When the weight of divorce presses heavily upon your shoulders, you may discover an unexpected friend in the form of self-compassion. By treating ourselves with the same care and understanding we would offer to a dear friend, we implement a powerful tool for healing and growth. This conversation about self compassion is about learning to be an inner ally and learning to quiet the inner enemy during the turbulence of change.
First you'll learn how to gauge how self compassionate you are, and then you'll learn the five tenants of self compassion and how to try each one out and see if it feels resonant for you. Join me on this path to learning about self compassion as nurturing this part of you will help to transform not just your current experience but your entire approach to your divorce and life beyond.
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Full Episode Transcript:
This is episode 150 of Becoming you Again. I'm so glad you're here. Especially if you're going through a divorce, I promise you this is the right podcast for you, and I'm your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome to Becoming you Again, the podcast to help you with your mental and emotional well-being during and after divorce. This is where you learn to overcome the grief and trauma of your divorce. We're going to do that by reconnecting with yourself, creating lasting emotional resilience and living a truly independent life so that your life can be even better than when you were married. I'm your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast. My lovely, lovely ladies, I am so glad that you're here this week. This week I'm going to be talking about self-compassion. It's been a very long time since I have done a podcast-specific episode on this topic and I was like I think I need to revisit this. It's been quite a while. We need to have a deeper understanding of what self-compassion is, why it's important and why we need to add it into our daily, if possible, but at least every so often, routine with ourselves as we're going through our divorce and as we're healing from our divorce and after years after the divorce, even if that's the space that you're in like I am, I still have to show up with self-compassion. The things that you're going to be learning in today's podcast episode are not only going to serve you right now, when you might be going through one of the most difficult things that you've ever gone through in your life, but also moving forward in your life when things aren't as difficult but still challenging, because you're human and you're living a life on this planet where life ebbs and flows and we struggle with things, sometimes on the regular, sometimes every so often, just depending on how life is in the moment. Self-compassion is something that you can provide to yourself in even the most challenging times, to show up and give yourself grace and love in the ways that you need. So let's talk about it right. Self-compassion is when you become an inner ally to yourself as you go through difficulty, as you go through challenges, rather than becoming an inner enemy, which I know. Sometimes, when we're going through hard stuff, and especially in this world that we have grown up in, it is very common, very normal, even for women especially, to become the enemy of ourself. Our inner voice, that mean girl in our head, can be so mean, so judgmental, so harsh in so many different aspects, not just in the way we talk to ourselves, but in like you're not allowed to feel this feeling. You shouldn't be feeling this feeling. These are so much judgment, and we want to kind of do our best to quiet that inner enemy and instead replace it as much as possible, as often as possible, with an inner ally. Self-compassion is where you learn to get good at, or at least better at, being kind to yourself when you're struggling. It's where you learn to give yourself grace. When we're struggling like obviously, for example, with divorce because most of you listening to this podcast are going through a divorce or have gone through a divorce or some kind of breakup right when we're doing that and things are really hard and we feel bad so much of the time it almost seems like all the time we're not giving ourselves compassion because we need to feel better, like that's not the point of self-compassion. We're giving ourselves compassion because we feel bad. Compassion doesn't mean I'm going to, like, give myself grace and be kind to myself in this moment and then I'm never gonna feel bad, ever again, and I'm gonna stop feeling the sadness and I'm gonna stop feeling the grief and the frustration and the anger and the hate and the Shame and all of the things. That is not what self-compassion does for us. Self-compassion is a way of opening up to what is accepting what is right now in a kind, in a loving, in a, in a soft, gentle and supportive way and a very understanding way as well. And what's really cool about self-compassion this is like the byproduct of self-compassion. When we are compassionate with ourselves and we show up in that way, it becomes so much easier to be compassionate With everyone around us, which can be really really useful when someone is struggling and you are not in their shoes and trying to understand what they're going through. It really helps you, like get to this place of understanding and Non-judgment and grace. It's a beautiful place to be. I have to say I'm gonna give you a way to kind of gauge how self-compassionate you are in this moment or today or like right now in your life, and I'm just going to basically be giving you a few statements and then you just kind of get to gauge where you're at when it comes to self-compassion by how you are answering the question. This is just going to give you an idea of If there is room to grow when it comes to being nice to yourself when things are hard, if there's room for improvement, if that's what you were looking for and what you want, okay. So let me just read these statements, just kind of evaluate for yourself when you stand, like yes, I totally agree with that, I'm somewhere in the middle. No, I don't agree with that at all. Right, when it comes to you. Okay, so I Take a balanced