What is Self-Compassion and Why Will I Need it?
#9 in the series: What I Wish I had Known Before Beginning Therapy
Healing trauma requires us to sit with the truth of our stories. We may or may not have all the facts we need to do that as we begin. Even when we do have most of the facts, we generally do not view them with compassionate perspectives.
A compassionate perspective is at the core of self-compassion. It is finding the space to say, “I was doing the best I could with the cards I was dealt and the resources available to me.” It doesn’t mean we are not accountable for any actions that harmed others; it simply means that we understand how we got there.
Side Note: At this point, Religious Trauma enters stage right and counters this by telling us that even as small children, we were making purposeful sinful choices. This is an incorrect perspective that stands in the way of healing. I addressed this topic in the following newsletter: How Can Teachings Cause Religious Trauma?
Healing never follows a chronological path. It is important to realize the memories surface when you subconsciously feel safe enough to address them. I began with adult problems, then connected them to young adult experiences, then worked to heal the childhood experiences that led me to those years, then went back to better understand and heal my adult years, only to land back at my young-adult years at a much deeper level. (I left that as a very long confusing sentence because healing feels that way.)
The self-compassion that is necessary for healing includes and goes beyond loving our younger selves. It will look different for each of the following stages:
Childhood: As children, we are egocentric and believe we are the cause of much that goes on in our lives. This is especially true when verbally, emotionally, or physically abused by adults who should be caring for us. Without assistance, most of us enter adulthood with negative internalized messages about who we were as a child and believe it is still true, Even when we would never view another child this way, it is hard to break these deeply ingrained thought patterns because they are embedded in the emotional part of our brain. We can’t just think differently, we must process the emotions in ways we could not do as a child.
Young Adulthood: We now understand that the brain is not fully developed until at least the age of 25. Most of us launched into adult life at eighteen or earlier. This means there was a seven-year gap between when we thought we were fully functioning adults capable of consistently making responsible adult decisions and when we actually had the brain capacity to do so. Self-compassion is much easier to find for our childhood selves than for our young adult selves because we thought we were making logical or independent adult decisions.
Adulthood: We often arrive as mature adults with a lot of baggage because parts of us are stuck in previous developmental stages as a result of trauma. We often are driven by generational, cultural, and religious patterns that are hard to recognize and even harder to change. While we often really are doing better than our parents, the lingering impact of negative internal messages haunts us. It is hard to ask for help for many reasons, the main one being that we don’t understand how our previous traumas are impacting us. To need help requires a lot of self-compassion!
It is a diabolical twist that our stories make us lack compassion for our younger selves in the same way that those who caused the harm lacked compassion for struggles. The day I heard myself repeat my mother’s judgment in an evaluation of my character changed everything. I stopped, looked at my therapist, and said, “I was a child.”
The day that I found the memory of my seventeen-year-old self in a full-out rage, I heard my therapist say, “It was justified” and finally accepted all that led to that day. When I stopped myself from repeating a generational pattern with my adult daughter and apologized, I was proud of myself. I also had self-compassion for the harmful perspective embedded in me.
No, I did not know that self-compassion would require so many changes in perspective. I certainly did not understand how important it would be for healing both the traumatic events and the layers of shame that gather around those events. I thought I had it figured out when I began to have compassion for my child self, but that was only the beginning.
Note: All information and resources presented in these newsletters are drawn from my personal story and do not replace professional psychological care for mental health issues. My legal and ethical advice is always to seek professional help.