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Perfectionism – is self-compassion the antidote?

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Growing up in a dysfunctional, toxic family environment left deep, ingrained patterns of thinking and acting to avoid the uncomfortable, powerful emotions that boiled just beneath the surface, until my ability to stuff them down and sit on them didn’t work.  It was at those times that the emotions would come out – and come out strong – to the point of overwhelming me and any one near me!  What I came to learn is that I worked very hard – physically, mentally, and emotionally – to be perfect, to do everything right so I would avoid disappointment and feel that elusive sense of acceptance from others.  Now I understand that a common human condition is imperfection and from that deep understanding, I am able to tap into a reservoir of self-compassion to remind myself that we reach perfection when our spirit leaves the human body.

So, as long as I am alive, I have come to accept the fact that I will make mistakes, even some that may hurt others although it is not my intention to do so.  Coming from this place of acceptance that I am not perfect, I am able to not only express forgiveness and kindness to myself, I am more easily able to reach out to others with that same sense of compassion for their humanness.

Don’t get me wrong, getting to this point was not a short trip or an easy one, but it has been well worth the journey.  I was my own worst critic, as many of us are, and would judge myself harshly for a long time.  No matter how much I accomplished, it never felt like it was enough or good enough.  The first step in being kinder to myself was to reflect on why I was so judgmental in the first place.  Well, as you can probably guess, I learned it from my family.  And it wasn’t only from my family, it was a bigger, broader experience of society’s judgment and subtle messages that to be accepted, we must be perfect.  Once I was aware of my inner critic and why and where she grew from, I could then own my suffering that this inner critic created.

In recognizing the suffering, I began to get curious about the emotions that came up, such as fear of being criticized, losing the acceptance of others, guilt, and the sense of being less than and unworthy of the acceptance I so needed.  As I sat with these uncomfortable feelings and explored what messages came from these powerful emotions, I started to ask how they might be trying to serve me in some way.  I learned that feeling guilty was a guide that led me back to my authentic self whenever I might find myself straying away in my thoughts and actions.  Sitting with criticism informed me that it is important to be open to the feedback of others because sometimes we are blind (and deaf) to our behaviors and words, specifically how those behaviors and words might impact another.  I also discovered that when I would be criticized by others, I was simply acting as a mirror to reflect back the other person’s felt sense of inadequacy, so it really wasn’t about me.

When sitting with the fear of losing the acceptance of others, I realized it was because I really feared accepting myself.  Somewhere down the line I was told I was different, because I was so emotional, which was projected on to me as I was “irrational” and thus not acceptable.  When I began to challenge this message and not only accept but embrace my emotional self, I also began to accept the idea that being perfect does not mean you will be accepted by everyone.  I looked at how I comforted others when they experienced making a mistake and tried offering that same comfort and compassion to myself.  With practice, I began to internalize that we innately all try to do our best with the gifts and limitations we have and when I viewed the human experience from this more balanced – logical and emotional – perspective, I felt a deep sense of peace within.

So the journey took time for me to stare my fears in the face, accept my humanity completely, and practice self-compassion when I find myself feeling the pain of suffering.  Now when my fears come up, I no longer try to ignore it and instead invite it in so I can engage in a dialogue with it.  At first, I might feel overwhelmed and I now recognize in these moments that the emotion is coming to me so strong because I may have been ignoring before it when it tried to get my attention more subtly in the past.  When this happens, I might have to sit a little longer and take a couple of extra deep breaths before the conversation can begin in earnest.  As I engage with my powerful emotions, a common theme emerges, that reminds me that I am not alone and that most people would have a similar response, even if they are not ready to admit it.  When I am able to accept I am human and express my gratitude for my emotions as the intelligent guides they are, self-compassion floods in to soothe my momentary suffering and helps to release the grip of judgment and perfectionism.

More and more research is being done to explore the effects of deepening our ability to have self-compassion as it is showing a strong association with mental well-being.  It is being shown to reduce self-criticism, judgment, self-blame and isolation, therefore, increasing acceptance and connection.  Should you be interested in reading more about the results of recent research on the benefits of supporting the development of self-compassion, click on the link below:

Benefits of Self-compassion

 

Spreading the word, expanding awareness, lifting consciousness – healing trauma with yoga!

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Growing up in a family that was “broken” by divorce for multiple generations, I experienced a great deal of stress as a young child navigating the after-effects of such an interpersonal event without any logical awareness that such an event would someday be viewed as trauma.  Many people may view post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a condition that predominately affects our military service members.  And while it is true that research focusing on veterans returning from war contributed significantly to the creation of a formal diagnosis of PTSD, the experience of combat is not the only source of trauma leading to this diagnosis.

