Befriending the wilderness within

Developing your inner authority, part four of seven

For part one of this series, “Your own personal wilderness survival map,” click here.
For part two of this series, “Changing the way you THINK,” click here.
For part three of this series, “Change your thoughts, change your life,” click here.

Hello + happy Tuesday!

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**This call features structured breakout groups of 3-4 people.

✍🏽 March writing workshop is THIS SUNDAY! This generative writing workshop is based off the Amherst Writer's Method. There will be two prompts, and two opportunities to write. Then, you'll be invited to share your work aloud if you like (no one is obligated, you can pass at anytime). Readers receive feedback on what listeners like and remember from what they heard; there is no critical feedback (critique is great and can be very helpful—it's just not part of this style of workshop). Learn more and register here. (Sunday, 3/24, 10am - 12pm PST. $33)

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“For let us note well…what is lovable about any human being is precisely his imperfections. The writer is to find the right words for these and to send them like arrows to their mark—but with a balm, the balm of love, on every point. For the mark, the imperfection, is exactly what is personal, human, natural, in the object, and the umbilical point of its life.”

Joseph Campbell, from Myths to Live By

“Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings – after all, who ever said you were supposed to be perfect?”

Kristin Neff, What is Self-Compassion

Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash

There was a time when Friday nights were dangerous. Like clockwork, in the antsy afternoon hours at the end of the workweek grind, the familiar spin of what I came to call the dervish would whir to life inside my chest, fluttering like a moth frantic for a lamp. I’d head out into the night, my lizard brain whispering, anything could happen, and often, anything did.

There was something about me—the way I may-or-may-not behave once certain substances were around, the way I’d find myself engaging in behavior that I’d always regret, despite knowing better—that felt different from everyone else. And not just different: Unspeakable. Wrong. Broken. I felt a vast and barren landscape inside me, a bottomless chasm that both captivated and repulsed me in equal measure. There was no subtlety. I lived beholden to opposing forces: on one side, the hunger to heed the calls and songs of the chaotic inner sirens; on the other, the desire to murder them off completely.

Privately, I related to this inner sense of emptiness, nothingness as the Void. Eyes closed, I’d visualize the emptiness, and it terrified me. I could only look at it in quick glances from the corner of my eyes. It was too much, just like I was too much, and in the light of day I enacted complicated scenarios to avoid, avoid, avoid; to shapeshift into whoever it was I thought the person in front of me would accept; to erase myself—this untrustworthy, messed-up person—completely.

It wasn’t always that way. At first, I thought this darker side of myself was cool. She was what made me sophisticated, cosmopolitan, an interesting person. She’d go out into the night, a vampire, getting into cool shit and having random and meandering conversations with the type of people she desperately wanted to become, accessing what she imagined to be an alluring underworld of art and wildness and truth and beauty and magic. And it was all of that, if only for the hottest of seconds, and you won’t be surprised at all to hear that this soon shifted. Everything became more chaotic: blackouts; increasingly weird behavior; next-level, soul crushing hangovers; consequences from the dark of night becoming harder and harder to compartmentalize, suddenly spilling over into the light of day.

Thus, instead of giving over, I tried to manage. Oh my god, did I try to conform. There was, of course, the mental gymnastics of moderation. The shame when I’d inevitably blow past whatever set amount of drinks I’d planned on, waking up the next day with the cold slick of self-loathing and low-key terror icy on my skin. The resolve to be different, to stop it already, to live into the values I claimed to stand for, followed up by disgust when I let myself down again, again, again. Page after page in dozens of journals over many, many years, full of beseeching words imploring me to stop, and the private terror that what I knew I needed to do would be forever impossible for someone like me.

Fast forward: I quit drinking. Finally I am free. I am bright-eyed and shiny-faced and the inner chaos is slowly organizing itself into order. The dervish is quiet; the void has found closure. I am the sobriety poster child! Look at me, with my routines, my practices, my cute-little-pink cloud. I’m all better! As long as I keep up with everything, it’s all rainbows and glitter from here.

Then: Pandemic. I don’t drink, but I begin engaging in familiar behaviors I thought were behind me for good, and this freaks me out. The Void whispers. I straight up panic.

And this is when it happens, the peeling back of next layer of the onion: the moment where I realize that if I am to become who I long to be, I must accept and invite to the table all the parts of myself—not just the shiny, socially acceptable ones. I must stare at the void, unblinking, ask it what it wants of me.

Do you know what my vampire self wanted? What I saw when I turned and faced the void?

