“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” ~Buddha
I found a little gem online I want to share with you all. Kristy Arbon’s site heartworks.training is a breath of fresh air. Take a look around sometime and see if you agree. Here’s a little taste to whet your appetite. 🙂 I particularly love the way this particular piece on self-compassion ties back to my earlier post, Meet Your Roommate.
Filed under General Interest, Get Free
A cage is anything that confines, reduces, inhibits or limits us. This includes our distorted ideas about ourselves.
In Meet Your True Self, my previous post, Brad woke up to the fact that his inner roommate, also known as an inner critic, was a liar. In that mere flash of an instant, Brad freed himself from a cage.
Brad didn’t stop with that single insight. In fact, on that day, he was on a roll and I wasn’t about to stop him. I just sat back with a big grin on my face.
He said he realizes that his inner roommate is a product of his conditioning and that it operates automatically “just like breathing . . . most of the time we’re not even aware of it.”
Nor are we aware of the constant stream of dialogue swirling around in our head. “My brain just keeps playing the same tape over and over,” Brad said. “What I have to do now is reprogram myself.”
Brad also had a good idea about how to do that: “Since we get programmed through repetition, we can also get re-programmed through repetition.”
In other words, instead of telling himself over and over again how worthless he is, his plan is to start telling himself the truth about himself . . . over and over again. In effect, he’ll be arguing with his inner roommate . . . and winning.
Unfortunately, inner roommates don’t simply go “poof” and disappear when we get wise to them. Conditioning, by definition, sticks. Brad calls it a “default setting”—something our brain automatically goes back to. Inner roommates may fade through disuse and neglect, but in all likelihood they will reactivate when life throws us some curve balls or when we hit a low point. So patience is called for.
I told Brad to expect setbacks, but to view them as temporary. Serious backsliding is impossible at this point because he’s too aware to stay lost. He has taken a huge step with his epiphany about his inner roommate being a liar. That’s a game changer. It’s like trying to unripple the pond—it can’t happen. Like returning to a cage after getting a taste of freedom—it won’t happen.
Clear-eyed reflection—seeing something for what it is—makes it impossible to return to our delusions on a permanent basis.
I’d like your comments. Do you agree with that last statement? And what are your insights on reprogramming and cages? Thanks!
Names are changed to honor client confidentiality.
(c) 2014 Salee Reese
Filed under General Interest, Get Free
When you’re harassed by guilt and self-judgment, you’re vacating your true self . . . and you’re vacating truth. Period.
In my last post, Escape your Jungle, I defined the true self and how it can easily become overshadowed by a bogus self-concept—based on erroneous beliefs about ourselves.
Donna was my example. Her negative conclusions about herself created a strangling thicket which played a significant role in her depression and life dissatisfaction. Her pathway back to her true self entailed disbelieving those conclusions.
Like Donna, Brad needed to get reacquainted with his true self and identify the lies about himself that he was hanging on to. I’ve mentioned him before on this blog.
Long ago, when Brad was a child, an inner critic started to sprout. It criticized and shamed him the way his father would. And it picked on him exactly the way his siblings did. In time, Brad grew up and left home but his inner critic went with him. That’s too bad. It meant he would continue to experience internal assaults and guilt on a constant basis.
Another term for “inner critic” is “inner roommate.” I happened upon that term while reading Michael Singer’s book, The Untethered Soul. Learn more about the inner roommate here.
This nasty brute hangs out in our head, taunting, judging, scolding, bossing, and finding fault with everything we wear, think, eat and do. (And the list doesn’t end there.) 😉
Those internalized messages obscure our true self. I remember Brad once telling me, “My true self is foreign to me, so I don’t feel it’s attainable.” Like so many of us, he had fallen into the habit of giving his inner roommate more reality than his true self.
“How do I figure out what my true self is?” he asked.
“We don’t figure out who we are,” I said, “we experience it.”