To support efforts to bring more awareness to the experience of trauma during PTSD Awareness Month, I want to first highlight what type of events and/or experiences may underlie the diagnosis of (complex) PTSD and second, recent research that suggests yoga is a promising complementary treatment that not only helps to reduce the symptoms of PTSD but also supports personal growth, including increasing feelings of compassion, gratitude, acceptance, and empowerment.

According to the National Center for PTSD, types of traumatic events that can lead to PTSD include:

  • Combat and other military experiences
  • Sexual or physical assault
  • Learning about the violent or accidental death or injury of a loved one
  • Child sexual or physical abuse
  • Serious accidents, like a car wreck
  • Natural disasters, like fire, tornado, hurricane, flood or earthquake
  • Terrorist attacks

And as I talked about last month, the Adverse Childhood Experience Study (ACES) measured additional types of childhood trauma, leading to a diagnosis of complex PTSD, including the following:

  • Personal trauma
    • Physical abuse
    • Verbal abuse
    • Sexual abuse
    • Physical neglect
    • Emotional neglect
  • Trauma related to other family members
    • A parent who is an alcoholic
    • A mother who is a victim of domestic violence
    • A family member in jail
    • A family member diagnosed with a mental health disorder
    • The disappearance of a parent through divorce, death or abandonment

As the understanding of how the human body-mind interprets situations that don’t appear immediately life-threatening from the casual observer but none-the-less traumatizing to the person grows, it is vital that alternative treatments beyond medication and therapy be considered when considering the percentage of the overall population impacted by such experiences.  When considering complex PTSD which stems from a child’s inability to utilize the body’s natural “flight or fight” distress response to escape from a destructive family dynamic, such as the psychological ware zone of a contentious divorce, the body is forced into a freeze response for survival.

In this freeze state, the body is still full of adrenaline and cortisol, yet the child shuts down, dissociating from the body’s natural response sensing its inability to help.  At this point of development, the logical brain’s cognitive abilities to understand and act are still forming, so the body and mind are at odds, where the body continually senses danger yet the mind feels helpless to relieve the threat.  Symptoms that reflect a diagnosis of complex PTSD include:

  • Loss of emotional and physical awareness
  • Dissociative episodes
  • Self-harming behaviors
  • Difficulty regulating emotions, such as anger
  • Somatic complaints, such as headaches and stomach aches
  • Overdeveloped sense of responsibility
  • Chronic sense of guilt
  • Difficulty trusting people or feeling intimate
  • Helplessness
  • Hopelessness

As a “thriver” post PTSD and a trauma-informed yoga practitioner, teacher, and psychotherapist, I understand the need to engage both the body and mind along the healing journey toward re-integration and balance after trauma.  So it is not only important to familiarize ourselves with the nature and impact of trauma but it is vital to know what treatments are available and found to be effective so we can guide our loved ones with compassion towards healing and provide hope.

My own journey of healing first led me to the traditional psychotherapy experience, which did help to move me from victim to survivor through awareness and understanding.  However, I still found myself chronically anxious and easily triggered into an unbalanced state of mind.  Then I found myself in a yoga class.  I was immediately hooked by the change I experienced in my body that day, although not completely aware of what the change was exactly.  After integrating a regular physical yoga pose and breath practice on the mat into my life, I increasingly became aware of a palpable sense of relaxation in my body and a sense of peace in my heart.  My breath pattern became a reflection of my state of mind and a guide toward maintaining balance in my body-mind connection.  I learned that I could control my breath and when I focused on my breath I was able to change my reaction to a trigger to a response to a stimulus.  I found that the breath creates space to keep the body-mind aligned when navigating the world.  As I continued my practice and explored additional mindfulness techniques over time, my capacity for gratitude and compassion grew, I felt more connected to myself and others, I was more accepting and less judgmental, and my ability to remain centered even in chaos has steadily increased.

With my own personal healing journey as evidence that body-mind strategies are necessary to turn off the sympathetic nervous system and release chronic tension in the body, and reflect to discover the beauty in our challenges, I am excited to share some recent research that supports my experience with yoga as an important treatment option for complex PTSD.  In this study, 31 adult women with PTSD related to chronic childhood trauma participated in a 10-week Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TSY) class.  For the results, click on the link below:

Yoga for the treatment of PTSD

Transgenerational trauma transmission – What does our childhood experiences tell us about our future health, both body and mind?

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The month of May was proclaimed National Mental Health Awareness Month back in 2013 and, as I indicated in my last Talk Therapy reflection in March, I want to share more about the research around adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), the resulting developmental trauma, and the long-term impact on body-mind health.  The intention behind this reflection is to bring more awareness to the underlying causes of dis-ease and, through such awareness, expand our collective capacity for compassion for those suffering from the effects of early childhood trauma.  It is only through more education and awareness that our society will move in the direction of prevention by aligning resources with ways to stop the causes and turn away from just focusing on the treatment of the symptoms.

