Annette Ladowitz, Social Work, Saratoga, CA, USAsays
Thanks for reinforcing and modeling the okness of not feeling ok….and not having to appear perfect. Its such a relief to see your genuineness. We are constantly bombarded with images on the news of perfection. Who lives with wardrobe consultants, hair stylists, and make up staff?
Jacqueline L. Lash Idler, Coach, Belvidere, NJ, USAsays
Thank you for this simple & effective tool in practicing self-compassion & care. I began this practice several years ago as I worked through the trauma of childhood abuse as well as traumatic events that took place in adolescence & adulthood. Learning the skill of attention to the inner selves that need to be seen, heard and acknowledged has been crucial in my healing process. I have come to deeply love these selves that saw me through dark times. I now cherish when an exile comes to visit so to speak & I have the opportuntiy to embrace her and let her know she is cherished. Rather than avoiding or suppressing her voice I now seek her out, embrace her & honor what she has to teach me.
I felt more relaxed and less tense. I also felt quite emotional and it opened me up to sadness underneath the uncomfortable feelings of fear. Thank you!
I completed an awareness process a few weeks ago using a focusing process of attending to mind and body. My body held the key. When I finally discerned the word “unworthy” my body shifted.
Staying with the process I was flooded more with images than words of many moments beginning with early
Childhood where if felt deserted or unwanted.
Thanks to my precious teaching around the process of self-compassion I was able to stay with the process and bring my wisdom self to many meditative moments in which I Revisited these scenes, sometimes “walking myself
Out Of the situation. Other times offering kindness and compassion to the suffering of my younger self.
Since this period of time I have gradually felt lighter, more able
To offer compassion especially to my husband and to others I knew were suffering. My mette prayer has been a hopeful response that allows me to be more open to the suffering around me and within me. Thank you Tara for helping us to continue our journey into wholeness.
When I asked myself what is happening? I felt this tiny voice inside saying, “I want to come out and be free.” I want to show who I am rather than worrying about what the world will think of me. This sadness rushed over my body. Then when I asked myself can I be with this and meet it with kindness, I felt this softening in my body when I told myself “yes, you are so worthy of this.”
I want to keep reminding myself of this practice when I’m struggling and feel challenged by “others”. Thank you for this reminder!
I just listened for the 4th maybe time and responding earlier. I listened today realizing I was too busy in my being to absorb much of what you were sharing.
Today, I was able to find an opening within to allow your light help me search to find out what I was feeling in this moment.
The all too familiar of being trapped, without enough oxygen to allow my body to simply do what it does on a daily basis without my having to do anything at all. That in itself is worthy of noting and quite extraordinary.
So without judgement, I began to feel the heavy load of anxiety and doubt and fear and pressure that I’ve been dragging around like a dead weight . Something clicked inside. Perhaps just by my noticing w/o judging, I was able to acknowledge that my body was on high alert!
On this beautiful calm, fall like day. I’ll be spending time with my grandkids which I thoroughly enjoy. I was eating fresh fruit and yogurt and in reality there was no obvious reason that I was far from being relaxed and able to feel so grateful for all these blessings that are available to me.
So first i filled myself with several deep cleansing breaths and felt myself soften. And shortly after I was back in my body and able to take in all the goodness, my truth and reality that is really here. Simple not so simple as that!
But I was better able today to separate the story that is felled with sadness, fear and angst.
And appreciate that I in fact do have a choice in how I perceive each moment for what it is. Not an old preconceived notion, habitual response that doesn’t serve, or projection of what in actually is not true or real.
“My best won’t be enough.” Bringing kindness helps me see that there is no good to come from too high expectations of myself. That I can bring what I have and that would be a good thing. “Enough” seeming a demand that is too high right now and shows me that I actually feel a need to provide “ALL.” Kindness reminding, “There are others who can help too, adding their goodness. That it will be more than “enough.”
I connected with the feelings in the moment very quickly – anxiety, hopelessness, “doomsday” feeling. But it was difficult to approach them from a place of non-judgement. Even when I focused on kindness to myself, I could feel the judgement (“something is wrong with you”) underneath that.
I realized how much easier it is for me to feel compassion for others with no voice, how easy to accept them as they are and want something better for them without thinking about whether they deserve it. Of course they do! But for me . . . I guess it’s a pattern. No one taught me that I deserve compassion so it just seems foreign and ‘wrong’.
