Why Healing MUST Include Self-Compassion

    My eyes were opened to just how deep my self-hatred was. My eyes were opened. I finally saw that I was chasing healing because I was never ok with who I was, I was never ok with where I was. I chased healing because I wanted to be someone else. Every time I saw people with similar wounds making their own dreams come true, I would think, "Now why can't I do that?" My eyes were opened to how much I rejected myself. I sought healing thinking I couldn't be valued until I did enough healing. The search for healing had way more to do with my deep-seated self-hatred than with healing. The obsessive nature of my quest for healing came from my complete inability to accept myself. That is why the healing did not appear to be working. I was seeking healing with the belief that I am not inherently good enough...with the thought that I'm not inherently worthy.

My obsession with self-hatred was disguised as an obsession with healing.Healing cannot occur in the fullest sense until you add self-compassion to the process.

All the healing I was striving for couldn't truly reach me because my heart was still closed to myself. I was asking for healing while habitually and unconsciously contaminating it with toxic shame. You can't heal shame if shame is why you want to heal; we can't heal our wounds by adding to the infection.

But given my familiarity with pain and suffering, I struggled to understand their opposites. Self-love was a foreign language for me and self-compassion was utterly impossible. I did not know how to treat myself like a loved one. I did not know how to open my heart to myself. My early childhood force-fed me an endless narrative of why I am not good enough...it force-fed me an endless narrative of why I am unworthy of safety, love, joy, and peace.

Seeking healing from a deeply wounded place, from a place of shame, is like abusing a pain-killer so you can ignore the message pain is trying to tell you... My pain was asking for compassion...specifically from me.

In order for this to change, I had to learn the hard way just how much my self-hatred could damage relationships. 

Not Expecting a Better Outcome Than Farewell

    I love you too much to let you stay. I wanted you to choose yourself over my

dysfunctional roller-coaster. I made sure to share both where I am beginning to

grow and the uncomfortable, convoluted complexities of this disorderly brain.

Please know that I didn't (and still don't) want you to hold space for my

dysfunctional drama anymore. Please know that I love you so much that I am, and

have been, willing to let you go. My last few links were chosen with purpose. I wish I

could have found the words to express my struggles sooner...to discover the other

root cause sooner. If I had, I would have told you all of this immediately and then

stayed miles away.

I love you so much that I truly wanted you to walk away. Learning that self-hatred

could hurt someone other than me has helped me in unexpected ways.

But I wish I hadn't needed to learn that the hard way. I'm so glad you chose to get

off the roller-coaster regardless of the heartbreak. 


I tried so hard to express the true nature of my mental health, but nothing I said
helped it to click inside someone else's head...not until now.

Further Processing

    Someone I love couldn't see my truth soon enough. Someone I love assured me will-power would be enough. Someone I love remained blind to my inner world...remained deaf to my fears. Primarily the fear I had of my own mind...primarily the fear I had of my own emotions. This ignorance hurt us both.
    The reassurances were numerous enough for me to eventually chose to believe in my powerful will-power.* By becoming entranced by this falsehood, all the things I had already found in my subconscious returned there. By believing I was healed enough for will-power to be enough, I lost my true orientation. My brain was not yet capable of applying any long-term discipline. My tumultuous, all-consuming emotions were still inescapable.
    The fuse had been lit every time the truth of my inner world was minimized. The fuse had been lit by all those times I didn't feel seen. I tried to do the right thing. I tried to speak my truth the right way. But...without even knowing it, we weren't speaking the same language.
    Those erasures echoed the time I was silenced, the time when my trauma was ignored or minimized or...or whatever. The grenade was lit several times before it could not contain the explosion. And for that I am deeply sorry.

*I knew I was lying to myself, but I pushed that truth down too.

How the Bridge Burned

I have come to accept that my inner child did not know how to tell someone that she was hurting and that the pain was caused by this person's inability to accurately perceive the picture I was painting. I eventually lied to myself by agreeing all I needed was willpower. But I was simply applying willpower to the continued suppression of shame and guilt. Now that I've labeled that picture I painted, I can (and have been) appropriately using my willpower to keep in mind that my own self-hatred harmed someone else. This lesson has ironically helped me to begin acquiring the skills of self-forgiveness, self-compassion, and self-love...just by the simple fact that self-love is necessary in order to be emotionally safe for others.

Apparently, I had to get a brutal wake-up call...apparently I had to unintentionally hurt someone else. 

I'm sorry my emotional overwhelm became destructive. I'm sorry I couldn't make my truth understood so much sooner. I'm sorry for losing control. I'm sorry that I allowed my inner child to burn bridges. I was tired of feeling pain. I was tired of it coming from a loved one who was blind to my inner world no matter how hard I tried to make myself understood. I tried...I tried a lot...I tried hard to be understood. And when I kept failing...I lied to myself. I lied to myself and a part of me thought that doing so would "keep the peace". 

