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Official Thread Section 3.1 Generate Self Compassion

Looking for a place to put this... this experience I just had. I'm in Greece and I went walking the Agora. It's a beautiful day. I took a lot of photos, it's a really spiritual place. Then, I walked through the Athens Flea Market and the vibe changed to The Awful Financial Crisis. Then, I took a different road and there were all kinds of homeless people/refugees sleeping in blankets. Then, I was in the Refugee Crisis.

I got to a queue of taxis and I am told that I am going to have to ride all the way around the city in a wide circle because there is a major demonstration in the city center: two universities are closing next month and both students and teachers are protesting. The IMF is meeting in our hotel... There's an edge here.

So, naturally, I am feeling scared. Then the cabbie shortchanges me, drops me off where it's impossible to cross the street. I feel mugged. Instead of feeling mugged, my right hip/glute wants to seize up.
I come online to the TMS Wiki and I start searching words like 'trigger' ...and landed at self-compassion. Of course I'm tense! It was a tense situation. If you guys told me you'd just taken a 25-35 euro cab ride that should have been 5 euros, through parts of a city you didn't know, with police in riot gear, I would be so empathic, so kind; I would listen and nod and say mm-hmm, until you got it all out.
BUT.
AND.
And I should be better by now?

No. If anything you all have reminded me it's one day at a time recovery from TMS.

My glute is crying that I'm scared and angry. I'm homesick. I am ready to go home but it's not time to leave for another 48 hours. I miss our bed, our dogs, my horse. I miss my routine! I got all the antiquity I could ever ask for.

Whew.
That's felt great.
Pain all gone.
One of these days I will write a success story. Funny. I thought success meant never having pain. I am such a perfectionist!

Thanks for listening...

bg
 
Bohdigirl,

You might want to post this on The Presence Process thread. Dr. Sarno has said that The Presence Process (TPP) embodies what TMS work is all about (I'm paraphrasing). And what you expressed sums it up nicely. TPP is all about feeling what we feel at the moment, accepting it unconditionally, and giving it our unconditional attention (both of which make up unconditional love, or as you put it, self-compassion). What we find eventually is that we've always had that unconditional love for ourselves all along, but it was hampered by our judgments which are locked into all of our emotional dysfunctions. But with unconditional love, we end up integrating those dysfunctional emotions, and feel them shift over into really enjoyable feelings. In fact, we even start to enjoy feeling the uncomfortable emotions! That's really awesome when that happens. And we look forward to them, because we know exactly how to be with them in love until they integrate. We no longer fear feeling any of our emotions, and we get better at feeling all of thrm, which gives life this new, wonderful dimension. Apathy, not hate, is the opposite of love. Apathy is feeling nothing, while love feels everything without judgment, and thoroughly enjoys all of it, not preferring any emotion over another. Perpetual contentment, even in pain. It takes care of the physical pain, usually, in time, but at that point, we're no longer scared of the physical pain or always trying to get rid of it. We let it be until it integrates.

Your story is a great embodiment of the emotions and our struggle with them. I'm sure those in the TPP thread would really appreciate it. It was well put, too. If you can't find the thread, let me know.

Have a great day.
 
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Bodhigirl said:
Whew.
That's felt great.
Pain all gone.
One of these days I will write a success story. Funny. I thought success meant never having pain. I am such a perfectionist!
Click to expand...

Hi Bodhigirl,
This is a wonderful realization. Self-compassion addresses perfectionism with kindness. Being there for ourselves is an antidote for rejecting and pushing ourselves. I am glad you posted this, and found some relief in being an "ordinary human."

BrianC,
The presence process sounds wonderful.

Andy B
 
Hi, I am a new member but have had TMS since childhood, for sure. Bit of a share coming on!

First of all - Cirrusnarea I so empathise with you. I get that. I essentially did the wrong job ( interpreter or actress were what I wanted to do) too. I started well in my career but didn't value myself or get myself the right training to support what I did. Anyway... self compassion takes a long time for some of us.

At the lovely age of 53 and after so many "falling down the same hole in the road" episodes I have decided that I matter to me and that it is time to be kind to me. Husbands have told me this and loved me but I have been bent on proving myself, of driving myself to job success and finding my self esteem in work. I have lost two beautiful men who were prepared to support me. Well hey, I have been through the mill too many times and too much self examination, depression etc.

I checked my personality career match recently and it states my ideal job is an interpreter or an actress. And that is exactly what I wanted to be but didn't get into the two interpreter courses in the UK because my knowledge of current affairs was not good enough ( me a 17 year old a few decades ago). I studied languages and spoke two fluently but the negative literature that I studied plus family losses took the joy out of life and engendered a feeling that the highest and best me was one who took absolute moral responsibility for everything.

THE POWER OF WORDS - of being exposed at a tender time when bereaved and lonely to essentially non-uplifting and sad literature.

What a burden to carry - no faith, all up to me, all to be in my control. Add into that a conviction (a bit ahead of my times) in lack of succumbing to status symbols and material goods whilst working in a materialist industry and being a workaholic striver, well the wheels were set in motion for a life time of never being happy unless I succeeded all the time in fixing other people's problems (customers) and achieving without being mentored. DOH!

I have been to the bottom of the pit with IBS as a 15 year old, appalling neck, skull, shoulder spasms, pudendal pain, vulvodynia, vestibulitis, pelvic instability, chronic cystitis and depression and anxiety, loneliness and isolation. I didn't know how to nurture myself (nobody ever showed me this or taught me this) and was unable to nurture or have kids. The railroad tracks have looked very tempting. Physical activity was off the agenda for years and years and I lapse into mania as well. I know that now I am perfectly wonderful as I am and that I deserve a good life. I am learning to love and start to regulate my emotions as I fell into a state of emotional dysregulation. I am starting to take one day at a time and enjoy the simple things, although I long to go back to the ski slope but this time without anxiety.

I am hooked on amitryptline having been on it for 22 years.

The change to a state of allowing and not suppressing emotions is happening. Mindfulness, Breathing, The Presence Process book above is in my toolkit. But the book that helps me heal most and explains why I have been so unwell is a gem called "Loving, Living and Learning" by Leo Buscaglia. I am an expressive, loving, tender person who also loves attention and letting go via dance as well as having lots of people around my table.


THE POWER OF WORDS - this time a magnificent book which oozes LOVE and LOVE of LIFE.


I never realised the ache of emotional pain inside me was partly because I come from one of the friendliest cities in the world, Glasgow, and I have lived away from it for so many years in less open communities. The conviviality and humour as well as the arts in Glasgow are amazing. The weather is however appalling and that is why I left. Many friends and family say I was born into "the wrong place" - be more suited to Southern European countries, heat and passion and emotion expressed.

I do still act and when in a comedy or pantomime I just have no pain, no stress, and feel good chemicals and ENERGY. It is what I love.

BTW - there is a wonderful free resource on COURSERA called "Preventing Chronic Pain: A Human Systems Approach". The BLESSME approach.

Love and Light xxx
 
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