Dear K,

The journey of self-compassion and self-love is not a natural one for most people.  I believe you understand this from your own life experiences.  Since I first met you, I have listened to your struggle.  You have a successful career and a good family.  By all appearances, you have a good life.  Yet you also have a mob of internal and thunderous voices of self-criticism, self-judgment, and self-contempt.  These voices yell, holler and scream in your mind.  With every action you take, every emotion you feel, and every thought you have, these voices put forth a negative opinion of yourself that has created a shade of silent self-loathing that hangs like impenetrable fog over you.  Then that self-deprecation controls your behavior so that you subtly—yet actively—act out those messages.  And finally, those same voices judge you negatively for the same actions you took trying to satisfy the compulsions that they created in the first place.  It seems it is a toxic loop with you constantly losing.

I feel a pain inside my heart for you.  You are a wonderful and beautiful person that wants to experience so much more.  And yet, you don’t even know what that more is.  You just know you don’t want the suffering you’re experiencing now, and you hope there is something better.  There is.

I know you can have it.  And I know how you can achieve it.  It’s not always easy.  Nor is it usually fun.  It’s also not generally comfortable.  It requires you to make and keep a commitment to yourself consciously.  It requires you to decide your life is worth living in a joyful, peaceful, and contented state of being no matter what the internal voices say.  It means you have to change your patterns of thinking and to live into new practices of self-compassion.  Even when the negative messages inside you fight tooth and nail to keep you in the old normal (but comfortable) way of unhappy self-loathing, you actively choose to endure the discomfort as you create the new normal of happiness that you desire.  It’s a commitment to yourself for yourself.

I say “most of the time” because the fact is, we can’t feel amazing all of the time.  Life just isn’t that way.  This new path I offer isn’t a magic pill that will instantly fix every problem.  It won’t immediately make your problems go away.  Instead, you will still have days when you feel grumpy.  You will still have phases when life is hard.  But those challenging times don’t have to be made worse by believing the negative self-talk inside your mind.

Instead, you slowly and gently change your life’s patterns to reflect better how you want to live, even in grumpy times.

As you do this practice, you will consciously create a new normal of happiness.

Awareness means being consciously aware of your thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Most of us tend to live running on autopilot.  Autopilot is the state of automatically reacting to events that take place around us or inside of us; it’s easy and feels natural.  When something “good” happens to us, we feel pleasure and take action to try and hold onto that pleasure.  When something “bad” happens to us, we instantly act to change the situation.  We don’t think about these reactions.  They are automatic, unconscious, instant, and easy.

However, autopilot doesn’t usually help us achieve the lasting joy, peace, and contentment that we want in our life.  At best, it provides us with a temporary lift from the mundane.  Most of the time, these reactions instantly release the energy of the moment with no long-term concern for our actual goals.

For example, think about impulse buying and the buyer’s regrets later; think about dating or marrying the wrong person and the resulting breakup later.  Think about taking a job that satisfies our desperate need for a paycheck now and then hating and quitting that job to repeat the pattern in a similar position at another company.  Think about any other reactionary situation in which we find ourselves.  Notice the use of the phrase “in which we find ourselves.”  Even that phrase reflects the attitude of unconsciously reacting to a positive or negative force directing us.

To give you control over your life, I offer a better way—a way of self-compassion.  I’ve created simple exercises and teach a compassionate self-reflection.  The simple practice requires the commitment to yourself that I mentioned earlier.  You have to decide your life is worth living positively and happily consciously.  Next, you have to commit to yourself to do the exercises, even when you don’t feel like it.  It’s a dedication to yourself.  Lastly, you will have to look at your thoughts, emotions, and actions in reality.

Self-reflection gives you power over your life.  Instead of listening to the negative messages yelling in your mind and then doing what they pressure you to do,  I will teach you to look at your deeper desires and then choose with gentleness the responses you want to take.  You will move toward your goals.  You will learn to reframe your experiences so that you practice self-care.  You will learn to see yourself as the beautiful person you indeed are.  

Ironically, this can feel very uncomfortable at first because it’s not a normal feeling for you.  But it’s a beautiful opportunity to see your life and then improve it to love yourself and live happily.  Last, you have to be willing to keep up these self-compassion practices long enough so that they become your new normal.  With enough practice, we can all learn to do things that are difficult for us.  Joyful, peaceful, and contented living is not usually something we are “used” to experiencing.  Thus we have to practice it long enough that we become accustomed to living that way.  We make it our usual way of living a state of Joy, Peace, and Contentment.

K, I believe you can have this way of life.  You can do it with practice and consistency.  That means that when you feel impatient with how slowly the changes are taking place, you commit to yourself to keep doing the work, the simple exercises, and the self-reflection.  Then you practice, practice, practice.  Eventually, you will “get it” and live it every day.  You will naturally live in a happy state of mind.  Instead of self-deprecation, your mind will think in ways of self-love and self-compassion.  You will live in a mindset of Joy, Peace, and Contentment.

I am ready and wanting to hear about any thoughts, doubts, and questions you may have.  I believe in you.  I believe you can have a happy life filled with Joy, Peace, and Contentment.  Call me, and let’s take the first step to a more effortless and more joyful life.

May you find some peace today as you ponder these transformational questions.

PS: My next workshop of Being the Bullseye and the Arrow ~ Creating Your Life Your Way starts April 19, 2017, in Pueblo, CO.  Please consider joining me.