Compassion For Our Unwanted Parts

The theme,

So to speak,

Of the practice we're doing today is around having compassion for ourselves.

I mean,

Cultivating compassion is always a good idea,

But in particular cultivating compassion for the things that we might shame ourselves around.

So much of this has to do with our nervous system.

We perceive some kind of threat and the world we live in is pretty difficult.

You know,

We live in a world where there's not a lot of certainty.

We have these difficult circumstances and then we get out and we compete for jobs and we get into relationships,

Some of which are really nourishing and some of which aren't so much.

And all of this happens in our nervous system.

Our nervous system remembers everything that's ever happened to us and its job is to try to keep us safe.

And one of the ways that it does that is through its negativity bias.

It remembers all the bad stuff so it can warn us against that.

And then we go into some kind of a survival response.

Quite often it's fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

Or fawn,

People-pleasing.

And then we shame ourselves for that.

What we're going to do today is to bring ourselves into connection with all of the parts of ourselves that believe that that was the best way to go.

Take a few deep breaths if that feels okay and notice what does that feel like in your body right now.

What we're going to do in this practice is connect with and cultivate compassion for our unwanted parts,

The parts of us that we shame.

And as you're breathing in and out,

Notice if your body is tight and stiff,

If there's a feeling of dread.

There are really good reasons why we disconnect from ourselves.

And if we're looking at living our life,

We need to be alert and aware but not hypervigilant because when we're hypervigilant we overestimate danger.

And then that puts us into a fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

Some kind of a response.

Ideally,

We can see clearly.

Our body is regulated,

Meaning that we know that we're here.

We're not in the past.

We're not in the future where we might be worrying about some things.

That the ruminating about the past or thinking about the future is at a level that's not too strong.

We all do those some of the time.

So tuning into what's here for you right now,

What are you noticing?

Every time when we do a practice,

We notice what's here.

And in particular,

When we're doing a practice like this,

We're focusing on a specific part of our experience.

As you're inhaling and exhaling,

Let your system soften,

Let your body soften,

Let your breath soften,

Let your heart soften.

Just for this 20 minutes,

We can come into a calmer,

More nurturing relationship with ourselves.

That might start with our body.

We could notice what are we holding tight in our body.

We check in with our body and notice.

I'm bracing my shoulders.

My shoulders are up around my ears.

I'm clenching my teeth.

I have a tight gut.

I'm holding my breath.

What does that feel like to notice your body?

Let's take a moment to relax the different parts and areas of our body.

We might have a tension in the forehead or eyebrows.

We could soften as we breathe out.

We let go of worry when we soften our forehead.

Notice your mouth and jaw,

Your neck and throat.

When we're holding something in,

When we're not allowing ourselves to speak our truth,

Or when we're in a bit of a freeze or a flight response,

Perhaps we might be holding tight through our jaw.

So you could loosen up your lower jaw.

Let your tongue soften onto the floor of your mouth.

When we're in an anger response,

A fight response,

We might have a lot of energy and words just pouring out of our mouth,

Or when we're anxiety talking,

Similar.

Sometimes we're clenched and held and other times there's words coming out of our mouth that we maybe don't really want to be expressing that way.

Our mouth and jaw can hold a lot of energy.

Our mouth and jaw can hold a lot of energy.

If we're looking at compassion for ourselves,

Including those things that we've done in the past that we're not very happy with,

This could be one area that we need to put a little bit of kind attention into,

Is our mouth and jaw,

Our words,

Our expression verbally.

And that's on the more active side.

It also might be that we've been holding back and we might be in a bit of a freeze or we're scared to say what we feel or to express anger,

For instance.

And we could shame ourselves for that too.

I should have stuck up for myself.

I shouldn't let them talk to me like that.

I shouldn't be in this relationship.

I shouldn't let them talk to me like that.

I shouldn't be in this relationship.

If there's something coming up that feels a little bit too intense,

Then do something to modify that.

With thoughts we could tap on our forehead,

Bring our attention into the sound,

Sensation of the tapping.

Often that's enough to bring us back to this moment in time.

We're always working with this balance of awareness.

And I remain grounded and present in this moment as I'm looking at something that might be a little bit difficult,

Might activate one of my survival responses.

Notice your mouth,

Your jaw,

Your neck and shoulders,

Your upper back again.

You could move your shoulders up a little bit on the inhale,

Release them away on the exhale.

Come into your heart area again.

We can do that partly by noticing the muscles of the chest.

We could soften those muscles if we're tight.

Notice the front and the back of your heart center,

The large muscles of the chest,

Large muscles that come from our shoulder blades up through our upper back to the shoulders.

And then come a little bit more interior and let your heart soften towards yourself.

We can let the muscle soften and we can also let our attitude soften or our approach,

Especially if you find that there are some parts of yourself and some of your history that you've locked out or locked down.

Allow those back into your heart.

We're not going to be pushy about this.

We're noticing,

We're doing a quiet inquiry.

There might be a lot of intensity here and we could use our tools You could hold your own hands,

Feel that support and warmth in your hands.

When we hold our own hands,

It's an interesting experience to receive our own support in that physical sense.

It's one way that we can connect.

You could put your hand on your heart or both hands.

In some ways,

We're practicing welcoming ourselves.

