Mindful Self Compassion--A personal Story - Part 4, By Laurie Hallihan

Learning about self-compassion began for me with the Mindful Self Compassion Course (MSC) I took back in 2012. However, I found it difficult to practice as I was still filled with self-loathing and deep emotional pain. Self-compassion felt about as far from the truth as it could be. The MSC course provided the opening and knowledge, but I still needed to address the internal turmoil that had plagued me for most of my life. In 2015 , I began practicing with a weekly meditation group or Sangha as they call it in Buddhist circles.

The weekly group was very helpful for consistency and deeper learning about how to connect in a healthy way with these profoundly painful emotions. It was roughly a year into this group that the teacher gave a talk about self compassion and how he had practiced with it over the years. He told us that he would find a phrase that was self-compassionate and repeat it over and over for 5-60 minutes, depending on the time he had that day.

And so I tried it. At first, it felt incredibly disingenuous. We had done something very similar in the MSC course and I had felt it wasn't helping since it didn't feel true. But that voice telling me that was not the wisdom part of my being. It was the old, unevolved part of my brain that engaged in fight, flight, freeze and fawning. That was the part I needed to STOP listening to!

So I continued practicing with different phrases. I found that if I did this practice while taking my daily hike, it was much easier. I think being in nature helped me feel more connected to myself and the world around me. The phrasing started with, may I BEGIN to care about myself or may I maybe, possibly at some future date accept myself. Adding a little humor always helps me.

I did this for about a year for 30-60 minutes a day, depending on the time I had that day to hike. I made it a priority. It had to be if I actually wanted to have any chance of a full and happy life. Otherwise, I would have just stayed in depression and pain. On my hikes, I would say the phase I chose for the day. I kept the phrase simple and as close as i could get to it being an honest reflection of how I felt. My mind would of course wander to the lists of what I had to "do" that day, so called "problems" that needed to be solved right then or thoughts about the past, future or even ruminating and commenting on the present moment. But mindfulness training had taught me that when I notice that mind wandering, just go back to the phrase. The wandering mind was actually no problem and I was not doing anything incorrectly. We are human. Our minds wander!

To this day, I continue that practice nearly every day. The words have become incredibly true and I feel them deep in my body. Now I ask myself before each hike and throughout the day, what do I need to hear right now? What emotion within me needs to be held with love? This is the quintessential question MSC asks. It might be a phrase like, may I hold this sadness with compassion or may I hold this anger with compassion. I acknowledge the emotion. Let myself truly feel it without getting caught up in the story. I have learned that the story does not actually matter. There will always be another story the unevolved brain will want to tell. This story forces us to relive it over and over and never move past the emotion. It keeps the emotion going until it sinks deep into our bodies and causes health issues, both mental and physical.

Now I can truly give myself what I need and feel that deep truth of the words. I no longer needed another person there to give me (or more likely NOT give me) what I perceived I needed. I came to recognize that I had actually brainwashed myself into thinking I wasn't enough. I let the primitive part of my brain take over and convince me that I was a depressed and anxious person. It was conditioning and habit that was allowed to run wild. Now, I see that part of the brain so quickly when it tries to convince me I am not enough or that there are too many problems to solve. Either of which lead me into anxiety and depression. Now I have compassion and clarity to see it and give that part the love and safety it needs.