05 Mar Mindfulness, Self Love and Self Compassion
Posted at 18:59h
in Blog
MINDFULNESS & SELF LOVE
Self love, self-care, mindfulness, and believing in yourself.
Am I Worthy?
Am I Enough?
Who am I?
Do I feel good about myself?
If your answer is no,
How do you get to the place where you believe in yourself again?
What stops you from believing in yourself? Do you compare yourself to others?
Where does the sense of comparison come from?
Do you compare yourself to people online? in person? Both?
How can you find your footing, believe in yourself, and trust in your worth and value?
What would help you to know that you’re good enough just as you are?
We are all intrinsically loved for who we are and not what we do. In other words, none of us needs to be perfect in order to be loved.
There is developmental trauma that can happen between the ages of 1 1/2 to 3, that can cause us to feel shame and perfectionism. For instance, If you had a parent shame you when you made a mistake, and if they did this routinely, then you may feel that you need to be perfect in order to be loved.
You can either become an empath or a narcissist from this developmental trauma.
Empaths are highly sensitive, give too much, are selfless, have no boundaries, & suffer from over responsibility and burnout.
If this is you, and you want to overcome these hurdles, please reach out.
Narcissists usually won’t do therapy, because they feel that they are perfect. They insist that they are perfect; they won’t admit when they are wrong. They have a fragile ego, under the external charm and bravado. Inside, they believe that they can only hold themselves together, if they are always right. They will never admit when they are wrong, and they usually don’t seek therapy. The don’t think they have any problems. They project the problems onto others, blame and gaslighting and emotional abuse are some of the strategies they use, to protect their wounded inner child.
Narcissists are attracted to empaths; we fit each other like a ball and a glove. We each have lessons to learn, and the Universe will put us together, until we learn the lessons that we need to learn to heal and grow.
These lessons are painful, that teach Empaths to speak their truth, set their boundaries, and leave unhealthy relationships, to protect their worth and value. It’s easier to learn these lessons now, before you get married, so that you don’t have to learn it later in life, and when there is a bigger cost.
Is your worth in value tied to what you do, or performance? Or how you look?
If so, these external things will eventually be shattered. The universe tests us, in order to make us grow and will shake away any false identity that isn’t built on a solid foundation.
God or the Universe allows pressure to come on us, External circumstances that don’t feel good. These difficulties and trials shake away false beliefs, and any false identity we’ve taken on. The external pressures are designed to make us into a diamond, and file away all of our rough edges. Did you know that when you put pressure on a lump of coal, it turns into a diamond, pressed, but not crushed? That’s what the difficult circumstances in life, are meant to do.
The difficulties lead us to healing and a soul journey that is unshakable. We might still have difficult circumstances, but we will learn to walk through them like walking on top of fiery coals. Always enlist support from safe friends and counselors, to help you get through struggles. When we share our struggles, with safe people, it cuts the amount of pain in half. When we keep the pain to our self, it doubles it. (Dr Henry Cloud, author of Boindaries in Dating, and Safe people).
What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger, as long as we have support to move through the pain. The goal in life, is not o take away any learning lessons from painful experiences, so that you can make meaning happen out of difficulties, without judging, condemning, or shaming yourself.
So where do you begin?
Do you have guilt, shame, or regrets about some choices that you’ve made in your life, in college, and how do you reconcile these? How can you forgive yourself for making mistakes?
All of us make mistakes, and each of us will need to learn how to forgive ourselves, so that we can be congruent, free, authentic, and not carry around the weight of shame or blame, on our shoulders.
How do you begin to heal?
I have some suggestions you could try below.
First, find an hour or two every day that you can take a break from your phone. I know that a lot of comparison starts on social media. You see pictures of people that are living their best lives, people share only their best self and their best face, and if you compare your life to theirs, you will always feel worse, inadequate, and shameful. This can lead to sadness and depression, if the pattern is not caught or stopped.
How do you change?
1. For one, if you can learn to start your day off gently, possibly bring coffee or tea, back to bed, outside on a patio, or somewhere that you can be quiet and still. Train your mind and nervous system, to breathe, feel grounded, and release any negative thoughts and feelings, for at least the first five or 10 minutes of the day. Be mindful of your nervous system; how we start our day, and end our day, determines the trajectory of the rest of the day.As a therapist, I know that our subconscious is the most active in the morning and evening. This is the time to put in positive thoughts, to write in a gratitude journal, to focus on things we are grateful for, and feel grounded and supported. (see videos on hardwiring happiness by Dr. Rick Hansen).
We need to practice letting go of any thoughts or worries that don’t serve our long-term well-being. It takes training to let go of thoughts and feelings about what is happening in your life (called 2nd darts). You can practice this daily by learning to witness your thoughts and observe them (look up videos on the Monkey Mind, and First and Second darts), visualize, grabbing these thoughts, look up, and put them on a cloud. Picture detaching from the thoughts about what happened, and just let it go.
Another mindfulness strategy is to start or end your day with a five senses meditative walk. If you’re too tired to walk, find a spot to sit inside or outside, drink some tea, and just observe with your senses, everything around you.
Notice everything you see, notice everything you hear, notice the temperature of the air on your skin and face, notice if there is wind or birds, or people talking in the distance, and notice how the air smells.
As you do, this, breathe deeply, from your diaphragm, 1-2-3-4 count breathing, and exhale deeply, any anxious feelings, stress, anger, or sadness.
As you exhale, notice your seat and your feet connecting more deeply to the Earth. Feeling heavy, supported and grounded.
Another healthy life practice, is to start noticing difficult emotions in your body, without judging or running away from them. Often people run away from feelings by drinking, smoking, busyness, working all the time, or any other addiction. Our goal in life is to align with our highest self, work through our pain, and keep any coping strategies in check, moderation and balance.
We will practice sitting with a difficult emotion;
I want you to notice, as you sit and feel grounded in your body, any emotions that you might be holding in your body. Notice areas like your stomach, your heart and chest, your throat, your shoulders, your head, and even your low back.
Notice any areas that feel tight, heavy, or contain energy.
Mindfully, turn your focus towards these areas. You can even put a hand on your stomach or your heart, if you feel the emotion there.
Breathe into that area, soften, allow, and send love and compassion, for two minutes, to any areas that are holding tension in your body. Try to identify what emotions you might be holding in these areas. See if any memories come to mind or any people.
Mindfully observe and hold space, with compassion, for all that you have been through, all the lessons you have learned, and all the difficult emotions that you might be holding.
If you’re going through something tough, remember that you only want to share and talk with safe people. Safe people will listen to you, ask you if you would like feedback, they will be empathetic, understanding, and nonjudgmental.
And remember that your friends are not therapists, and they are not trained to be therapists, and if you continue talking about the same thing for more than a few months, it might be your signal, to enlist a professional therapist.
Sometimes empathic people can listen too long, and take on other people’s traumas and emotions. So it’s good for empathic people to learn to set boundaries, and direct a friend to Therapy, if you notice that they are talking about the same stressful things over and over for more than a few months.
There are times in all of our lives, where we need therapy, including mine. Thank God for Therapy! It has helped me through a divorce, life, transition, losing my dad and brother, narcissistic, relationship break ups, and more. For Therapists, as with other people, we all need support to heal, and we can’t heal on our own, or just by talking about our traumas.
Often, sometimes we need deeper therapies, like EMDR therapy (see my blog @ www.jaymajamieson.com) and Splankna therapy (spiritual Energy Healing therapy) to process deeper emotions and traumas. EMDR therapy helps to reboot the brain, post trauma, or break up, so that our hippocampus in frontal cortex, can come back online, and we can help ourselves to get out of fight flight or freeze mode (amygdala/caveman brain).
Remember that everything you go through in life, the universe or God will use to help others. The best thing you can do, is get support around yourself from safe people and therapists of your choice, work through the pain or anger, learn to let go of the stories in your head., and any comparisons to others, and find and be your most authentic, healed self. This world needs people who do their healing work, so that we can break free from generational trauma, and set a new precedent of healing for all future generations.
Please reach out via text or email, and I offer a free 20 minute phone consultation anytime you need to talk.
My website has a contact page, and you can always contact me off of that.
My Google work number is: 303-351-2354, and my email is hellojayma@yahoo.com
Please refer Friends, and reach out anytime. I’m here to support you in your healing journey.
My office is located in Lafayette, Colorado, straight out Arapahoe Road to 95th St. I am right next to Brewing Market Coffee Shop, I don’t take insurance, but I can give you receipts to see what they might reimburse. And I bring emotional support dogs to work, my silver lab Olive, and my dachshund lab, Oscar.
Blessings!
Jayma Jamieson, MA, NCC, LPC
Www.aboulderbodymindspirit.com
Www.JaymaJamieson.com