Years ago at a self awareness workshop, we were asked to share what phrase about ourselves was “written on our foreheads for everyone to see.” Mine was “not good enough.” For years I’ve carried that phrase. Oh, sometimes it disappears but it’s there often enough and now that I am much older, I would like to change it to “I’m just fine, thank you.”
I experienced deep love when I sat with my deep sadness and grief.
I am on a long journey where I am learning to love myself, very much a work in progress, but life is!
I was remembering a phone all I had earlier wherein I would have liked to feel more connection. When I tried to bring kindness my imagination went into me being kind enough to listen more attentively to the other and I imagined what she would have said and how interesting that would have been and my irritation disappeared. However my desire for better connection remained.
More beautiful work from you Tara! You have truly blessed my life! Mindfulness showed me how to escape my own mind-control 🙂 I began to break away from hateful thoughts into my breath and body and then return to answer the thoughts with compassion, “You are not an idiot, you are a human and humans make mistakes. You didn’t mean to do this. Your intentions are good.”. etc.
Time to be aware of my tension and resistance to what is and then the letting go and allowing. As always love to listen to Tara and be reminded of my resilience ?
I’m so disconnected from myself at the moment that I couldn’t even take one thing to focus on. Deep sense of feeling unheard, unnoticed and of never being enough.
Thanks to my watching many videos from NICABM and buying one program, as well as for a couple of years, watching your videos, Tara and donating with gratitude, I am finding it a little easier to regard some difficult muscular pain with more kindness and not judge my emotional ups and downs as much as I used to do. I also have practiced EFT and EEM for a while now. Sometimes I have felt I keep adding to what I practice as if I can never do enough, and realised that is a lifelong habit. However, I realised just now, that I have been able tonight to accept this and bring some kindness and acceptance and even let go of past mistakes to a degree. I live in an island state of Australia and felt very isolated and in grief when Covid first began, as I moved from a familiar area, and my two loved cats who were old, died as well as a long term friend.
However, fortunately, I was very blessed to find the strength to take up the practices again that I mentioned above. Thank you.
Hi toinette, I’m also in Australia living with chronic illness and house bound so I understand. Sending good wishes to you. Keep up the good work! Great you’re seeing improvements 🙂
I think, by grace, I have to a large extent been able to let go of most self-criticism (I am not young), but tis will be so useful when I conduct my mindfulness groups. Thank you
I feel grieve, sadness. I want to be a loving person, but most of the time I feel that I am not good enough, not beautiful enough and that makes me sad and ashamed of thinking that, because I feel that I have to be grateful to be healthy, living in good circumstances and so on. I really want to change that, that’s why I came to your video. Everyday I meditate and set my intention for more self acceptance, more connection, more kindness. Thank you for the video.
I struggle to put words to my feelings, I am so blocked and shut down. I recognised fear.
Just coming to that awareness around how I feel and offering kindness gives me hope. Tara you have gotten me through some dark periods in my life and I’m grateful I am being led back to walk with you again, thankyou?
All the negative feelings I have for myself come down to a sense of worthlessness, that I am not good enough. When I do these exercises, just like today. I feel my gut relax, and and I feel more at ease.
Thank you for sharing Tara. Before I learned about compassion I felt a lot of sadness, emptiness and shame. I did a lot trying to resist them, and with a critical, judgmental voice they would slide into anger and anxiety. This became a vicious circle for a long time. Until the day when I discovered Mindful Self-Compassion. I learned a completely new way to approach myself and my difficult emotions. I was encouraged to go slow, be compassionate, kind and loving, not only towards others, but also towards myself. It has been a grieving process, because I realized how hard I had been on myself. It has taken some time to create new habits. But, now when I experience suffering, I can be mindful and choose to give myself compassion, love and kindness. I don’t go so easily into a flight, fight, freeze state as I used to. I feel more peace, joy and gratitude in my life. The more awake I am in the moment I am in, the more alive I feel. I also feel that this practice makes it easier for me to be vulnerable, which I believe is so important to create a authentic relationship with both myself, and others. We all suffer from time to time, and we all deserve to be there for each other, and share all of our emotions. It’s what makes us humans. It’s what makes us feel alive.
