Day 9

I have gone through the first week of the TMS program, and found it such a helpful complement to the things I was already doing. I was inspired to post on this particular day's question to ponder:

Have you been overly critical of yourself lately? How and why have you done this?

Not lately, but before that, most of my life. I have overcome this with a lot of careful and dedicated work thanks to Kristin Neff’s self-compassion website (selfcompassion.org) of resources of exercises and guided meditations. That was the beginning, then a crisis (panic disorder for over a month) that made it clear what is important, and the narrow and helpful path between the "rock and the hard place" that put me on a path that I committed to staying on even when things are no longer bad and when the motivating forces are no longer so immediately motivating. I have discovered self-love on this path, and have felt my way around this emotion, how it helps, when it helps, how to keep it around more than just after the fact of something unpleasant happening. Also that life and inner life are just a series of good and bad events that come and go one after another and that self love is kind of like a soft pillow that cushions the bumpy ride on the road that I find myself on. It is there at the beginning, middle and end of each “bump. But to find self-love, where it resides and to keep it around and available required work that included meditation, jogging while doing tong-len meditation, riding my bike into actual bumps in the road, the TMS wiki’s section on self-love with all the helpful videos, and a lot of self-contemplation which takes the form of “how do I feel right now, what emotions do I feel?” Or “Let’s explore the emotional ride I just went on (with myself or somebody else). Doing this contemplation at least once a day, whenever I walk somewhere, go on my walk or jog or bike ride or scooter ride. Writing it all down, and learning how to really enjoy and absorb the good feelings of self-love when I get them, just lingering in them for as long as I possibly can. Self love is there, in everybody, but in self-critical people, it is like an abused or neglected child that needs a lot of perseverance and many loving approaches so it feel safe enough to come out and stay available.