“Being human is not about being any one particular way; it is about being as life creates you – with your own particular strengths and weaknesses, gifts and challenges, quirks and oddities.”
Throughout my life I have been driven by my harsh inner critic. When things didn't go to plan I would berate myself with harsh criticism, thinking this was the way to motivate me to do better.
I have always felt emotionally sensitive and now that I have more understanding I realise that I would be described as a Highly Sensitive Person or an Empath. Before I had this understanding I saw this sensitivity as a weakness. I pushed myself hard in an attempt to prove that I wasn't weak, I was just as strong as anyone else.
This continual pushing of myself really took it's toll on me. I didn't respond well to this continual self-criticism. It made me feel rubbish about myself, which in turn amplified my feeling of weakness and oversensitivity.
During my research to recover from my illness I came across self-compassion and the work of Dr Kristin Neff. Reading about this, I thought this sounds a much kinder way to be towards myself. So I decided to give it a try.
Here are 5 ways that self compassion helped me on my recovery from Long Covid.
1. Stopped blaming myself for being ill.
When you are ill with a chronic fatigue illness you spend a lot of time unable to do much. This means there is lots of time for thinking, and for me lots of this thinking was not helpful. I would analyse why I'd become ill, why I wasn't getting better, and come to the conclusion it was because I was weak, both in mind and body. So I'd then feel even worse and so the cycle continues!
That is, until I decided that talking and judging myself so harshly was not helping. I started to slowly introduce words of kindness and stop blaming myself for being ill. Over time I started to realise that these kind words were changing the way I felt. I now felt supported, loved and understood and didn't have the tightness in my chest. The best part was, that my worry of these kind words making me even more sensitive didn't happen. In fact it was the opposite, I felt stronger and more confident of regaining my health.
2. Accepted my imperfections.
All my life I have had perfectionist tendencies. They stem from a belief that if I do something wrong people won't like me and will laugh at me. Even though logically I know no-one is perfect, I had still been striving for this impossible image, driven by the fear of judgement and rejection.
Self compassion allowed me to accept that I'm not perfect and that's okay. I'd tell myself repeatedly "People will still like you if you get something wrong". I've had to test this many times by doing things that I know aren't perfect and then observing what happens. These tests have proved to me that my friends and family still like me and aren't all sitting round laughing at me. This evidence is important to me as it gives me the confidence to feel vulnerable and know bad things won't happen.
3. Stopped harshly judging myself.
It was such a natural response for me to harshly judge myself, I thought that was how everyone spoke to themselves. If I had a bad day or relapsed I would berate myself for the way I was feeling. I'd convince myself it was either something I'd done or not done that had made me feel worse.
At this time in my illness, I was oblivious to the fact that it was these thoughts that were having the biggest impact on the symptoms I was experiencing and how I felt. Not what I'd done or not done!
The negative judgements I was continually placing upon myself were causing me to feel ill by giving me negative symptoms. Negative judgements were creating negative symptoms!
When I started speaking to myself kindly I felt much better and the negative symptoms reduced considerably, and over time time disappeared altogether. There really is such power in the words we say to ourselves, so choose the ones you use wisely.
4. Allowed me to distance myself from my thoughts.
Self compassion has helped me realise that we are not our thoughts. Thoughts are thoughts and they are not our truth.
Up until this time I'd believed that my thoughts were reality, a true reflection of what was happening in my life at that time. I'd not yet learnt that our subconscious thought patterns dictate how we react to challenges, interact with others, and ultimately, view ourselves and our potential.
Once I had this knowledge I was able to realise that I had been letting these negative thoughts influence my identity. I was primarily identifying as a person with Long Covid, and as long as I identified as this I would stay being this person.
Now I had this awareness I knew I had to change my thoughts so that I could change my identity. When I caught myself getting wrapped up in negative thoughts I'd take a step back, remove myself from the thoughts and just observe what I was experiencing. This felt liberating, I no longer had to go on the journey the thought wanted to take me on!
5. Gave me permission to put myself first.
When I got ill with Long Covid I definitely wasn't putting myself first, and I hadn't been for several years, not since I had kids.
It was at this time that I finally understood that self-compassion is not selfish. It's about doing the thing that is right for you at that time. If I put my needs first I would be doing the things that would enable me to heal, which would benefit everyone, not just me. Even though this made perfect sense to me it was still hard at times to make those choices.
Once I gave myself this permission I crafted a routine that was focused solely on healing. I had a mantra in my head "Is this helping you heal?" I would ask myself this before making choices and if the answer was "No" I wouldn't do it. This wasn't easy. I had to say "No" to lots of things I wanted to do, but deep down I believed that if I said "No" now, soon I would be able to start saying "Yes" again. The "Yes" days did come, and it felt so good saying it knowing I was ready.
As with so many of the changes I made during my recovery, self-compassion is now part of my everyday life. That's not to say I no longer have negative thoughts, or don't still speak harshly to myself, but if I do I quickly catch it and change it for positive actions.
Maybe give it a try and see if it can make a difference to your life too.
If you are looking to find out more on self compassion this website is great https://self-compassion.org/
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