Just like every other part of me, she wanted care. Kindness. She wanted to be seen, accepted, brought into the light. She wanted me to recognize that she was a major part of what made me unique, the part of myself that when I was honest, had me understand that my quest to conform is part of what kept me sick, and the sooner I embraced this side of myself—this wild, feral, creative side—the sooner I’d integrate into a whole person, instead of a melted, shapeshifting puddle on the floor.

Last week’s post was an invitation into changing your thoughts. You know that intellectualizing something is not the same as believing it. Self-compassion is the bridge that takes you from understanding something about yourself, to believing it.

In my case, practicing being kind, accepting, and welcoming to the dark and difficult aspects of myself is what took me from recognizing that these parts were worthy of care to actually believing and integrating the idea into my lived experience.

What might become available if you were to speak to yourself the way you do a beloved friend, rather than…well, you know how you talk to yourself. Let’s cross the bridge together…

According to Kristin Neff, aka, the Queen Mother of Self-Compassion, there are three elements to consider as we cross the bridge:

1. Self-kindness vs. Self-judgment.

“Self-compassion entails being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.  Self-compassionate people recognize that being imperfect, failing, and experiencing life difficulties is inevitable, so they tend to be gentle with themselves when confronted with painful experiences rather than getting angry when life falls short of set ideals. People cannot always be or get exactly what they want. When this reality is denied or fought against suffering increases in the form of stress, frustration and self-criticism.  When this reality is accepted with sympathy and kindness, greater emotional equanimity is experienced.”

2. Common humanity vs. Isolation.

“Frustration at not having things exactly as we want is often accompanied by an irrational but pervasive sense of isolation – as if “I” were the only person suffering or making mistakes.  All humans suffer, however. The very definition of being “human” means that one is mortal, vulnerable and imperfect.  Therefore, self-compassion involves recognizing that suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience – something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to “me” alone.”

3. Mindfulness vs. Over-identification.

“Self-compassion also requires taking a balanced approach to our negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated.  This equilibrated stance stems from the process of relating personal experiences to those of others who are also suffering, thus putting our own situation into a larger perspective. It also stems from the willingness to observe our negative thoughts and emotions with openness and clarity, so that they are held in mindful awareness. Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, receptive mind state in which one observes thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them. We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time.  At the same time, mindfulness requires that we not be “over-identified” with thoughts and feelings, so that we are caught up and swept away by negative reactivity.”

If “thoughtwork” is a technique to manage our thoughts, self-compassion is a technique to help us manage our emotions, which are often pre-cursors to thoughts (we have a feeling which leads to having a thought about the feeling).

What do you make of this? Does this 3-part definition add to your understanding of self-compassion?

Would love to hear your thoughts/feelings/questions/comments and if this generated anything for you <3

Next week, I’ll share the concept of “fierce self-compassion,” which is what happens when you orient your self-compassion outward into the world.

In the meantime, here are 3 simple things you can try on:

1. Connect to your breath. I know this is so simple. But it’s a way you can practice creating more space inside. Sometimes, it’s difficult to create space around your thoughts. Feeling a sense of physical spaciousness, and slowing down enough to do so, is a meaningful entry point toward creating mental spaciousness. Breath is also grounding, and there’s an immediacy to it. Try it out and see if it translates to dis-identifying so tightly to your repetitive thoughts.

2. Insert mindful pauses throughout your day. I often recommend setting an alarm on your phone—just once or twice a day, anything more and you’ll tend to ignore it—and when the alarm buzzes, take some kind of disruptive action. The intention of this is to get off autopilot and ask yourself if there’s anything you need that might help you stay close to yourself, and keep the proverbial train from leaving the station. It might look like placing your hand on your heart, and asking, what do I need? And then actually waiting for an answer. It might also be taking a look at Baseline, and choosing one thing from it, however small.

3. Practice treating yourself as a friend. Often, when you’re first getting started with a more intentional self-compassion practice, it is impossible to extend kindness to yourself. It feels stupid, inauthentic, untrue, and you know from the thoughtwork lesson that changing your thoughts/beliefs only works if the new belief feels true in your system. If this is you, practice externalizing self-compassion: When you notice yourself being mean to yourself, or caught in a familiarly awful thought loop, imagine what you would say to a beloved friend if they came to you with their concern. What would you say to them? What care would you offer? Keep practicing until you are able to offer the same words of kindness to yourself.

I know this sounds overly-simplistic. As ever, don’t take it from me. Test this out on your own. Try all three, or commit to one. Do some field research with it, and report back.

Are any of you already inside of a self-compassion practice? What would you add?

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SELF MADE is a call to deeply connect with the self—self-knowledge, self-trust, self-development—and then to make, small step by step, a life that you savor. Posts are written by me, Dani Cirignano, writer, Certified Integral Coach, and Holistic Recovery Guide, based in San Francisco, CA. 

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