Self-Compassion: Learning to Love Ourselves Again

Last week we talked about authenticity.

Taking off the mask. Letting go of the performance. Becoming comfortable enough to allow the person underneath to actually be seen.

But that leaves us with an important question:

How do we treat that person once we find them?

For many of us, that's where the real work begins.

Because we can change our behaviors. We can become more responsible. We can set boundaries, rebuild trust, live with greater integrity and become more authentic.

And still have moments when that old voice shows up.

You screwed that up.

You should be further along by now.

Here you go again.

Maybe you haven't changed as much as you thought.

Transformation doesn't necessarily mean those thoughts never appear again.

It means we become more aware of what we do with them when they do.

A Thought Doesn't Have to Become an Identity

Thoughts are going to pop up occasionally.

Some will come from old experiences. Some from fear. Some from shame. Some may simply be habits we've repeated internally for so long that they feel like truth.

We don't have to fight every thought.

We can notice it.

Question it.

And when necessary, reframe it.

There's an enormous difference between:

I made a mistake.

and

I am a mistake.

Between:

I handled that poorly.

and

I'm a failure.

Between:

I fell into an old behavior.

and

Nothing about me has changed.

The first statement gives us something we can take responsibility for.

The second attacks our identity.

We make mistakes. We are not mistakes.

That's an important distinction.

Because if I made a mistake, I have choices.

I can acknowledge it.

I can apologize.

I can repair what I'm able to repair.

I can learn from it.

And I can choose differently the next time.

But if I've convinced myself that I am the mistake, where exactly do I go from there?

Reframing Isn't Pretending

I've come to understand that self-compassion isn't about replacing every uncomfortable thought with something positive.

Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable.

Maybe I did hurt someone.

Maybe I made a poor decision.

Maybe I ignored something I knew needed my attention.

Self-compassion doesn't require me to pretend otherwise.

Reframing isn't changing the truth to make ourselves feel better. It's refusing to make the truth crueler than it needs to be.

I can hold myself accountable without humiliating myself.

I can recognize something I need to change without deciding there's something fundamentally wrong with me.

I can experience regret without building a home inside it.

That's not avoiding responsibility.

That's learning how to use responsibility for what it was always meant for:

Power.

Learning to Love Ourselves Again

But I think self-compassion eventually asks something even deeper of us.

Can we learn to love ourselves again?

For some people, maybe that word again doesn't even fit.

Maybe we were never really taught how.

We learned to achieve.

To please.

To perform.

To compare.

To look outside ourselves for evidence that we were worthy.

And somewhere along the way, we may have started looking at ourselves primarily through our mistakes, regrets, addictions, failures, insecurities or the opinions of other people.

Self-compassion asks us to look again.

I believe there is something greater than us.

You may call that Source. Power. God. You may understand it differently than I do.

That's okay.

For me, believing that we are created in the image of something greater changes the way I think about our worth.

Maybe our worth was never something we had to earn back.

Maybe underneath everything we've done, everything we've experienced and every identity we've attached to ourselves, there remains something inherently worthy of love.

That doesn't erase responsibility for our actions.

It gives us a foundation from which to take responsibility for them.

Perfect, Whole and Complete

There's an affirmation I've carried with me throughout my own transformation:

I am perfect, whole and complete.

Those words can be misunderstood.

Perfect doesn't mean I've behaved perfectly.

Whole doesn't mean I've never been hurt.

Complete doesn't mean I'm finished growing.

I still have things to learn.

I still make mistakes.

I still catch thoughts that need to be challenged and reframed.

I still have moments when I could have handled something better.

But none of those things require me to withdraw love from myself.

I can be whole and still healing.

I can love myself and still challenge myself.

I can accept myself and still choose to grow.

Those aren't contradictions.

They're self-compassion.

Affirm It. Believe It. Live It.

At first, we may simply have to say the words.

I am perfect, whole and complete.

Maybe we don't completely believe them yet.

That's okay.

We keep affirming.

Then we begin looking for evidence—not evidence that we're perfect, but evidence that we're growing.

We notice the boundary we finally kept.

The conversation we handled differently.

The mistake we owned instead of defended.

The moment we caught ourselves before an old thought became an old behavior.

Little by little, we begin to believe something different about ourselves.

And eventually, we begin to live like it's true.

That's where self-compassion becomes much more than an affirmation.

It starts affecting what we tolerate.

How we speak to ourselves.

How we recover from mistakes.

The relationships we choose.

The choices we make when nobody is watching.

And perhaps most importantly, whether we believe we're worth taking care of.

Affirm it.

Believe it.

Live it.

Not because you've finally become worthy.

Because maybe you always were.

Look Deeper

When you make a mistake, what do you correct—the behavior or your entire identity?

What would you say to someone you deeply loved if they were struggling with the same thing you're struggling with?

And perhaps the hardest question:

Can you offer that same compassion to yourself?

Look in the mirror this week.

Not searching for what's wrong.

Not looking for the person you think you're supposed to become.

Look at the person who's already there.

And remind them:

We make mistakes. We are not mistakes.

I am perfect, whole and complete.

Now let's begin living like we believe it.

Look deeper.

Mike
Real Raw Recovery