I mostly felt the thought repeating at me in my mind – that I don’t deserve kindness, not for the things I hate so much about myself. Your video makes sense to me because I would always feel someone else deserved kindness about any of the things i find so repulsed by about myself.
I allowed myself to recognise that I have been stuck in a trance for the last few weeks but that I’m coming through – feeling more open and free to live as me again. Thank you x
I felt hopeful and got a sense that everything would work itself out in the long run. I also felt connected to my higher self in that moment which came in the form of what I like to call “gooseflesh” and a loving gentleness toward myself that was not present prior to bring kindness to my situation.
I burst into tears and thought or felt like I have hated how I felt about myself, my body and what has happened to me the first 23 years of my life. There’s no way I can learn or unlearn this way of being, especially at 56 & and so disabled, I don’t know that I could ever love myself the way I am, I spend all day in bed with great physical pain, that there’s no cure for or treatment to truly help, the mountain of struggle is unbearable!
I felt the slightest sense of relief. Followed by a sense of resistance and not understanding how to do this, if I’m not even in tune with my emotions.
when I ask my young child self why I sometimes over eat to fill an empty nest the answer came to me that I didn’t get enough food when I was little I was left on my own and sometimes quite hungry starving.
My answer to the question “what is going on in your mind now?” Was a very harsh and unforgiving hatred for myself, and honestly I didn’t have an answer for how I could treat myself with compassion. I remember earlier in the video when talking about your trip you mentioned that you’d never treat a friend the way you had treated yourself and I don’t think I’ve ever related to a statement so much. I pride myself on how compassionate I am with others and make it a point to be kind to everyone but the thought never even crossed my mind that I was so unkind to myself. Watching this first video gave me so much insight. I look forward to seeing more and gaining compassion for myself as I have for others
I was very surprised to feel a sudden depletion in strength of an overwhelming sadness from a recent event I had brought to mind, it’s still there….but ‘diffused’ is the best adjective I can think of. I’m very pleasantly surprised by the power of that practice. Thanks Tara…I never really understood what bring kindness meant before when I heard the concept mentioned.
I felt hopeless. No one has ever really cared about me, so why should I? I’ve tried to shift past this for 35yrs and the feeling is still there. No matter how resilient I try to become, no matter how hard I try, no matter what I achieve, no matter how many lives I’ve motivated and inspired, no matter how kind I try to be to others or myself, after all this time I’m still alone and no one really cares about me, so why should I?
Recently I’ve been experiencing deep fear regarding the aging process. I’m 73, and struggling with some painful, chronic conditions. Applying the “wings” I was able to simply witness the fear and approach it tenderly, rather than wishing that it would disappear. I felt more serene and grounded while doing this.
Unworthiness can still be felt when living by your heart. Caused by the feeling of guilt, caused by living by your heart, or, doing what you want, followed by guilt of not looking after those around you which in turn makes, well me anyway, feel unworthy!
I began thinking about tasks that I “need” to accomplish. I witnessed my thoughts trying to make me believe that deserving kindness is contingent on how hard I work and how much I have to offer others.
Thank you for this video bringing such clarity to a very often highly charged situation.
It really was beautiful to feel the care for myself, like I would care for another. At the moment of doing it I had the ability to create space and be a witness to myself and so could stand outside of myself as it were. This meant I could observe and not be involved if that makes sense.
I experienced a self love like don’t worry i’m here, and i like you. I noticed some dismissiveness, but at the same time some capacity and need to be with the feeling of unworthiness, although i real don’t feel the self hate, is more like i have a flaw, or don’t have that quality. Although i get the sense is much more from the outside, like relationships where i don’t get what i need (parents and lovers), nevertheless i need to put the blame on me, in order to survive, but at the same time it feels like I’ve committed some kind of suicide and now my inner me wants me to pay the bill. I feel the rage of they not being there when i needed, but get blocked with the sense that i’m not lovable so i really cant’ get angry, because there is no use in that and then i get caught in deep fear feelings and it feels like i’m going to die! Thank you very much Tara, for your commitment with us, may we all get free of suffering and be at peace with yourselfs.
I thought it will take me consistently working on it. Even when I am not feeling bad. B/c I tend to stop Working at it when I am too busy and feeling pretty good. I do neglect myself instead making me a priority
I realized that harsh self-judgment is a habit that will take continual practice to re-frame. I realized that all my kindness and compassion have been reserved for others, when I rarely bestow it on myself. When I give only to others and there’s nothing left for me, I am in a constant state of neediness and anger and deprivation, and seek comfort not from myself, but from food.
