Tag: healing

Authenticity, Awakening, compassion and trust, freedom, Inspiration, Joy, Mindfulness and Meditation

How kindness might change your life

ravenhearthealing

As some of you may know, over the past 15 years I have been privileged to sit in a big armchair and speak regularly with a gifted Jungian analyst. This is not because I believe I’m so messed up that I need professional help, but because I believe in offering myself a safe and compassionate space to work out my fears and issues – so that they don’t take over my life.

Why am I telling you this now?

A few weeks ago I was on a Zoom call with this analyst and having a very challenging day – feeling overwhelmed by the the state of my world and the world in general – and so in desperation I asked her a question that perhaps all of us have asked this year: “what is it all for and why are we here and what is the POINT?!”

In her wise way she told me that everyone’s answer may be different, but she believed that it had something to do with kindness.

That at the core of it all was the journey of learning to be kind to ourselves and to each other.

That simple.

I wasn’t sure in that moment how I felt about that answer. It seemed far too easy a response for a world and a life that at times seem unbearably messy and complicated. So I sat with it, mulled it over as I drank my tea, rested into the simplicity of it on my walk in the woods.

And finally I felt the truth and the warmth of it surging into my heart.

I became aware in that moment of all the ways that I wasn’t kind – especially to myself.  I could see how even when life was at it’s most challenging, I seemed to take that opportunity to be the most unkind to myself. And it was an unconscious habit I’d been honing for a long time.

And I know how it feels, how much lighter my life and world feels, when I AM kind to myself.

So for me, something needed to change.

There is well-worn saying out there that bears repeating here:

‘If you can’t be kind, be quiet.”

And we most definitely can apply this to ourselves – not just that we should be kind to others but that we can first and foremost be kind to ourselves.

The mean voice in your head that tells you you are not enough – it needs to start being kind or it needs to shut up. Because all the nasty things it’s telling you – they are simply not true.

So not only is this voice unkind, it’s also lying to you.

I have had conversations with my negative voice, and recently they go like this:

Voice: “You can’t do that, it’s impossible, you will fail, you will never be good enough, you are too fat, too lazy, too old and you will never be anything or do anything important.”

And sometimes, this can go on for weeks and I don’t even realize that I’m telling myself these cruel, false things. Relentlessly, on repeat, mowing me down day by day.

Me: “Oh you’re such a liar. Be quiet and go away. You cannot live here if you’re going to tear me down all day. Seriously, shut up. And also – goodbye.”

Because there is no more time or room for this negative, unkind, debilitating voice in my head or in my life.

This voice does not speak the truth.
So it’s over.
I am awake now.
This voice is not in charge anymore, I am.

I know that my ego would like me to believe that kindness – especially when offered to myself – is weak, insipid and even stupid. This is how it keeps the negative beliefs churning away in my mind and running (and sometimes ruining) my life.

These days I am literally taking back my life one kind word at a time.

So please, let all your words in your head be kind.
No judgement or guilt or merciless nitpicking, just relentless tenderness.
Maybe Jewel and my therapist were right along, and

“In the end, only kindness matters.”

Sing it with me.

After I have banished the voice of fear and judgement and perfectionism (sometimes I have to do this several times a day), I replace it with: “Shona, you got this. You are already doing it. It’s OK to rest and recharge, to nap. You do not have to do it all perfectly or do it the way Betty is doing it. You are already and always have been enough. Keep going, I believe in you. And Shona, I’m telling you this because I love you.”

“Empowerment is realizing how you are the one who needs to say the things
that you’ve waited your entire life to hear.” – Matt Kahn

And that’s it – simply put. Once you start being kind to yourself, you will feel an enormous weight being lifted off your shoulders. You will feel free.  You will feel like you’re waking up from a dream and perhaps you will even understand the point of it all.

And, as a side-effect, in offering kindness and compassion to yourself, it becomes far easier to offer those things to others. Because you know how, and you’ve had practice.