I also want to mention right up front that it is not my intention to place blame as that would be an attempt to simplify a very complex human condition.  As one of my dear colleagues once said, “We don’t know what we don’t know.  However, when we know better, we do better.”  Therefore, as you read this reflection and maybe read more about the research on this topic, I hope you will come to see, as I did, that our traumatic experiences are not isolated and, in fact, most likely emanate from past generations living through similar experiences without the resources that are available today.

The first ACE study that began in 1995 was conducted in collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente, a health maintenance organization in southern California.  The participants, over 17,000 patients with health insurance were asked to complete a confidential questionnaire that asked about childhood maltreatment and family dysfunction to identify any relationships between specific ACE and known risk factors, such as smoking and alcohol/drug abuse, for chronic disease.  Since this first study, many studies have been done to validate the original results, using larger and more diverse population samples to assess if the exposure to ACE increases the risk of adult disease and disability. If you are interested in reading more, the CDC website (https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/journal.html) contains a listing of journal articles by topic area.

The original study included seven categories of ACE, including abuse (physical, psychological, sexual), domestic violence (violence against mother), and household dysfunction due to any members who were substance abusers, mentally ill or suicidal, or ever imprisoned.  Future studies expanded the ACE categories to include family dysfunction due to divorce and to track alcohol and other drug abuse separately.

What all of these studies have come to show is that ACEs are more common than any of us would want to know.  These studies have also shown that a majority of ACEs are not experienced in isolation, meaning that if children experienced one ACE they probably experienced more than one ACE, guiding future research to investigate the cumulative impact of multiple childhood traumas on the development of disease.  In addition, the higher the cumulative ACE score, the greater association with many mental, physical, emotional, and social problems, including substance use and abuse.

Expanding our awareness of what constitutes an ACE and the fact that ACEs impact the neurodevelopment of children, disrupting the healthy development of the human nervous system, begins to open our minds and hearts.  Deepening our understanding further that a damaged nervous system may guide children toward unhealthy coping strategies to survive the complex traumas they have lived through, opens the door to compassion, instead of judgment and punishment, by helping us all to realize that these unhealthy behaviors were not a choice these children made, but were normal, natural adaptive responses to inhumane conditions that they found themselves in by no choice of their own.

If you are interested in learning more about how ACEs are being assessed or to determine your own ACE score, click on the ACE SCORE CALCULATOR button below.

If you would like to read a summary of the ACEs study data presented by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), including prevention efforts based upon this growing awareness and understanding of developmental trauma, click on the SAMHSA button below.

ACE SCORE CALCULATOR
SAMHSA

 

The Sights and Sounds of Silence

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Recently, I was blessed to find myself on a hike on a morning where the sky was the most amazing color blue and the spring flowers were in full bloom.  I was not hiking by myself so I suggested to my hiking partner that we travel back down the trail in silence, practicing a silent, walking meditation, as research studies are showing how beneficial meditation can be to our brains and our bodies.  When we reached the end of the trail, we sat together and shared our experiences.  We both admitted we had experienced some challenges, yet overall felt a surge of inspiration!

We both found it hard not to respond verbally to other fellow hikers or mountain bikers that offered a friendly exchange of “good morning” or “hi” as we passed along the way.  I chose to smile and wave my hand in response to honor my practice of silence while also embracing my intention for my meditation to stay deeply aware of and present to my surroundings.  I’m not sure what they thought about my response and I had to trust that they felt the connection through gesture and not words.

Another challenge I experienced was how I began to notice that some of my fellow beings on the trail that morning were quick to anger or were not connected to the experience of others along the way.  One fellow traveler expressed his frustration when a hiker did not get out of his way as he was biking up an incline.  What the biker did not realize is the young person did not speak English and thus may not have understood his words while sensing his anger.  Another group of hikers included a child that got very excited about seeing the butterflies, repeating himself several times to gain the attention of the adults, yet no one responded to him, missing the opportunity to join in the excitement and joy of such a simply pleasure as only seen through the eyes of a child.