My feeling was of being a fraud. I’ve just gone on sick leave for anxiety. I’ve been crying lot and feeling unable to cope with the stresses of my job, even though others seem to value me. Bringing awareness to this feeling made it weaker.
I felt inner critics rising up against my enquiry, as though even trying to be a part of the solution failed to meet their judgements against me. They are relentless, hurtful and destructive. Listening to them is painful. Listening to Dr Tara Brach is the simple, kind and loving opposite. Thank you for your love, kindness, compassion and guidance.
I have a lot of turmoil at the moment family Life work. As I thought through these things I felt some calm and some peace, but I also recognize that some of the stuff going on that’s causing a turmoil is beyond my control. I’m learning that my reaction steals my own peace and the person who is causing the issue doesn’t care and it only causes me internal struggles. I don’t know how to replace my anger towards my sister with kindness and then I feel rejection and I’m not sure how kindness is supposed to fix that? I listened to the example and I thought of things about how I don’t take time to love myself and I would never encourage a friend to not do that so I don’t know what’s the difference and why I don’t deserve what I would tell my friends. I do have several friends who constantly try to remind me that I am worthy and that I am loved and while I hear their words and I appreciate them and I love my friends I still struggle with feeling loved and feeling Worthy. Even in my current relationship when he tells me he loves me when he shows me he loves me I have severe doubts in my head that I even deserve him that I deserve to be loved. I’m not even sure where the root of all this comes from? As I’m even typing this out I have tears in my eyes so I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to be writing here I’m sure I’m blabbing and I sound like a buffoon. I’m going on to the next video thank you for making these.
My strong emotional feeling softened when I brought compassion to myself. It was still present yet less potent. Thank you Tara.
Thanks for reinforcing and modeling the okness of not feeling ok….and not having to appear perfect. Its such a relief to see your genuineness. We are constantly bombarded with images on the news of perfection. Who lives with wardrobe consultants, hair stylists, and make up staff?
Thank you for this simple & effective tool in practicing self-compassion & care. I began this practice several years ago as I worked through the trauma of childhood abuse as well as traumatic events that took place in adolescence & adulthood. Learning the skill of attention to the inner selves that need to be seen, heard and acknowledged has been crucial in my healing process. I have come to deeply love these selves that saw me through dark times. I now cherish when an exile comes to visit so to speak & I have the opportuntiy to embrace her and let her know she is cherished. Rather than avoiding or suppressing her voice I now seek her out, embrace her & honor what she has to teach me.
Thank you for sharing, thank you for your work.
Kindness to a small child and her learned responses to stumulii that no longer exists. Thank you Tara x
I felt more relaxed and less tense. I also felt quite emotional and it opened me up to sadness underneath the uncomfortable feelings of fear. Thank you!
I felt a softness, like holding my own hand, a gentle light, I was OK.
When I offered care to myself, my inner turmoil/jitteryness subsided.
Still need to get to the heart space – I sense the practice is the right way to go but self judgement and blame are circling strongly
Empathy
I completed an awareness process a few weeks ago using a focusing process of attending to mind and body. My body held the key. When I finally discerned the word “unworthy” my body shifted.
Staying with the process I was flooded more with images than words of many moments beginning with early
Childhood where if felt deserted or unwanted.
Thanks to my precious teaching around the process of self-compassion I was able to stay with the process and bring my wisdom self to many meditative moments in which I Revisited these scenes, sometimes “walking myself
Out Of the situation. Other times offering kindness and compassion to the suffering of my younger self.
Since this period of time I have gradually felt lighter, more able
To offer compassion especially to my husband and to others I knew were suffering. My mette prayer has been a hopeful response that allows me to be more open to the suffering around me and within me. Thank you Tara for helping us to continue our journey into wholeness.
Marilyn – Spokane, WA
When I asked myself what is happening? I felt this tiny voice inside saying, “I want to come out and be free.” I want to show who I am rather than worrying about what the world will think of me. This sadness rushed over my body. Then when I asked myself can I be with this and meet it with kindness, I felt this softening in my body when I told myself “yes, you are so worthy of this.”
I want to keep reminding myself of this practice when I’m struggling and feel challenged by “others”. Thank you for this reminder!
I just listened for the 4th maybe time and responding earlier. I listened today realizing I was too busy in my being to absorb much of what you were sharing.
Today, I was able to find an opening within to allow your light help me search to find out what I was feeling in this moment.