So who’s in charge in your head? The voice of fear and lack and criticism, or the voice of hope and love and kindness?

The choice is our own, and always has been.
And this also takes time and patience and practice…so keep offering yourself relentless tenderness.

I hope that together we can build a better world for all of us, inside and out, by choosing kindness every time.

 

Authenticity, Awakening, grief, Joy, Mindfulness and Meditation

How to help when you don’t have the answers

ravenhearthealing

Last spring, my 12-year-old daughter said something to me that has been reverberating in my bones ever since.  She was struggling to cope with a group of girls at school who were being incredibly unkind to her, and I very much wanted to help her.  And so I was constantly jumping in with advice and solutions, speaking daily and at length about how I thought she should handle it.

Finally, she said to me: “Mom, I don’t need you to fix this.  I just need you to listen.”

And so, in the months that followed, I resisted the urge (on most occasions) to jump in and “fix” her situation and I practiced just being present for her, just listening with love and gentle curiosity, grateful that she wanted to talk to me about what was happening in her life.

Usually, I only offered advice if she asked, which wasn’t very often at all.  She really did need me to simply listen.

And this practice, inspired by my wise daughter, has actually changed the way I see my role not only in my relationship with her, but with everyone I know.

To start with it made me so aware of how often I tend to jump in and “help” everyone, offering unsolicited tips and strident words of encouragement and commandments in the face of their tears and turmoil.

I would feel their pain and want to talk them out of it, shepherd them through the darkness to the light.  I thought this was how I could help.

I believed this was the best I could offer…but it wasn’t.
I realized that I could be offering so much more – in fact, we all could.

Perhaps like I did, you believe that this desire to advise and problem solve comes from a place of love, but it is more often a result of what Matt Licata calls “an avalanche of our own urgent, anxious, fixing energy” that likely springs from an unresolved desire to fix our own lives.  It can also be a reflection of our discomfort with the chaos of strong emotions.

So I told myself this: Shona, if a friend comes to you in emotional turmoil and you wish to respond with love you simply open your arms and your heart and close your mouth unless you are going to utter kind and soothing words.

Over and over again I resist the desire to solve or resolve the other person’s crisis/challenge/pain – because I now know that unless they actually ask for my advice, that’s not what they’re looking for.

I know how powerful the act of being quietly present and attuned in the face of someone’s pain can be,  because I am blessed to have someone in my life who holds this space for me.

I have noticed the space that opens up when you feel like you are falling apart and someone simply listens to you with compassion. Not problem solving for you or thinking about what they are going to say to you next or analyzing why you are having this experience but REALLY listening.

Without judgement. Without rushing you to a resolution.

Listening not just to the words you are saying but to the unspoken depth of feeling emerging through the panic, grief, and confusion of the moment.

You are heard.
You are witnessed.
You no longer feel alone with your pain.

You are offered safe space to process what is happening, offered not a sermon but a sanctuary.

And in that moment, you are touched, even healed in a way that well-intentioned advice could never accomplish.

I confess when my daughter asked me not to fix but to listen, part of me was relieved. Because I simply don’t have all the answers and in this mad world, who does?

But I know what I CAN do. I know that no matter what is going wrong for her I can slow down and listen with love, I can welcome her words and her hard story and let her know that even if things are not ok, that that’s ok.

With my quiet, loving, compassionate presence I tell her: “sweet girl, you don’t have to heal or have it all figured out in this moment for me to stay by your side…I am here.”

So perhaps you are relieved along with me, relieved to know that if you are a compulsive fixer that you don’t have to offer any solutions.  Because in fact that is not what is needed.

What is needed is just one moment of genuine, loving, quiet connection to change pain into peace.

We all have the power to be still and let healing come through us into the world, simply by being present with another, without judgement.  To hold a safe space for a friend or a daughter as they struggle to make sense of this messy, confusing but beautiful life.
To help them know that they are worthy and loved. To offer them, in your grounded presence, shelter from the storm.

When you are unsure of how to help — this is how.

Xo Shona