How do you start to accept and make peace with all you lost?

Money, time. Years Ive spent at home. No college experience. Not going out with friends much as a teen. finishing school late

 

Regret and the tyranny of the "if only" is a colossal waste of energy. It's a form of self abuse . It's never too late to learn, connect, and explore. Letting go of past thinking makes room for the new to come in. Think of small ways you can start allowing the new into the present and go from there.

 

The old adage is: today is the first day of the rest of your life.
You have to be absolutely conscious about what you choose to think about. It’s a form of creating boundaries with yourself.

 

Get this book by Kristen Neff: Self-compassion.

 

Check out this podcast from Nicole Sachs (from June, 2000), where she brings in Kristen Neff's work at 31:25. Just starting there and listening to the last roughly 7 minutes is powerful stuff...

The Cure for Chronic Pain with Nicole Sachs, LCSW / Self Limiting Beliefs and The Self Compassion to Correct Them (audioboom.com)

She says that basically everything she learned about self-compassion comes from her study of Dr. Neff's work. That's an extraordinary statement. And, one that is probably way way too humble, because Nicole Sachs is such a great person to turn to for ideas/practices on self-compassion.
The way she describes self-limiting beliefs is so easy to grasp and so helpful for me.

 

And, Yes, thank you! I have to get this book now. Sometimes posts can be simple and just tell me exactly what I need to do...

 

I was beating my head against the wall trying to figure out why I couldn't get better, until Kristen's book explained to me why I was my worst enemy. Here is more details on this:

https://defeatcrps.com/blogs/tamaras-blog/#self-compassion (Tamara’s Blog)

 

Allow yourself to feel sad and grieve the loss of those things. If you don't, the grief will likely manifest as symptoms, one way or another. In your grief you are also hopefully envisioning a different future for yourself. I found I couldn't really feel much of my sadness over the decades of being sick, because I never knew if it would come to an end. So, I have had a lot of grieving to do. It's not something you just move through once. But something you may revisit from time to time. But I also feel I'll have a much richer, meaningful life, for having allowed myself to do that. If I glossed over the hell I've been through, I'd be much less likely to fight hard to have something better.