I love the wings of awareness, and It makes me think of a beautiful Swan that embraces its wings around my body when I need compassion, love and kindness. Thank you Tara for your love and wisdom! 🙂
I felt warmth but also deep sadness as we are going through incredibly hard times as a family, especially due to the enormous struggles of our beautiful 14 years young daughter who is once again shadowed with deep depression. I have days when I feel so guilty for not being able to take away her struggles. Mindfulness and Meditation practice do help me since over 2 years and makes a difference. Thank you for your beautiful support.
Hi,when I try to apply self compassion ,my own judgments along with guiltily feeling and judgment about others along with anger feeling are inhibiting that…
I am grateful to be experiencing kindness and understanding.
I have followed Tarra for many, many years and, through her
teachings and my perserverence, have broadened my life
experiencde give and receive loving kindness, and released
the trances of life.
I am 70 and have been practicing mindfulness for many years. I feel I have not lived up to the expectations I had of what my life would be like – in life and in my practice. I don’t always, but it just so happens that I have, for the past day or so, been feeling sad about this. And even though I have brought kindness and compassion to this, and have come to accept and feel grateful for the life I have had, I still feel regret. I am not sure what living up to my “true self” really means. But I keep searching.
I was like “here I go again.” I have heard it many times and tried to be mindful and compassionate toward myself for over a year now, and it seems that I completely forget. Other gobbledygook always get in the way. Maybe I need this tattooed in a place where I’d see it every day.
I had a sense of sadness but in bringing kindness to it, compassion and acceptance came as well. With this I was able to let go of the attachment to the feeling of worthlessness.
Dear Tara! Thanks a lot for sharing this video for free with me. Being kind with myself – it is a new journey . Feeling where and with whom I am able to stay kind with myself brings me to a special kind of mindfulness. Watching the video I felt my gratefulness for being on a good way to myself – even this implies sometimes decision – against toxic surroundings and people. Meanwhile sharing my inner feelings I feel how grateful I am for the learning journey of my life.
Thank you, Tara Brach, for your sensitive, deeply feeling way to open up this topic! I am all ears and heart awaiting your next video! – And shall of course practice in the meantime!
And may I make a suggestion to allow for some written text under your video: though you pronounce very clearly, sometimes my ears seem to be less attuned to a language that is foreign to me. Thank you! – Karin Elisabeth.
I noticed how on guard I was, how much my usual way of attending to myself is with an evaluative question of how would others view me if they were seeing what I am looking at in myself. Trying to view myself with kindness brought up sadness at how alien this was, and at my assumption that it would be unsafe to do so.
I feel empty. I’m unable to find how to fill my cup without it coning from others. Still looking, too determined to give up but so very tired of searching for my inner love. It got lost eons ago and I don’t seem to be able to find any traces of the direction it went. I know there’s an inner GPS but again no clue where it is nor how it functions…
A moment ago I wrote down just what was true in the moment… reread it and felt pleased with my honesty and how I expressed it.. felt it was in tidy shape ready to be shared. Pausing for a moment I just realized before I typed shared a flickering light said spared. When i share do I feel grateful to be seen and spared being made a sacrifice to the God of vulnerability. …. Accidentally or maybe not an accident the comment got deleted. Then I felt frustration building… I wanted to keep those words and pass them on but now they are gon. I quieted myself and said I’d humbly begin again. I won’t proofread this time. I will dare to post and say it’s ok if there are silly typos or if some sentence sounds cliche. I will compassionately read any mishaps and say it’s ok… I am ok… Not promising but i try.
I tried to see myself as a third person. Can I care about this person? I think I can despite all the negative thoughts of wanting to give up, I think I can still be kind to myself
I felt guilty and sad that I wasn’t good enough as a mother to my kids, especially my son. Then I brought the work kindness to mind, like giving myself kindness and grace. Then I felt a sense of peace and a feeling, kind of like a deep knowing, that everything will be ok. I can handle another big change in my family’s life, namely my son’s divorce.
I experienced a feeling of quiet equanimity because I have benefitted from other resources of NICAB. So it was comforting I’m familiar to try to bring kindness to what I was experiencing. I am thankful to experience the happiness that comes of knowing I can’t handle any challenge in life that comes my way based on work done to handle past challenges.