I had Brad close his eyes and imagine a time when he felt free from guilt. With barely a moment’s hesitation, he said: “Being out in nature.” His voice cracked with emotion as he talked about finding refuge in a woods near his house. He played near a creek, climbed on logs and built a few forts over time. Nothing disturbed his peace. His siblings weren’t there to pick on him and his father wasn’t there to shame or judge him. He felt peaceful and self-confident. He didn’t need his father’s acceptance out there—he was experiencing self-acceptance.
I urged Brad to tuck that memory away and pull it out whenever he feels a guilt-attack coming on. It’ll key him into the truth about himself.
Another client recounts similar feelings while playing a piano . . . when she gets to a space where the music is “effortlessly flowing through my fingers, and the whole world shrinks to nothing—there is only that moment.”
As for me, my earliest true-self memory goes back to the age of five. It was one of those sunny, deep-blue-sky days, and I was outside on my bicycle. Not a soul was in sight . . . just me, the birds and the serene day.
The inner roommate is relentless and doesn’t go away without an entire arsenal being deployed against it. The inner roommate doesn’t use logic. It can’t use logic, but we can and must. We shouldn’t blindly buy into what our inner roommate says about us. How did it get a monopoly on truth anyway? Questioning the validity of the roommate’s accusations involves logic.
In our sessions, whenever Brad said something negative about himself, I questioned it. I demanded evidence to support the allegations. I got ruthless at times! 🙂 Finally, after enough exposure to this, he began questioning his negative self-talk on his own. That was the idea.
I get excited—call it a eureka moment—whenever clients see their inner roommate for what it is and cease to pay homage to it. Such a moment presented itself not long ago when Brad leaned forward in his chair and uttered these words:
“You know what? My roommate’s a liar!”
We high-fived that one! That moment of clarity, by the way, came straight from his true self.
What are some of your true-self experiences? I’d love to hear them!
Names are changed to honor client confidentiality.
(c) 2014 Salee Reese
Filed under General Interest, Get Free
As I contemplated jumping into this enormous project, I was grateful to get the following comment from a reader:
“Having compassion for ourselves and letting go of unrealistic expectations is a life long journey. A few simple steps to help us move forward would be helpful.”
—Judith
That sounded to me like a mighty fine place to start . . . a few simple steps.
I’m certain the first step involves coming to understand what is blocking our self-compassion and self-acceptance. As far as I know, we weren’t born with self-contempt or an active inner critic. Does it enter a baby’s mind that she might be crying too loudly or burdening her parents with yet another dirty diaper? Are babies born with a list of expectations in hand? I don’t think so.
Guilt is learned—acquired later after we’ve been here for a while. If we don’t like ourselves, or if we’re accustomed to beating ourselves up mentally, it’s due to what we’ve been exposed to in the world—our conditioning. At some point, we bought into the idea that our flaws are unforgivable, that we’re unlikable or that we need to be hard on ourselves for failing to live up to certain standards and expectations.
We are shaped by the prevailing culture of the time, and the many with whom we share our life experiences. Our job is to disentangle ourselves from the limitations of all that.
The key to escaping this murky quagmire of self-degradation is by disbelieving how we’ve been conditioned to see and think about ourselves. But what, you may ask, does this look like in my daily life? What is disbelieving and how do I do it?
We’ll tackle that the next time . . . stay tuned! As always, I welcome your feedback.
(c) 2014 Salee Reese
Filed under Contemplations, General Interest, Get Free
Spring.
The sun.
The warm air.
Life blooming.
With the awakening earth, my soul is refreshed.
Like the flowers that push through the hard ground,
I too am now open to possibility.
No one chooses how I bloom but me!
—Kim Thompson
I just love that poem! How does it speak to me? It’s all about birth, change, and personal choice. Life just doesn’t stand still—it can’t. Old eventually gives way to new. We witness it everywhere!
Such a peaceful thought . . . to know we all have a chance at renewal. I’m certainly not the same person I was ten years ago or even ten days ago. “Hard ground”—struggle—is on everybody’s agenda, but so is blooming.
Brad’s a perfect example. For years he’s lived in a cage—a cage of depression. I wrote about him a few months back. Click here to read “The Latest Wow: We Can’t Always Snap Out of It.”
