Beating myself up, stress and self compassion..

Beating myself up.

This act of beating myself up, doesn’t always consist of a round of negative thoughts, although sometimes it does.  Often it’s a feeling. It’s a self-critical and harsh feeling. It   feels like a ferocious participant in an inner fight, it’s got the boxing gloves on while the other opponent trembles.

My Inner Critic sounds like a psychological cliché but it feels like a fitting phrase.  Through therapy, Mindfulness practice and reading a lot,  I’ve learnt to become more aware of this critic.  I am sometimes able to question it (me) with gentleness and compassion. Sometimes I can feel my inner world soften and respond, which is quite a beautiful feeling.

Of course I still beat myself up! I’m not always aware, especially when things are difficult. I still struggle with stressful situations. When I should be bathing in self compassion and eating healthy foods to counteract the stress, I still find myself gorging on doughnuts, beating myself up and doing the opposite of what helps,  Ironic! But I think I am getting a little bit better.

I read the book ‘Stop Beating Yourself up and leave insecurity behind’ by Kristin Neff – It’s about Self Compassion. It’s one of the most helpful books I have ever read.

Thank you for reading x

How Self Compassionate are you? Be your own best friend!

Hopefully this quick film we made illustrates the value of being kinder to ourselves especially during stressful times.

There is a field of work known as ‘Self Compassion’ which has its origins in Buddhism.  If you are interested in finding out more about self compassion I can recommend looking into the works of Dr Paul Gilbert, Dr Kristin Neff and Dr Christopher Germer.

It was our first attempt at filming on our community reporter course.  There is some background noise but hopefully the captions help diminish this.  We had a great workshop on filming and editing which was led by Jon Beech of Touchstone in Leeds.

I hope you enjoy the film

Vicky