Welcoming ourselves is actually a very deep,

Ongoing experience.

When we are not able to see what's really here,

We're not able to accept what's really here,

Then we have to find some way to deal with that.

One of the ways we do that is we push it out of our mind.

We might get angry at somebody else.

Well,

That was their fault.

We're not going to get angry at somebody else.

Well,

That was their fault.

They shouldn't talk to me like that.

It's their fault that I flew off the handle at them.

We might go into a flight response.

We just leave the scene emotionally,

Mentally.

And a flight response can often feel really restless in our body.

Tune into your arms and your legs.

What's going on in your arms and legs?

If there's a lot of restless energy in your arms and legs,

You might do some shaking or stretching.

When we're working with relaxing,

We're never working with forcing our body to be still.

We're working with the reality of what our body feels like,

And then how could we support our body to come into stillness?

It's another one of those complicated,

Nuanced processes.

Part of it is simple.

We could move our limbs,

Our arms and legs,

Let them shake out the energy.

And as you're breathing in and breathing out,

Notice the rhythm and the movement of your body as you breathe.

One of the wonderful things about the breath is that when we breathe with that smooth diaphragmatic breath,

Maybe we're breathing out a bit longer than we're breathing in,

Is that that signals safety to the nervous system.

That makes sense.

If we're afraid or we're really angry,

We're full of grief,

Our breath really reflects that.

And many people have a habit of holding their breath or breathing very shallow.

Taking a few deeper breaths is a good signal to the nervous system,

And only if that feels like it's okay.

When we're in freeze,

Often it doesn't feel okay to take a deep breath.

So in that case,

We might notice the breath or notice the flow of air in the nostrils,

And then gradually come into being more aware of the breath.

Continue to be aware of your whole body.

What's going on in your body now?

We have such habits and tendencies of contraction in our body that we mostly have to come back again and again to the same places.

When I come back into my forehead,

It's pretty relaxed most of the time,

But there's always a little bit more softening.

The jaw,

The back of the neck and shoulders.

And as you settle your awareness again in your heart center,

Notice if there's anything that you have to keep outside,

That you have to exile.

It could be the part of you that went into freeze and didn't really engage with your life.

It could be the part of you that said things you wish you hadn't,

Or that made you move all over the country and start over all the time.

That restlessness,

That flight response.

As you're holding this in your heart center,

Keep it simple.

If you're getting taken off into traumatic memory,

Then open your eyes,

Bring your shoulders back,

See if you could invite that part of you that maybe you've shunned or don't really feel comfortable with.

See if you could invite that part into your heart for a moment.

We don't have to get too deeply into the details.

We could notice what's here.

What's here?

What's here?

Can you bring that younger part of you,

Whatever it is,

Whatever age,

Whatever it is that you feel like you really did wrong,

Can you bring that younger part of you into the details?

Can you bring that younger part of you into the details?

Can you bring that younger part of you into the details?

Whatever it is that you feel like you really did wrong,

Can you bring that part of you into your heart for a moment?

And when we're bringing our parts in with some compassion and some interest,

Often we notice that it's different than when we're pushing them away or we're not really letting them be present.

And we might have more of a sense of what was going on.

Like,

Why was I so angry all the time?

Why was I yelling at my parent?

Or what was going on inside?

And if we could bring that part of us into our heart,

What would they want to tell us?

What kind of support could we give them now that ideally it would have been great to have at the time and we didn't have it at the time?

We could bring that part of ourselves into our heart,

Understand what's going on for them.

And we can also let them know that we're interested in welcoming them back.

And whatever it is that they're feeling,

And whatever it is that we know now,

We could let them know that too.

Like it was not your fault what happened to you when you were younger.

We might wish we hadn't done something or that we had done something different.

That was what was going on in our nervous system,

Especially when we're children.

We have not fully developed brains.

We don't have all the neural networks that we're going to need in life.

We might have developed neural networks for protection instead of connection.

Now,

As we hold all of ourselves and especially those parts that were not welcome,

That we had to push out,

We could let ourselves know that we're safe now.

We're not alone anymore the way we were back then.

As our adult self,

We can form a relationship with all of the younger parts of ourselves that felt alone or scared or distressed.

Keep those in your heart.

Let's focus in on the heart center for a while again.

You could put your hands on your heart if you want,

Remind yourself physically.

All of me is welcome here.

If that doesn't feel quite so true yet,

Maybe it's I'm wanting to open up my heart so that all of these parts of me can be here,

Be seen,

Be welcomed,

Be understood.

Let yourself rest with that for a moment.

When we do this,

We find that we're more at ease.

Our body is more relaxed.

Our breath is more full,

Continuous,

And smooth.

We come down from that state of hypervigilance in the nervous system.

We experience a sense of ease.

We experience a sense of ease and maybe even some stillness and silence in the mind.

Understanding our nervous system can be a big help in stopping the shame and the blame.

Understanding why we did what we did,

What were the circumstances,

What were our responses,

And how we could support ourselves now.

We can cultivate compassion,

Even if it's not fully present right now.

We can cultivate that and bring ourselves into our heart.

All of ourselves,

Even the parts that feel like they're exiled somewhere else,

We can welcome ourselves into our heart.