Know your vulnerable self…
Pushing away your feelings and thoughts creates a void where self-connection could be. A great way to fill that void is to practise expressing yourself through spontaneous voice recording, writing or journalling. Getting to know yourself through a process of authentic self-expression is how you can start to make friends with yourself.
We often want other people to listen to us, to understand us and to support us because we have given up on the possibility of doing that for ourselves. Discovering who we are through an experimentally honest, raw and unedited expression of our true thoughts and feelings is a very good first step to self-understanding.We feel helpless when we are not able to express ourselves. Describing your needs, desires, frustrations, hurt, fear, sadness, shame, despair, stressful irritation and anger about what isn’t fair is a great way of giving yourself power so that you can be aware of what you are going through and help yourself in a spirit of self-compassion.
My master always insisted,”Never judge yourself harshly for how you think or feel”(and remember it’s not your fault when harsh thoughts occur to you)
It’s important to allow yourself to be as vulnerable as you truly feel inside and to express that vulnerability without reacting against yourself for being human. This means allowing yourself not only to express frustrations but also to say really helpless things such as “I’m scared that I just won’t be able to cope” or “My heart is breaking”.
The key to unlocking your self-compassion is to admit how hard what you are going through is. When expressing this, you may find yourself crying a little and feeling a sense of emotional release, which is wonderfully healing. It takes practice but it’s worth working on this regularly, maybe with the help of some emotionally inspiring music.
Even if your emotions appear to be numbed by a harsh sense of being removed from reality, it’s good to write about the confusion and despair that this makes you feel. Eventually, you can learn to fully sense your emotions and you will realise that there is really nothing more beautiful, innocent or adorable than your own heart.
As well as expressing feelings, it’s good to write down your helpless thoughts so that you understand and can truly engage with your own mind. When you ignore your thoughts they are more likely to control you subconsciously. When you express them, you can start to deal with them more compassionately, rationally and responsively.
Been there…done that….still doing. And it heals you completely….to your core.