The all too familiar of being trapped, without enough oxygen to allow my body to simply do what it does on a daily basis without my having to do anything at all. That in itself is worthy of noting and quite extraordinary.
So without judgement, I began to feel the heavy load of anxiety and doubt and fear and pressure that I’ve been dragging around like a dead weight . Something clicked inside. Perhaps just by my noticing w/o judging, I was able to acknowledge that my body was on high alert!
On this beautiful calm, fall like day. I’ll be spending time with my grandkids which I thoroughly enjoy. I was eating fresh fruit and yogurt and in reality there was no obvious reason that I was far from being relaxed and able to feel so grateful for all these blessings that are available to me.
So first i filled myself with several deep cleansing breaths and felt myself soften. And shortly after I was back in my body and able to take in all the goodness, my truth and reality that is really here. Simple not so simple as that!
But I was better able today to separate the story that is felled with sadness, fear and angst.
And appreciate that I in fact do have a choice in how I perceive each moment for what it is. Not an old preconceived notion, habitual response that doesn’t serve, or projection of what in actually is not true or real.
Thank you for presenting this so gently and gracefully ! 🙂
“My best won’t be enough.” Bringing kindness helps me see that there is no good to come from too high expectations of myself. That I can bring what I have and that would be a good thing. “Enough” seeming a demand that is too high right now and shows me that I actually feel a need to provide “ALL.” Kindness reminding, “There are others who can help too, adding their goodness. That it will be more than “enough.”
I connected with the feelings in the moment very quickly – anxiety, hopelessness, “doomsday” feeling. But it was difficult to approach them from a place of non-judgement. Even when I focused on kindness to myself, I could feel the judgement (“something is wrong with you”) underneath that.
I realized how much easier it is for me to feel compassion for others with no voice, how easy to accept them as they are and want something better for them without thinking about whether they deserve it. Of course they do! But for me . . . I guess it’s a pattern. No one taught me that I deserve compassion so it just seems foreign and ‘wrong’.
I smiled
I mostly felt the thought repeating at me in my mind – that I don’t deserve kindness, not for the things I hate so much about myself. Your video makes sense to me because I would always feel someone else deserved kindness about any of the things i find so repulsed by about myself.
I allowed myself to recognise that I have been stuck in a trance for the last few weeks but that I’m coming through – feeling more open and free to live as me again. Thank you x
I rally enormous guilt towards myself and my support team through cancer treatment hat I’m not doing enough work on myself to live true to myself
I breathed out.
I felt hopeful and got a sense that everything would work itself out in the long run. I also felt connected to my higher self in that moment which came in the form of what I like to call “gooseflesh” and a loving gentleness toward myself that was not present prior to bring kindness to my situation.
I burst into tears and thought or felt like I have hated how I felt about myself, my body and what has happened to me the first 23 years of my life. There’s no way I can learn or unlearn this way of being, especially at 56 & and so disabled, I don’t know that I could ever love myself the way I am, I spend all day in bed with great physical pain, that there’s no cure for or treatment to truly help, the mountain of struggle is unbearable!
I felt the slightest sense of relief. Followed by a sense of resistance and not understanding how to do this, if I’m not even in tune with my emotions.
when I ask my young child self why I sometimes over eat to fill an empty nest the answer came to me that I didn’t get enough food when I was little I was left on my own and sometimes quite hungry starving.
My answer to the question “what is going on in your mind now?” Was a very harsh and unforgiving hatred for myself, and honestly I didn’t have an answer for how I could treat myself with compassion. I remember earlier in the video when talking about your trip you mentioned that you’d never treat a friend the way you had treated yourself and I don’t think I’ve ever related to a statement so much. I pride myself on how compassionate I am with others and make it a point to be kind to everyone but the thought never even crossed my mind that I was so unkind to myself. Watching this first video gave me so much insight. I look forward to seeing more and gaining compassion for myself as I have for others
I got a lil’ sleeeepy ???♥️
Sadness, self hatred and tears
It was a nice feeling of peacefulness
I felt nothing
I was very surprised to feel a sudden depletion in strength of an overwhelming sadness from a recent event I had brought to mind, it’s still there….but ‘diffused’ is the best adjective I can think of. I’m very pleasantly surprised by the power of that practice. Thanks Tara…I never really understood what bring kindness meant before when I heard the concept mentioned.