view of the situation when things are hard. That was number one. Number two While going through my divorce, I have given myself caring and understanding, without blame or shame the majority of the time. Number three when I feel inadequate, I try to remind myself that sometimes other people feel this way too. Number four when I'm feeling down, I fixate on everything that is wrong with this situation. And Number five I'm tolerant of parts of me that I don't like. Okay, so you can kind of gauge from your answers and how you have Evaluated, whether that is attributed to you or not, where you you know. If it was like a scale of one to five, I'm a one no, that doesn't. You know, that isn't me in that situation. Or five yes, that is me. Or somewhere in the middle. You get to gauge and that should give you a pretty good idea of how self-compassionate you are when it comes to your own healing, your own growth, your own evolution, all right, so if you've been listening to the podcast for a while which I know many of you have and, by the way, thank you so much for continuing to show up but also you know, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, that I talk a lot about learning to align your body, your mind and your intuition, and this idea of learning to be more self-compassionate will help you do just that. It's going to help you feel very aligned in your self-trust in showing up for you in the moments when you really, really need it. I'm going to be talking about the five basic tenets of self-compassion and once you know these tenets, these pillars, whatever you want to call them, I want you to just try some out and see what feels right for you in certain moments. Like so much of what I teach on this podcast is you listening, you trying it out, you seeing what feels right for you. You are the ultimate authority over yourself and over your growth and evolution and what works for you and what doesn't work for you, and applying things to yourself and getting a feel for what works and what doesn't is truly the best way to get to know yourself on a deeper level. So I'm going to give you these five tenets, try them out, figure out which ones work for you. Best Might be, this one works for me this day, this one didn't. I'm going to try a different one. Be open, right? It's all about just being open to trying new things that you maybe haven't tried before. All right, so here's the five tenets. I'm going to just name them and then I'm going to kind of give you examples and a little bit more of a definition of what each one might mean. Okay so, comforting, soothing, validation, protection and providing and these things, in and of themselves, are not new to this podcast. I have talked about these things in one form or another in many, many podcasts, but this is the first time, I think, I've brought all of these together in one place relating to self-compassion. So again, just listen, figure out which ones feel right, feel resonant with you, and then run with it when it comes to those hard moments when you really need to show up for yourself. Okay so, first one, comforting. Comforting is like basically what you would say to your friend or your child who is struggling right, is there something that you need to hear from yourself right now to feel comforted? What would you say if your best friend came to you with the thing that you're struggling with? What would you say to them to show them that you love them and that you support them and you're there for them? That's what you need to do for yourself in those moments and I promise you this can be so, so helpful. So maybe write down some things that are resonant to you, that feel good, and you can use those thoughts, those kind words, for yourself when things get really hard. When you need to hear that from someone, you get to hear it from yourself instead. All right, the next one is soothing. Soothing is a way of comforting your body physically. So it's almost like if you can think about, like when we, when we are holding a baby that's crying, what do we do? We like rock the baby, or we like rub its back, or we maybe sing a comforting song or a tune or hum a tune Like what are things that you might need to soothe yourself. So society in general, I would say we've kind of moved away from self soothing as adults. It's okay to sell to soothe the baby, not even self soothe. We're trying to teach them how to self soothe but then, as we like, tend to get older, those types of things just seem more awkward and weird in society, and I'm not saying they are, I'm just saying that's like what we have kind of labeled them as in society. Maybe it's actually a good thing, maybe there's nothing wrong with learning to self soothe, whether you do it in public or not. I'm not saying you need to go out and like, do all these things in public, but it's just in getting to this place of understanding of what works for you, for me personally, when I put my hand on my bare chest, if I have to put it like inside my shirt, or if I'm wearing a sweater or something that's, you know, got a V neck or whatever, and I can actually put hand to chest and just rub it a little, that to me is so soothing In times when I need it, and that I've definitely been in situations where I'm feeling a heightened nervous system, I'm in an anxious spin in public, and I will do that. I will put my hand on my chest and just rub and know that like I'm safe in this moment and remind myself I'm safe in this moment. So, like, think about what would help me feel calm and peaceful in my body right now. Maybe come up with a list, try some things out, or maybe you already know what those things are. You can turn to soothing when it comes to showing up with compassion in moments when you need it. Alright, the next one is validation. Now, validating is when you kind of normalize things that are going on and I don't mean to say like, oh, this thing is happening and it's normal and so it's fine, I shouldn't be upset about it or I shouldn't care about it or I shouldn't worry about it or I should just like let it go. That is not what I'm saying when I say the word normalize. Normalize is to recognize that number one. It's totally normal and natural for you to be feeling these things that you're feeling and it makes sense that you would be feeling the things that you're feeling. And it's okay to feel the things that you're feeling. So often we are told that it is not okay to feel what we're feeling, that it's not okay to be sad, that it's not okay to cry, that it's not okay to be angry, that it's not okay, like there's something wrong with you. You shouldn't be feeling this way, you shouldn't be acting this way, you shouldn't be feeling this. And with validation, this is where we get to say how can I validate myself in this moment? How does it make sense that I'm feeling this way? How is it okay for me to be feeling this way? Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying act out on what you're feeling. I'm saying it's okay to be feeling sad, it's okay to be mad, it's okay that you're feeling these things, right. And so how can I validate myself? How can I normalize that it's okay? How does it make sense that I'm feeling this way and can it be okay for me in this moment to feel this way? Those are the kind of the questions that you can ask yourself and come up with the answers in the ways that you need for validation. The next tenant is protection, and normally, when I'm talking about protection, as you guys know, it's usually coming from a place of, like, emotional protection, feeling safe emotionally. It could be in your situation I don't know your situation it could be protecting yourself from some kind of physical harm. And if that is the case, please, please, if you feel safe enough even to do that. Reach out to the national domestic violence hotline. I will put the phone number or the text in the show notes. I will put a couple of other options in there. If that's even too scary or difficult for you to do, to where it's more safe, even to reach out and get the help that you need. It will be in the show notes. But for this example specifically today, I'm talking about protecting yourself emotionally, right? How do we protect ourselves emotionally from self harm and what does that look like? Emotional self harm Is like. Can I let go of this judgment that I have of myself? Can I put a boundary up for the mean talk that is happening in my brain? Can I show up in a way where I validate the mean talk, the mean girl in my head, and recognize that so much of what she is saying is in some way a protective mechanism that maybe I've been holding on to for years and that it's okay to stop in this moment? It's okay to let go of that kind of protection, because I'm learning new ways of protecting myself and one of them is to be kind instead of mean, like that's what I mean by protection in on an emotional level. Where are the areas where I can drop the judgment, the mean talk and like, allow space for there to be emotional safety happening? And then the last one is providing, and Providing basically just means that you give yourself what you need in this moment. This is a question that I ask my clients all the time, like what do you need in this moment? And I think it's such an important question that we, as women, will not have not. Do not ask ourselves enough. In my opinion, I think that providing can be like the ultimate, although this is like a very Non-hierarchal list. Right, we might need one or the other at different moments. That's okay, not to say that one is better than the other, but I think that sometimes providing Might be the ultimate way of self-compassion, only because it's something that we do that is so out of the norm when it comes to women and Allowing ourselves to give us what we actually need in moments, because first you have to be willing to Know what it is that you need and then it's like you move into this understanding that you deserve to have your needs met, and then we take it one step further, even, and we follow through to provide that thing for ourselves or those things. Whatever it is that you need in the moment. I I mentioned this in a podcast a couple weeks ago I can't remember specifically which podcast it was, but I kind of talked about I've been kind of listening to my body and letting my body Guide my daily movement. I used to just go for a walk like every day and I've instead started to kind of listen To what it is that my body needs. One day it might be a walk, another day it might be like a punching workout or yoga or like whatever. Right, I'm just more being guided and listening to what it is that I actually need and then trying to provide that, and that that could be an example of something of listening like a movement in some way. But there are so many other ways that this Providing can show up really getting to know what you need in the moment. Like I know, there's been moments where I've had clients who say I need to go curl up on my couch In a very soft, comforting blanket and wrap up in it and I need to cry or I need to go take a nap For the next 50 minutes, so it could look so many different ways. This is just a matter of really trying to tap into asking the question, listening for an answer and then Moving forward with whatever that answer is and providing it okay. So I hope that that gave you some greater understanding of what self-compassion is, why it's important and how we can show up in different ways for ourselves in different moments when we might need it right. So try some of these, or all of these, out at different times. Step into self-compassion. You are worthy, you are deserving, and and everyone deserves more kindness, more grace, more love, more openness, more comfort, more softness when we're going through really hard times. So be that for yourself, because oftentimes we're not getting it from the outside, but we can provide it from the inside. Okay, all right, my friends, thank you for being here. I'm so glad that you listened today and I will talk to you next week. Hi, friend, I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life, with weekly coaching, real-life practice and practical guidance to learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to Karin Nelson coaching dot com. That's wwwkarinnelsoncoaching dot com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating. 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