Self-Compassion is a Key to Healing After Trauma

There’s a social media account called “We the Urban.” Their posts are often quite motivating and encouraging. But it’s not in that toxic positivity kind of way, social media can be at times. Sometimes their posts are thought provoking and challenging and make you a little uncomfortable. It’s the uncomfortable that’s ultimately a good uncomfortable though. Earlier today, I read the quote above.

It got me thinking about recent years. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my responses protected me. But my trauma responses also translated into some other not so helpful habits that no longer serve me. They haven’t served me for quite some time. But they did at one time in the past. Because they did, and for the way our minds and bodies work to protect us, I am grateful. When people talk about trauma responses, they may think of the “obvious” responses like nightmares or flashbacks. But trust issues (me) and people-pleasing could be trauma responses too.

But back to the quote above. Something about that was very comforting to me today. When life is just weird and hard and you’re trying to figure out what you need to change about yourself, your circumstances, etc., or when you genuinely are working to find healing or the better version of yourself, it can be easy to beat yourself up a bit. It’s easy when you are a self-aware person. It’s easy when you know where you want to be, remember who you once were, and long for change. It’s easy because we know the change is possible – but something still holds us back.

The problem with beating ourselves up – particularly over something that we couldn’t change and that ultimately protected us, is that it keeps us tied to the thing we most want to escape. One of the solutions? It’s self-compassion. Self-compassion has been my reminder to myself – as I continue on this healing journey.

Having compassion on ourselves enables a shift in thinking. At least for me it has. The recognition that my mind & body did the best it could and probably saved my life, was transformative. The anxiety, fear, and inability to trust – are all responses I don’t need in this moment. I’m ready to be myself again. 🙂 But, without the “thank them” part, and self-compassion, the pattern persists.

There needs to be a line between being self-aware and taking responsibility for our actions and releasing ourselves from it all, so we can focus on the necessary steps to healing and change. Telling ourselves different messages – ones filled with compassion – absolutely, 100% will move us toward healing and wholeness.

I hope if this applies to you, that you too will thank your mind & body for its trauma responses and then gently give it/them a little push out the door at the same exact time.

“Painful feelings are, by their very nature, temporary. They will weaken over time as long as we don’t prolong or amplify them through resistance or avoidance. The only way to eventually free ourselves from debilitating pain, therefore, is to be with it as it is. The only way out is through.”

— Kristin Neff