I can forgive myself. I can give myself grace. I can give myself compassion. So at long last, I no longer need to seek these from you or anyone. I have only love for you.

Now that you've seen me self-destruct, can you see why I am/have been afraid of my emotions? 

I told you a few times that when my emotions are intense enough, any and all good decisions are erased from my mind. I know you thought you understood me, but apparently I was trying to explain the taste of lemons to someone who has only ever had lemonade. I'm sorry I found clearer language far too late.

How the Steep Cost of Shame Pushed Me to Embrace Self-Love

Shame exists in people who cannot see themselves as good people and I'd guess most of us are either still stuck in it or has experienced episodes of shame at some point. I have been stuck in shame my whole life; I always felt like I was a bad person and that I deserved to never be free. But recently, my eyes have been opened in a way they have never been before. I recently witnessed my deep-seated shame dramatically end a relationship. By being unable to forgive myself for a prior more minor mistake, I projected the unforgiveness onto a person who had already let go of the matter. Obviously, he didn't directly tell me I was forgiven or else that prolonged uncertainty would not have caused me so much distress.
Until recently, I thought I had to stay locked in a prison cell made of shame and guilt in order to properly show remorse, to show that I'm sorry. But in the end, that prison I thought I deserved actually ignited another moment of self-destruction. A part of me wanted to say, "See?!? I told you I was unlovable." But after dealing with the steep cost of shame driven self-destruction, I learned that shame could not make me a better person. It actually made me toxic. This incident taught me that you cannot become a good person until you learn to see yourself that way.

Standing in the Remembrance of My Sovereignty

Arch Angel Michael, I call upon you now.
Please cut ALL the energy cords,
ALL the mental cords, and
ALL the emotional cords
that have been attached to this person,
this predicament,
as well as the attachment
to a specific outcome.

Arch Angel Michael,
please cut the cords of knotted emotion
that have surfaced due to my mistakes.
Please cut away any and all attachments
to the old narrative,
the old patterning of
imprisoning myself within
the confines of guilt...
and the coffin of shame.

I am, and have always been,
as innocent as a child learning to walk.
While I have remorse for the harm I caused,
I can't help but acknowledge that this...
this is how I have been treating myself for years.
No, I am not admitting this
to sound underhanded,
but to validate all my feelings equally...
because shame is a burden
that I can no longer carry.

I have nothing
but love for you,
but fear won me over.

And today, I cocreate
and claim a reality where
I no longer need anyone's validation...
I cocreate and claim a life where
I no longer need anyone
to understand my reality
or see my truth.
For today, I acknowledge that
I am capable of validating my
own experience,
of validating my feelings
and my truth.

I release this entanglement...
this enmeshment here, now, and forever.
I release the insane contract I unfairly constructed
for you to "follow."
I release you with tremendous love
for my big heart is still very real.
To honor you properly
I will strive to use this
as a lesson I can grow from.
I release you with tremendous love,
here, now, and forever.

As I step into my new life,
I acknowledge that my power,
my sovereignty,
and my innocence...
they are completely intact
for they were never truly threatened.

Shame no longer serves me,
so I release it with tremendous love
here, now, and forever.
Guilt no longer serves me,
so I release it with tremendous love
here, now, and forever.
The victim mentality no longer serves me,
so I release it with tremendous love
here, now, and forever.

As I validate my truth
and release ALL
that no longer serves me,
I step into my power,
the power of remembrance.
I step into,
not only a life of service,
but a life that serves me
now that I know myself
to be fully deserving
of all things good,
of heaven here on earth.

As I validate my truth
and release ALL
that no longer serves me,
I shall stand firmly rooted in self-love...
I shall become capable
of offering unflinching,
unconditional
loving compassion
for absolutely everyone...
for everyone
including myself.

BPD For Me

BPD, for me, means I never figured out how anyone could love me. It means doubting the intentions of others no matter how long I've known them. BPD, for me, is my inner wounded child taking the wheel and sabotaging everything... and somehow not realizing it until I return to a more regulated state. BPD, for me, is fearing unconditional love because I habitually, if subconsciously keep looking for a list of conditions to perform for others. Not finding this list actually ignites distress. BPD, for me, looks like not understanding boundaries most of the time... I love intensely but often offer it in a distorted way. I know I'm loved but rarely feel loved. BPD, for me, looks like being fatally optimistic...every time I entered a state of pure euphoria I'd assume that level of unfettered joy was a sign...was proof of untethered flight...proof that I had healed enough to fly. BPD, for me, means I have always had a distorted sense of self...which caused some relationships to become distorted. It means that most of the time I don't know what I want. BPD, for me, looks like dysregulation that often starts too subtly to notice... BPD, for me, is dysregulation sometimes disguised as euphoria... It looks like dysregulation sometimes disguised as groundedness followed by me careening down the rabbit-hole of delusions of lovelessness. And lastly, BPD, for me, feels like being puppeteered into the worst cases of self-sabotage.