I felt hopeless. No one has ever really cared about me, so why should I? I’ve tried to shift past this for 35yrs and the feeling is still there. No matter how resilient I try to become, no matter how hard I try, no matter what I achieve, no matter how many lives I’ve motivated and inspired, no matter how kind I try to be to others or myself, after all this time I’m still alone and no one really cares about me, so why should I?
Recently I’ve been experiencing deep fear regarding the aging process. I’m 73, and struggling with some painful, chronic conditions. Applying the “wings” I was able to simply witness the fear and approach it tenderly, rather than wishing that it would disappear. I felt more serene and grounded while doing this.
I felt self hatred, scared and sad. I wanted to cry for feeling that way about myself.
Felt happier
I experienced a flood of deep rooted tears. And an aching heart Fear and vulnerability
I was overwhelmed with sadness that I have such a hard time feeling self compassion and images of focusing on shortcomings.
Unworthiness can still be felt when living by your heart. Caused by the feeling of guilt, caused by living by your heart, or, doing what you want, followed by guilt of not looking after those around you which in turn makes, well me anyway, feel unworthy!
The titeness inside, from feelings of inadequacy, shame and depression loosened slightly whe i attempted to bring kindness into the fold.
I began thinking about tasks that I “need” to accomplish. I witnessed my thoughts trying to make me believe that deserving kindness is contingent on how hard I work and how much I have to offer others.
Thank you for this video bringing such clarity to a very often highly charged situation.
It really was beautiful to feel the care for myself, like I would care for another. At the moment of doing it I had the ability to create space and be a witness to myself and so could stand outside of myself as it were. This meant I could observe and not be involved if that makes sense.
I felt I could relate to all the negative emotions that you described. Finding it hard to see a way to love myself.
I experienced a self love like don’t worry i’m here, and i like you. I noticed some dismissiveness, but at the same time some capacity and need to be with the feeling of unworthiness, although i real don’t feel the self hate, is more like i have a flaw, or don’t have that quality. Although i get the sense is much more from the outside, like relationships where i don’t get what i need (parents and lovers), nevertheless i need to put the blame on me, in order to survive, but at the same time it feels like I’ve committed some kind of suicide and now my inner me wants me to pay the bill. I feel the rage of they not being there when i needed, but get blocked with the sense that i’m not lovable so i really cant’ get angry, because there is no use in that and then i get caught in deep fear feelings and it feels like i’m going to die! Thank you very much Tara, for your commitment with us, may we all get free of suffering and be at peace with yourselfs.
I thought it will take me consistently working on it. Even when I am not feeling bad. B/c I tend to stop Working at it when I am too busy and feeling pretty good. I do neglect myself instead making me a priority
I realized that harsh self-judgment is a habit that will take continual practice to re-frame. I realized that all my kindness and compassion have been reserved for others, when I rarely bestow it on myself. When I give only to others and there’s nothing left for me, I am in a constant state of neediness and anger and deprivation, and seek comfort not from myself, but from food.
My feeling was of being a fraud. I’ve just gone on sick leave for anxiety. I’ve been crying lot and feeling unable to cope with the stresses of my job, even though others seem to value me. Bringing awareness to this feeling made it weaker.
I felt calm and peaceful
I felt inner critics rising up against my enquiry, as though even trying to be a part of the solution failed to meet their judgements against me. They are relentless, hurtful and destructive. Listening to them is painful. Listening to Dr Tara Brach is the simple, kind and loving opposite. Thank you for your love, kindness, compassion and guidance.
I have a lot of turmoil at the moment family Life work. As I thought through these things I felt some calm and some peace, but I also recognize that some of the stuff going on that’s causing a turmoil is beyond my control. I’m learning that my reaction steals my own peace and the person who is causing the issue doesn’t care and it only causes me internal struggles. I don’t know how to replace my anger towards my sister with kindness and then I feel rejection and I’m not sure how kindness is supposed to fix that? I listened to the example and I thought of things about how I don’t take time to love myself and I would never encourage a friend to not do that so I don’t know what’s the difference and why I don’t deserve what I would tell my friends. I do have several friends who constantly try to remind me that I am worthy and that I am loved and while I hear their words and I appreciate them and I love my friends I still struggle with feeling loved and feeling Worthy. Even in my current relationship when he tells me he loves me when he shows me he loves me I have severe doubts in my head that I even deserve him that I deserve to be loved. I’m not even sure where the root of all this comes from? As I’m even typing this out I have tears in my eyes so I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to be writing here I’m sure I’m blabbing and I sound like a buffoon. I’m going on to the next video thank you for making these.