“Self-compassion is key because when we’re able to be gentle with ourselves in the midst of shame, we’re more likely to reach out, connect, and experience empathy.” - Brene Brown
I’ve been thinking about the word “compassion” a lot lately. It has come up to the forefront in the ways I wish so badly to help our community understand trauma within themselves. It has showed up in how I perceive the world and spread my light. Even in the most unexpected ways - as I’m sitting here on a fallen tree in the woods behind my house - watching a teeny tiny bug crawl innocently around my phone making it harder to type these words. For some reason it chose my phone to explore and I’ll give it just that. My guess is it will fly away when it is good and ready. To me, that feels like compassion for species I used to just swat away.
“Compassion” is one of those words that seems to get thrown around in our society as something that can easily be done if you are a kind person. If you are a caring person, then you have compassion. I’m beginning to see that this doesn’t go hand in hand as easily as we want to believe. Compassion has to come from deep within ourselves. To be a compassionate person is vastly different than truly having compassion. To truly have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves. What does that mean exactly?
I’m no expert - I can only speak from my experience. I feel compassion for myself when I make a mistake and instead of shaming myself, I give myself grace. I’ve learned, I can take accountability for my behavior which sometimes comes with some feelings of shame AND remind myself that I am only human (grace). This creates a feeling of compassion within myself and allows me to feel what I need to feel, learn my lesson, and move on.
Going through this process within myself creates empathy for others. I can understand and give grace to everyone around me because we are all human. We are going to behave in the only way we know how. We are trying our absolute best and that is all we can ask of ourselves. I say this to Benjamin every day I drop him off at school - “Make good decisions and if you don’t, it’s okay, just own them.”
Recently, I have discovered another element I feel is attached to compassion and I’m just now starting to scratch the surface. The ability to truly find forgiveness within myself - to forgive myself for the way I handled situations in my past and to forgive loved ones who are no longer on this journey of life with me anymore.
I would like to use my blog as a way to share my journey as I embark on a turbulent feeling that is stuck within me. This season is already a dark one for me as I encroach on the inevitable year marker of Matt dying (December 26th). Filled with traumatic memories I wish I never had to re-visit. However, this year I’m attempting to try this new approach. Rather than just sitting in the dark feeling sorry for myself, Benjamin, and the man we lost, I will be doing some of this AND throwing in the element of forgiveness into the mix. My hope is to continue adding to the deep rooted compassion I have already started to honor for myself. Forgiving myself and others truly feels like the next step in my healing journey.
Here we go…
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