The Voice of Self-Compassion Part 1

May 30, 2018 Off By Deby Jizi

If you are used to having feelings that you cannot explain then you, also, may be unaware of the thoughts which have caused them. Poor diet, lack of sleep, and stress can affect the way we feel. However, most of us have an incessant voice that is commenting non-stop about what we are doing or not doing, and it is judging us. Paying attention to that voice is an important first step in becoming free.

If you are feeling down, depressed, and demoralized about yourself, you can bet that you have been generating negative self-talk. That voice inside our heads that tells us that we don’t measure up or that we have screwed up, again, often leads us to eat mindlessly or sends us to the couch to binge watch TV.

Self-compassion will help you silence that voice. You will silence it by not giving it credence. You will see it for what it is, self-hate. You will realize that listening to that voice has never led to long-term success. You might have succeeded for a time, but if you are letting self-hate run the show, you can bet all of your successes will be reversed in time, leading you to feel even worse than when you started.

Understand that negative self-talk is not based on facts. It is based on beliefs about ourselves that we have collected over time. Those beliefs may have been born from how others talked to us or treated us, and now we have adopted them as our own. Buddhist monk and writer, Cheri Huber, gives us an important guideline to follow in stopping negative self-talk, and it is to remember this: