Embracing Tender Moments: A Journey into Self-Compassion and Resilience

This week, I've spent time connecting with with people who are navigating a delicate and vulnerable space in their lives. They've shared experiences of losing their focus and grappling with a foggy mind, all while feeling the pain very deeply. Often they adopt a strategy of just keeping busy, busy to distract their minds from the discomfort. As intense focus tends to silence the default mode network. That's the part of us that constantly is reviewing our lives and urging us to do more than merely survive.

For those of us who have faced trauma, the default mode network can become over protective, creating a very vicious cycle. keeping busy seems to numb the pain momentarily, like placing a blanket over the right hemisphere is amygdala, providing a temporary disconnect. However, beneath that blanket, the authentic self arrives in pain, totally unacknowledged.

And this internal struggle, it really intensifies over time. It resurfaces vigorously once the busyness subsides. Facing this alone is undoubtedly challenging, especially without understanding companionship.

However, it is possible even amidst solitude, to begin to comprehend what is transpiring within. The key is recognizing that tender young parts of us, our past experiences, yearn for the acknowledgement, yearn for recognition, that they do make sense. And and we can have trust that we can be fully understood without harm. That is crucial. Finding support on the journey and cultivating resonance with your felt self. And developing the ability to focus your attention intentionally, really empowers you.

The power lies in where we direct our attention. With warmth, and companionship, we can nurture this capacity within ourselves. Through gentle accompaniment mixed with precision and grace, we can learn to uncover what lies beneath the metaphorical doormat that we've placed over our experiences. By peeking underneath, we discover what's waiting to be acknowledged and welcomed home. This process allows for the cultivation of new mindsets. We are not necessarily replacing old beliefs, those structural patterns will always be there.

But what we can do and we can be empowered to do is to take our power back into our heart of hearts. And instead of buying into our identity as being unsafe, unimportant or disconnected, we can recognize that we make complete sense, and that we have this sense of safety and we can have self kindness, because that's totally possible. And that is our birthright.

A very helpful practice on this journey is developing your capacity to slow down and recognizing what is the pattern of the relics of the past, what is it that is operating in you.

To choose to be in relationship with yourself, to be really honest about your life experience, and recognize the old identity of yourself. It's not really your truth. This process does require gentleness and patience, allowing time for acknowledging what it's been like to be you, without being in a hurry. Many times writing about these experiences can be a very valuable tool, supporting you as you actually begin to navigate and recognize the patterns that have been really driving your life and taking your power away.

So I really resonate deeply with this, having traversed a very similar path in my past, and those patterns that are there, we all have them. It doesn't make us wrong or bad.

Through repeated experiences of being compassionately held with resonant empathy, recognition and truth, I've transformed my life and my experience, into being a resource for others. I invite you to begin your personal journey today.