The healing power of self-empathy
Self-empathy is a peculiar process. It’s one that often ranks last on our personal development “must do” list, and yet it has tremendous power to support, nurture, and strengthen our spirit and resilience.
Empathy allows us to re-perceive our world in a fresh new way and move on. By moving on I don’t mean forgetting, suppressing, leaving behind, but rather finding meaning, remembering how special we are, being with ourselves in a way that breeds growth rather than self-hatred or forgetfulness. of oneself.
With self-empathy, practiced with compassion and Presence, we can move beyond guilt, shame, and anger toward healing. We can go beyond good and evil to the needs or values we were satisfying and to the awareness of other needs that we would have liked to pay more attention to or act in more harmony with. When we listen to internal self-criticism, we are actually saying “I am not acting in harmony with my own needs or values” and this is an opportunity to celebrate this awareness and connection to oneself.
In NVC terms, this self-connection is called “dueling”; we are connecting with the feelings and unmet needs stimulated by past actions that we now regret.
How do we grieve or heal past mistakes?
- pause and acknowledge: We take some time here to notice how we’re holding this in our body. We just say hello as it is now.
- Observation: we describe what we said or did (we did not evaluate)
- Self-judgments: we ask “what do I think of myself for having done or said (2)”
- Current feelings and needs: we translate our current judgments (aka our jackal show) into feelings and needs
- Empathy for myself: we determine what need we were trying to satisfy when we chose that action or said those words that we now regret
- Positive Vision: we connect with how we feel when we DO meet these needs.
- current request: we now acknowledge our awareness of our current feelings and unmet needs (4) and address them now by making a doable request in the present moment.
I realize I need to ‘write my way through this process’ as I can go back and forth for quite some time as new and ever more precious needs emerge within the safety of presence and compassion. Writing also slows me down and gives me a chance to ground myself in whatever comes up. With thoughts I can process-jump too easily without even realizing it.
If there is one quality of self-empathy that feels most powerful to me; is self-empathy provides a pathway to being the change we want to see in the world. Self-empathy focuses our attention on our deepest and most cherished values and encourages us to live an authentic, empowered, and sensitive life.