When I tried to bring kindness to my workaholic nature, and not judge myself, it was not long before I found myself distracted by thoughts of problem solving my to-do list, rather than just sitting with the feelings. I guess I want to just allow myself a minute to congratulate myself for even taking the time to show up for this video. Thank you for getting me started on this journey of self compassion.
Before I started watching this video, I felt self judgment, even hatred and anger toward myself. I I’m instantly felt more calm hearing Dr Tara’s voice and experience. I practice mindfulness and meditation and am getting better. And I often “relapse” to my natural tendency to beat myself up
We!l, truth be told, ur ways Ms Tara, make all things seem possible to me. And, strenghtens my belief that all things work together for good. Namaste. Laura xo
susan hebson, Another Field, Brattleboro , VT, USAsays
i really like myself. I like who I am mostly but I feel that I am not loving and compassionate enough. That others may think I am unfeeling and cold.
My inner most self is angry and I have low self esteem. So I
may like who I am but I don’t really feel worthy of loving myself.
I connected with a feeling of anger and distrust for something my sister did years ago. I recently had a conversation with her and it brought those feelings up.
The question “ can I be with this feeling?” Is so gentle and honoring.
I then knew that all I had to do was remind myself that things are very different now and I can hold her in compassion for leading such a joyless life.
I can hold myself in compassion for past hurts and reaffirm that “ I am here for me and will never desert myself”
So comforting and strengthening.
??
I felt like I was in the presence of another person (another me), also worthy of my attentive kindness, that I should care for and protect. This I’m sure will take me to being more aware of myself and the others around me, inevitably.
Thank you for all your videos. Much love to you. Susan
Years ago at a self awareness workshop, we were asked to share what phrase about ourselves was “written on our foreheads for everyone to see.” Mine was “not good enough.” For years I’ve carried that phrase. Oh, sometimes it disappears but it’s there often enough and now that I am much older, I would like to change it to “I’m just fine, thank you.”
I experienced deep love when I sat with my deep sadness and grief.
I am on a long journey where I am learning to love myself, very much a work in progress, but life is!
I was remembering a phone all I had earlier wherein I would have liked to feel more connection. When I tried to bring kindness my imagination went into me being kind enough to listen more attentively to the other and I imagined what she would have said and how interesting that would have been and my irritation disappeared. However my desire for better connection remained.
More beautiful work from you Tara! You have truly blessed my life! Mindfulness showed me how to escape my own mind-control 🙂 I began to break away from hateful thoughts into my breath and body and then return to answer the thoughts with compassion, “You are not an idiot, you are a human and humans make mistakes. You didn’t mean to do this. Your intentions are good.”. etc.
Time to be aware of my tension and resistance to what is and then the letting go and allowing. As always love to listen to Tara and be reminded of my resilience ?
Thank you for this gift of pause.
I’m so disconnected from myself at the moment that I couldn’t even take one thing to focus on. Deep sense of feeling unheard, unnoticed and of never being enough.
Thanks to my watching many videos from NICABM and buying one program, as well as for a couple of years, watching your videos, Tara and donating with gratitude, I am finding it a little easier to regard some difficult muscular pain with more kindness and not judge my emotional ups and downs as much as I used to do. I also have practiced EFT and EEM for a while now. Sometimes I have felt I keep adding to what I practice as if I can never do enough, and realised that is a lifelong habit. However, I realised just now, that I have been able tonight to accept this and bring some kindness and acceptance and even let go of past mistakes to a degree. I live in an island state of Australia and felt very isolated and in grief when Covid first began, as I moved from a familiar area, and my two loved cats who were old, died as well as a long term friend.
However, fortunately, I was very blessed to find the strength to take up the practices again that I mentioned above. Thank you.
Hi toinette, I’m also in Australia living with chronic illness and house bound so I understand. Sending good wishes to you. Keep up the good work! Great you’re seeing improvements 🙂
Kindness to the person I am concerned is there, however kindness to myself in the
not knowing the outcome and helplessness in that.
I think, by grace, I have to a large extent been able to let go of most self-criticism (I am not young), but tis will be so useful when I conduct my mindfulness groups. Thank you
I sense some anger of not being heard. A sense that my voice is unworthy. I’m grateful to bring compassion to this feeling.
I’m sure you already know this, but my own need for being heard has recently been met through journaling.
I feel grieve, sadness. I want to be a loving person, but most of the time I feel that I am not good enough, not beautiful enough and that makes me sad and ashamed of thinking that, because I feel that I have to be grateful to be healthy, living in good circumstances and so on. I really want to change that, that’s why I came to your video. Everyday I meditate and set my intention for more self acceptance, more connection, more kindness. Thank you for the video.
Some confusion but gradually a settling deep within
I struggle to put words to my feelings, I am so blocked and shut down. I recognised fear.
Just coming to that awareness around how I feel and offering kindness gives me hope. Tara you have gotten me through some dark periods in my life and I’m grateful I am being led back to walk with you again, thankyou?
Hugging arms reaching into me holding my back
I became moved to the brink of tears because I realised I can care for myself and I can move myself to a better place both emotionally and physically.
The turbulent confusion inside me began to melt
All the negative feelings I have for myself come down to a sense of worthlessness, that I am not good enough. When I do these exercises, just like today. I feel my gut relax, and and I feel more at ease.
Thank you for sharing Tara. Before I learned about compassion I felt a lot of sadness, emptiness and shame. I did a lot trying to resist them, and with a critical, judgmental voice they would slide into anger and anxiety. This became a vicious circle for a long time. Until the day when I discovered Mindful Self-Compassion. I learned a completely new way to approach myself and my difficult emotions. I was encouraged to go slow, be compassionate, kind and loving, not only towards others, but also towards myself. It has been a grieving process, because I realized how hard I had been on myself. It has taken some time to create new habits. But, now when I experience suffering, I can be mindful and choose to give myself compassion, love and kindness. I don’t go so easily into a flight, fight, freeze state as I used to. I feel more peace, joy and gratitude in my life. The more awake I am in the moment I am in, the more alive I feel. I also feel that this practice makes it easier for me to be vulnerable, which I believe is so important to create a authentic relationship with both myself, and others. We all suffer from time to time, and we all deserve to be there for each other, and share all of our emotions. It’s what makes us humans. It’s what makes us feel alive.
I love the wings of awareness, and It makes me think of a beautiful Swan that embraces its wings around my body when I need compassion, love and kindness. Thank you Tara for your love and wisdom! 🙂
A sense of sadness
Feeling the need for healing, liberation, and love every time I wake up in the morning is a new birth.
I felt warmth but also deep sadness as we are going through incredibly hard times as a family, especially due to the enormous struggles of our beautiful 14 years young daughter who is once again shadowed with deep depression. I have days when I feel so guilty for not being able to take away her struggles. Mindfulness and Meditation practice do help me since over 2 years and makes a difference. Thank you for your beautiful support.
Awareness of the difference between the way I think of myself and the way I think of others.
I felt freedom from being hard on myself:)
Hi,when I try to apply self compassion ,my own judgments along with guiltily feeling and judgment about others along with anger feeling are inhibiting that…
I am grateful to be experiencing kindness and understanding.
I have followed Tarra for many, many years and, through her
teachings and my perserverence, have broadened my life
experiencde give and receive loving kindness, and released
the trances of life.
I am 70 and have been practicing mindfulness for many years. I feel I have not lived up to the expectations I had of what my life would be like – in life and in my practice. I don’t always, but it just so happens that I have, for the past day or so, been feeling sad about this. And even though I have brought kindness and compassion to this, and have come to accept and feel grateful for the life I have had, I still feel regret. I am not sure what living up to my “true self” really means. But I keep searching.
Thank you for reminding me to be more compassionate to myself ….
I noticed that I would have to expand to take up more space. That my thoughts felt small and my heart felt tended to.
I was like “here I go again.” I have heard it many times and tried to be mindful and compassionate toward myself for over a year now, and it seems that I completely forget. Other gobbledygook always get in the way. Maybe I need this tattooed in a place where I’d see it every day.
I had a sense of sadness but in bringing kindness to it, compassion and acceptance came as well. With this I was able to let go of the attachment to the feeling of worthlessness.
Dear Tara! Thanks a lot for sharing this video for free with me. Being kind with myself – it is a new journey . Feeling where and with whom I am able to stay kind with myself brings me to a special kind of mindfulness. Watching the video I felt my gratefulness for being on a good way to myself – even this implies sometimes decision – against toxic surroundings and people. Meanwhile sharing my inner feelings I feel how grateful I am for the learning journey of my life.
