing is more painful than that. That is the place of absolute powerless.

Again, bringing attention to your Heart, gently enfold your inner little one into this reservoir of Love inside you. The more that you are with your inner child and get to know them, it won’t take any effort to love them. You will absolutely fall in love with this part of yourself when you allow yourself to experience the depth of her / his tender, beautiful being. After all, this is YOU! Our natural state is to love ourselves. We just need to allow ourselves the space to look and really see the wondrous beauty and purity of this little one to become aware of how much love and compassion we already feel for ourselves.

Soak Up Your Own Love

“Fear grows out of the things we think; it lives in our minds. Compassion grows out of the things we are, and lives in our hearts.” Barbara Garrison

For most of us, self-compassion is like food for the starving. As you begin to feel your OWN love, you will realize how much energy you’ve put into trying to get love and compassion on the outside and how no matter how much of that you’ve received from someone else, it’s never been enough. That’s because it doesn’t change your inner beliefs. If another person says “you’re wonderful” and on a core level (perhaps unconsciously) you say to yourself “no I’m not,” their love will only be a temporary band aid. It won’t be long until you’re looking for more from them or someone else. And then, when/if you get more loving attention from them, it STILL won’t be enough.

Only self-compassion and self-love will fill up that inner hole that stems from a false belief of being unlovable. Showing compassion for yourself allows you to consciously and directly experience, FOR yourself and ABOUT yourself, that you TRULY are loveable and you truly are Loved. This direct experience will change your old false belief on an energetic level – spiritually, emotionally and psychologically. The resulting shift in your energy vibration also changes your cells on a physical level, releasing the energy of lack and dis-ease.

Patience

After a lifetime of practicing self-judgment, watch for the inevitable arising of self-judgment if you don’t understand this process or if you’re not able to do the whole thing in one sitting (no one does it in one sitting!). Just start where you are. Sometimes when we’ve experienced severe trauma, any talk about self-compassion can sound like a foreign language. That’s okay. Just take one piece of it, one step that you resonate with and do that one step. That one step will guide you to the next and then the next…

As you practice these suggestions for awakening compassion for yourself, don’t be surprised if it takes some time. We generally heal step by step. For some of the more intense memories from your past it may take longer to sit with and accept the feelings and bring compassion to yourself there. Don’t make yourself wrong for any of it. Bring self-compassion to yourself wherever you are in the process. Be where you are and work from there. Be kind and gentle with yourself WHATEVER is going on inside you and then voila! you are already practicing self-compassion!

What Are The Results Of This Practice?

All of the coping behaviors we’ve adapted – withdrawing, projecting our feelings onto other people, acting out, etc. – were devised by a part of our psyche that is trying to protect the hurt little one inside in the only way it knows how. As we bring the power of compassion to ourselves, a psychological healing occurs. Our psyche no longer feels the need to take defensive measures to protect the inner vulnerable child once it sees that we’re finally taking care of the little one in an appropriate way.

As you practice self-compassion you will discover more space and wellbeing from within. You will feel more freedom to show up as you are. As you get to know your inner child more and bring love to them, you will know true self-empowerment and trust yourself more to take care of yourself. Therefore, you will have healthier boundaries with other people and not depend on them to take care of you. As you feel more love for yourself your energy field will vibrate on a lighter level and you will therefore attract to yourself more uplifting circumstances in your life that bring you joy!

Another beautiful outcome of practicing self-compassion is your compassion for others will flow automatically and effortlessly. Once you’ve experienced compassion intimately for yourself you will have it to share with others.

From "Self-Compassion
Opens The Door To Self-Healing”
continue on to
“How To Love Yourself”

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