Well, it seems he is snapping out of it—I’m noticing some blooming going on. For the first time, Brad’s questioning what his inner roommate tells him. (For more on inner roommates, read “Meet Your Roommate.”)
His badgering roommate tells him—on a constant basis—what a loser he is. It accuses him of being lazy, wasting time, and generally being worthless. Internalizing that message, giving it the weight of truth, kills all motivation. “I hesitate to make more of myself . . . to even try,” he said, “because I think: What’s the use? Why try? I’ll never get it right.”
Your busy mind isn’t you. You’re the one observing it.
“What’s the benefit of being an observer of your thoughts?” I asked.
“It allows a person to detach from their roommate,” he said. “It’s a form of letting go. I see that I need to separate from my thoughts.”
I would love the opportunity to get Brad’s inner roommate on “the couch.” The first thing out of my mouth would be: “Don’t you have something better to do? Who’s actually the lazy one here? As far as I can see, your sole interest in life is tearing Brad to shreds every chance you get. How ridiculous is that? What a complete waste of time and how utterly pointless!”
Of course, I would never actually have a conversation like that with a client, but “roommates” are another matter. That’s exactly the kind of conversation we all need to have with our bedeviling inner critics. Brad, I’m happy to say, is well on his way.
Names are changed to honor client confidentiality.
Thanks to Kim Thompson for the use of her lovely poem. Kim’s talents extend far beyond her gift with words . . . check out her site and see for yourself. 🙂
Filed under Client of the Week, General Interest, Get Free
Suppose you had a roommate who constantly scrutinized and critiqued your every move starting with the moment you got out of bed: “You should have gotten up earlier. Are you ignoring today’s schedule? Your hair’s a mess . . . as usual. Don’t forget to contact Jonathan today. He expects a call, you know. You’re such a slacker.”
How long would you continue to live with such a roommate? Briefly. You’d throw that person out on the street in no time flat!
That’s what Michael Singer, in his book The Untethered Soul, believes we would do. But . . . BUT . . . he points out an exception. We’re not very likely to boot out the roommate who takes up residence in our head—our “inner roommate.” Our inner roommate says all the same things as any given external—actual—roommate . . . and more! We’re told what to do, what to fear, what to second-guess, and how to think about this person or that person.
Not only does our roommate devote its time to judging us, it judges everybody we know and everybody who streams on and off our path throughout the day.
According to Singer, “It has something to say about everything you look at: ‘I like it. I don’t like it. This is good. That’s bad.’ It just talks and talks. You don’t generally notice because you don’t step back from it. You’re so close that you don’t realize that you’re actually hypnotized into listening to it.”
I can only agree. Call it a dictator we bow and pay homage to. We listen to it and give it more power and authority than it should have. I discussed this very thing with two of my clients, Dawn and Doug. You can read about our sessions by clicking here.
“There’s almost nothing that voice can say that you don’t pay full attention to,” Singer states. “It pulls you right out of whatever you’re doing, no matter how enjoyable, and suddenly you’re paying attention to whatever it has to say . . . . That’s how much respect you have for this neurotic thing inside of you.”
Singer’s correct. We honor it over our own will, in fact. And therein lies the key to change and freedom. We must switch our allegiance from our inner roommate to our will.
“Your will is stronger than the habit of listening to that voice.”
—Michael Singer
The first step in accomplishing that is to become aware of its existence. The very act of awareness sets you apart from the voice and places you in the role of observer versus blind captive. As an observer, you have control. As your roommate babbles on, you critique it rather than the other way around. And in the process, you think and act on your own beliefs, tastes, and opinions. You determine your own course of action.
Identify with the true you … the observer.
Names are changed to honor client confidentiality.
Filed under General Interest, Get Free
I had a client tell me once:
“Every time I put myself down, I’m affirming that my mother was right.”
Click here to read about Dawn and Doug and how their childhoods were fertile soil for the formation of negative self-talk and low self-worth.
Filed under Get Free, Parenting, The Latest Wow!
Salee Reese 