Quotes About Self-compassion

You need to learn to live with yourself, not others," he went on. "That's the difficult part. When you learn to accept your own nature, it will start to feel peaceful, not frantic.

Best way to get over things is to just forgive the other person. Or yourself.

How to Comfort Yourself When You Have Acted Like a Jackass Everyone does this occasionally, and you shouldn't feel too upset about it unless it happens quite often, such as three times a day, in which case you must simply get used to it. Remember, other people like you as well or better for it, because it makes them feel so superior; so you've spread a little sunshine. And at the very least, you've served as a bad example.

The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.

The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.

I also hope this map will guide you to heal in a way that helps you become an unflinching source of kindness and self-compassion for yourself

I also like to apply "good enough" to other concepts such as a good enough job, a good enough try, a good enough outing, a good enough day or a good enough life. I apply this concept liberally to contradict the black-and-white, all-or none thinking of the critic which reflexively judges people and things as defective unless they are perfect.

As much as I can forgive myself, that much can I forgive others. What I often forgive in others is an old pain of mine, released from the disgust of self-hate. It is an old vulnerability of mine that I now love and welcome like a bird with a broken wing. Shame and self-hate did not start with me, but with all my heart, I deign that they will stop with me. I will do unto myself as I would have others do unto me.

Here then are some useful messages for nurturing the growth of your self-compassion and self-esteem. I recommend that you imagine speaking them to your inner child, especially when you are suffering with a flashback. Reparenting Affirmations I am so glad you were born. You are a good person.

Survivors who want to defend their healthy ambivalence can respond to make-up-your-mind assaults by replying that the matter in question is emotional and clearly not a matter of reason or choice. I remember how my own natural

They do this by shaming or intimidating you whenever you have a natural impulse to have sympathy for yourself, or stand up for yourself. The instinct to care for yourself and to protect yourself against unfairness is then forced to become dormant.

The most essential of these are the deaths of our self-compassion and our self-esteem, as well as our abilities to protect ourselves and fully express ourselves.

The survivor becomes imprisoned by a jailer who will accept nothing but perfection. He is chauffeured by a hysterical driver who sees nothing but danger in every turn of the road. Chapters 9 and 10 focus extensively on practical tools for shrinking your critic.

Mindfulness is a perspective that weds your capacity for self-observation with your instinct of self-compassion.

As long as I am not hurting anyone, I refuse to be shamed for normal emotional responses like anger, sadness, fear and depression. I especially refuse to attack myself for how hard it is to completely eliminate the self-hate habit.

In retrospect I can clearly see that as my self-compassion increased, my toxic shame decreased. Modern advances in neuroscience [see: A General Theory of Love] suggest that we are intrinsically limited in our ability to emotionally regulate and soothe ourselves. More and more research suggests that our ability to metabolize painful emotional states is enhanced by communicating with a safe enough other person.

I believe the quality of our emotional intelligence is reflected in the degree to which we accept all of our feelings without automatically dissociating from them or expressing them in a way that hurts ourselves or others.

Deep level recovery from childhood trauma requires a normalization of depression, a renunciation of the habit of reflexively reacting to it. Central to this is the development of a self-compassionate mindfulness. Once again, mindfulness is the practice of staying in your body – the practice of staying fully present to all of your internal experience.

Our only recourse then is to learn to love ourselves and our inner children when we are temporarily trapped in shame. Unresisting acceptance can gradually dissolve shame. We need to be as tender with ourselves as possible at such times.

crippling state of self-attack, which eventually becomes the equivalent of full-fledged self-abandonment. The ability to support himself or take his own side in any way is decimated.

as recovering progresses, and especially as the critic shrinks, the desire to help yourself- to care for yourself - becomes more spontaneous. This is especially true when we mindfully do things for ourselves in a spirit of loving-kindness. As such, we can do it for the child we were – the child who was deprived through no fault of her own. And, we can do it because we believe every child, without exception, deserves loving care.

We grieve the losses of childhood because these losses are like deaths of important parts of ourselves. Effective grieving brings these parts back to life. In this chapter we describe the healing that is available through the four practices of grieving: angering, crying, verbal ventilating and feeling.

We can learn to be emotional in benign ways. We can have our emotions without holding onto them. We can soften and relax into our feelings without exiling or enshrining them. We can let our feelings pass through us when they have fully served their function.

Resentment that should have been directed toward my parents often boomeranged onto me and spoiled or thwarted my efforts at self-nurturance.