And even though I experienced these challenges, I still felt inspired as I recognized my silence was facilitating a deepening of a present moment awareness that can be elusive if we are engaged in a conversation.  On the way up the trail with my hiking partner, together we enjoyed hearing and seeing a bird kicking up the dry leaves on the ground presumably looking for food to feed the babies keeping warm beneath the leaves and seeing a solo rabbit hop along the trail with us, seemingly unafraid of our presence as we chatted.  However, it wasn’t until the hike down in silence that I began to not only see but hear my own footsteps on the path, to see and feel the sun shining through the leaves of the trees overhead, and to feel the cool breeze on the back of my neck as it played with my hair, sending a shiver down my spine.  I too noticed the many colored butterflies gently floating from one beautiful flower blossom to the next.  I heard Woodpeckers drumming in the trees above seemingly marking their territory and working to attract a mate.

I even found a sense of peace and calm when hearing the sounds of the other hikers and bikers as they communicated with their friends and family or listened to music from their electronic devices, although others may have found those sounds disturbing in their search for silence out in nature.  These sounds actually brought a smile to my face as it reminded me that we all have more in common than we do have differences, and when we take the time to use the two ears we have to listen twice as much as we use the one mouth we have, we might just remember that we are all connected and never alone.

Meditation as a practice to increase body-mind health can be done in a variety of settings and in a variety of manners.  I personally have found that simply spending time in nature, allowing my mind’s awareness to rest on what is physically right in front of me, helps me to sort through the overlapping thoughts and conversations in my head when trying to solve a problem, even inspiring me to approach the solution in a more creative way that might have a broader reach.  I have also experienced a deeper connection to my “inner knowing” of what I need when societal messages tell me something different.  Honoring that connection supports my efforts to remain true to my authentic self, valuing my uniqueness and resisting the urge to conform, while increasing my felt sense of compassion for myself when I make a mistake or fail or judge or criticize as I remember I am a life-long member of this most amazing and wonderful experience of a human BEING!

If my most recent experience with a silent hiking meditation has peaked your curiosity about the benefits of meditation, don’t take my word for it, check out a recent study (by clicking the button below) that demonstrated that meditation activates specific areas of the brain, inducing functional and structural brain changes, supporting the idea that prescribing different meditation techniques could help treat and prevent disease:

Benefits of Meditation

5 Intention-setting Ideas to Support Our Basic Human Need for Connection

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“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.” ― William James

There is more and more research today supporting what I think most of us already knew – whether consciously or subconsciously – that humans are wired for connection. What I have witnessed and experienced is when we find ourselves in healthy, reciprocal relationships, we grow and when we experience disconnection from our tribe, we wilt.

And yet our social culture tells us that we should value independence, not need anyone or fear being labeled ‘co-dependent’, and that we should be able to solve our problems on our own and, if we can’t, there is something wrong with us.

Well, with the research behind me, I’m here to challenge that culture that values independence more than interdependence, because as humans we are designed to be connected with others in relationships!

I understand it can be a bit scary to admit to our need for connection, so below are 5 intention-setting ideas to consider trying to support your well-being through expanding and deepening your connection with others:

  1. Volunteer.  In the language of yoga, “seva” is the Sanskrit term meaning “selfless service” and engaging in seva is believed to assist in someone’s spiritual growth while also improving the community.  Although this implies releasing any expectations of receiving anything personally in return for our efforts, my experience and research suggests that the reward is a felt experience, one of working with others that care about the same things you do . . . in other words, vibing with your tribe.
  2. Join a group.  With the advent of social media, it is not hard to find a group that has the same interests as you do.  Whether you enjoy indoor or outdoor activities, Meetup has a group for everyone and if you don’t find a group that is exactly what you are looking for, you can create your own and invite your tribe to join.  Whether you are looking for someone to hike, read, meditate, or socialize your dog with, there are others looking for the same thing.
  3. Share your care.  Have you noticed how good it feels to help someone else out that might be struggling with something, whether it is a stranger that needs a little help with opening a door or a friend that might be sick? Research is discovering that empathy is part of the hard-wiring connection between humans.  So when we see someone suffering, our empathy kicks in and encourages us to express compassion to others, because it makes us feel good to help relieve the suffering of others.
  4. Ask for help.  I know this one can be tricky, but think about it for a moment.  If you feel good when you help others, then why would you not want to create an opportunity for someone else to feel good, by helping you?  I always say “Any job is easy, if you have the right tools”, so, in this case, the “right tools” might just be the members of your tribe.
  5. Commit time.  Our social culture expects that we “do more with less”, leaving us chronically multi-tasking and wishing for more than 24 hours in a day.  With so many demands on our time, we can inadvertently find ourselves spending more and more time alone, even if we tell ourselves that it is because we just need to sleep.  What the research is leading us to understand, though, is that spending time with people who make us feel supported, valued, and accepted may contribute more to our overall health than other typical suggestions such as exercise and not smoking.  So, we need to make our connections a priority on our ‘to do’ list, knowing that by doing so we are contributing not only to our own well-being, but to the well-being of our tribe!