I felt the pain and grief of expressing.
Thank you, Tara Brach, for your sensitive, deeply feeling way to open up this topic! I am all ears and heart awaiting your next video! – And shall of course practice in the meantime!
And may I make a suggestion to allow for some written text under your video: though you pronounce very clearly, sometimes my ears seem to be less attuned to a language that is foreign to me. Thank you! – Karin Elisabeth.
I noticed how on guard I was, how much my usual way of attending to myself is with an evaluative question of how would others view me if they were seeing what I am looking at in myself. Trying to view myself with kindness brought up sadness at how alien this was, and at my assumption that it would be unsafe to do so.
I feel empty. I’m unable to find how to fill my cup without it coning from others. Still looking, too determined to give up but so very tired of searching for my inner love. It got lost eons ago and I don’t seem to be able to find any traces of the direction it went. I know there’s an inner GPS but again no clue where it is nor how it functions…
A moment ago I wrote down just what was true in the moment… reread it and felt pleased with my honesty and how I expressed it.. felt it was in tidy shape ready to be shared. Pausing for a moment I just realized before I typed shared a flickering light said spared. When i share do I feel grateful to be seen and spared being made a sacrifice to the God of vulnerability. …. Accidentally or maybe not an accident the comment got deleted. Then I felt frustration building… I wanted to keep those words and pass them on but now they are gon. I quieted myself and said I’d humbly begin again. I won’t proofread this time. I will dare to post and say it’s ok if there are silly typos or if some sentence sounds cliche. I will compassionately read any mishaps and say it’s ok… I am ok… Not promising but i try.
I experience a lot of resistance and a feeling that I am not worthy of kindness and I need to be hard on myself, otherwise everything will fall apart.
Fall apart and then what?
I tried to see myself as a third person. Can I care about this person? I think I can despite all the negative thoughts of wanting to give up, I think I can still be kind to myself
I felt guilty and sad that I wasn’t good enough as a mother to my kids, especially my son. Then I brought the work kindness to mind, like giving myself kindness and grace. Then I felt a sense of peace and a feeling, kind of like a deep knowing, that everything will be ok. I can handle another big change in my family’s life, namely my son’s divorce.
I experienced a feeling of quiet equanimity because I have benefitted from other resources of NICAB. So it was comforting I’m familiar to try to bring kindness to what I was experiencing. I am thankful to experience the happiness that comes of knowing I can’t handle any challenge in life that comes my way based on work done to handle past challenges.
Just the encouragement and permission to love myself as flawed as I am helped me a lot.
There was an opening, a softer way of being with myself and how I was feeling.
When I tried to bring kindness to my workaholic nature, and not judge myself, it was not long before I found myself distracted by thoughts of problem solving my to-do list, rather than just sitting with the feelings. I guess I want to just allow myself a minute to congratulate myself for even taking the time to show up for this video. Thank you for getting me started on this journey of self compassion.
Before I started watching this video, I felt self judgment, even hatred and anger toward myself. I I’m instantly felt more calm hearing Dr Tara’s voice and experience. I practice mindfulness and meditation and am getting better. And I often “relapse” to my natural tendency to beat myself up
We!l, truth be told, ur ways Ms Tara, make all things seem possible to me. And, strenghtens my belief that all things work together for good. Namaste. Laura xo
i really like myself. I like who I am mostly but I feel that I am not loving and compassionate enough. That others may think I am unfeeling and cold.
My inner most self is angry and I have low self esteem. So I
may like who I am but I don’t really feel worthy of loving myself.
I connected with a feeling of anger and distrust for something my sister did years ago. I recently had a conversation with her and it brought those feelings up.
The question “ can I be with this feeling?” Is so gentle and honoring.
I then knew that all I had to do was remind myself that things are very different now and I can hold her in compassion for leading such a joyless life.
I can hold myself in compassion for past hurts and reaffirm that “ I am here for me and will never desert myself”
So comforting and strengthening.
??
I felt like I was in the presence of another person (another me), also worthy of my attentive kindness, that I should care for and protect. This I’m sure will take me to being more aware of myself and the others around me, inevitably.
Realy gryning to be true to my self and like My self but in My current state I feel very vulnerable and that is hard.