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Self-compassion - A Vital Step in Trauma Healing

• Tabitha • Season 2 • Episode 10

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Trauma survivors often master compassion for everyone - except themselves. This creates a hidden cost to their healing journey. Self-compassion isn't self-indulgence but actually mirrors God's heart toward us and represents a crucial piece in trauma recovery.

• Self-compassion consists of three parts, as stated by Kristin Neff: self-kindness vs. self-judgment, common humanity vs. isolation, and mindfulness vs. over-identification
• Trauma distorts our ability to show ourselves compassion, making us hypercritical and feeling isolated in our pain
• Scripture shows God's compassionate heart toward us - "He knows how we are formed. He remembers we are dust" (Psalm 103:13-14)
• Jesus never spoke harshly to the broken and hurting
• Self-talk shapes our reality - reframing negative thoughts is crucial for healing
• Soul-care involves tending to your whole being - physical, emotional, and spiritual - with self-compassion
• Practical steps are included to help you move toward self-compassion

Self-compassion is an act of holy rebellion against trauma's lies. Even micro-movements in self-compassion create meaningful progress in healing

Try just one self-compassion practice today - micro-movements still move you forward. You're not being selfish; you're walking in who God created you to be.

Resources:

Rachel Wojo - https://rachelwojo.com/. 

Her books referenced are:

One More Step - https://cardshop.rachelwojo.com/products/one-more-step-finding-strength-when-you-feel-like-giving-up 

Desperate Prayers - https://cardshop.rachelwojo.com/products/desperate-prayers

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Speaker 1:

What if the cruelest voice in your life is your own? Trauma survivors are often experts in compassion for everyone except themselves. In this episode, we're going to be exposing the hidden cost of self-neglect, the surprising biblical truth about self-compassion and the simple shift that can change your healing forever. Welcome to hey Tabby, the podcast where we talk about the hard things out loud, with our actual lips. We'll cover all kinds of topics across the mental health spectrum, including how it intersects with the Christian faith. Nothing is off limits here and we are not. Take two verses and call me in the morning. I'm Tabitha Westbrook and I'm a licensed trauma therapist. But I'm not your trauma therapist. I'm an expert in domestic abuse and coercive control and how complex trauma impacts our health and well-being. Our focus here is knowledge and healing. Trauma doesn't have to eat your lunch forever. There is hope. Now let's get going. Welcome to this week's episode of hey Tabby. I am really excited to talk about this with you and I'm doing it from a very, very experiential place. This week I had already recorded this particular episode and the file got corrupted and I was really, really frustrated and kind of freaking out because I was like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do and I really had to have some self-compassion and put some space in my calendar to record this again and we're going to talk about self-compassion and how it impacts us and our healing and how it's actually quite godly and really engineered by God. So I'm really glad that you're here and we're going to dive right into the first part here. So the first part here is what is self-compassion? And we need to start with the basics, because I think a lot of people hear this word and you think self-indulgence, you think I'm playing the victim, you think all kinds of different things that aren't actually self-compassion at all. It's all completely different paradigm. So the basics of self-compassion really aren't just being nice to yourself. That's part of it, but it's not all of it.

Speaker 1:

Researcher Kristen Neff really does a deep dive on self-compassion it's kind of her thing and she refers to it in three different parts. The first part is self-kindness versus self-judgment, and what this is is treating yourself with the same care and kindness that you would give a dear friend. So you are treating yourself like you would treat somebody that you really really care about. The second piece of it is common humanity versus isolation, and this means remembering that you're not the only one who suffers. We are all in this together. If we were really honest and I think sometimes in the church people don't get this level of honesty and that's unfortunate, but if we're really honest, everybody suffers at some points, and sometimes a lot of points actually. Sometimes suffering happens deeply and often and we just don't talk to each other about it. We are not isolated in this. We are not the only ones that suffer, everyone does. It's really important to remember that when we are giving ourselves compassion and I'll tell you why in a little bit the other piece of Kristen Neff's paradigm is mindfulness versus over-identification.

Speaker 1:

Mindfulness, if you've heard me talk about it before, is being in the present moment. That's the really really short definition of it. It's just being present in this moment. And over-identification is when we believe that we are our feelings, so we feel like we're drowning in them. But when you take a mindfulness approach, then we are in the present moment. We notice our feelings, we give them grace and space, but we are not owned by them, we're not run by them. They don't make all of our decisions for us, have experienced trauma. These very, very often just get completely distorted and flipped on their heads.

Speaker 1:

You might be very hypercritical of yourself. Giving grace to yourself is likely something super hard. Sometimes you might believe that you are alone in your pain. No one will understand, no one can even see. If I share it with someone, will I even be believed? Or you can get stuck in overwhelming emotions. It is super, super common that I hear things from my clients Like if I start to cry, I'm never going to stop, I'm going to be here forever. Or I don't know how to feel anything because I'm afraid if I let myself feel anything at all, it's just going to get crazy and bad and big and I won't be able to stop it and then I'll be non-functional. Do you notice the like spiral of thoughts that happen there? And so we really want to disentangle that theology and thought pattern from what self-compassion actually is so that we can engage in it because it's really, really important for healing.

Speaker 1:

Self-compassion actually mirrors God's image in us. I know that might be a shocker for people like oh my goodness what? But this is really where we want to take a minute to focus because it's so important. Self-compassion isn't selfish, right? I already said it's not self-indulgence. It is not playing the victim game or diving into a pity party at all. It really is aligning ourselves with God and how he sees us. You are made in the image and likeness of God, no matter who you are. Every single human on this earth is an image bearer, to some degree, of the living God. That is how we are created. We are the imago Dei, which is the image of God. This means that your worth isn't up for debate, no matter what's been said or done to you.

Speaker 1:

I really like Psalm 103, 13 and 14 here that talks about it in this way. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we are formed. He remembers we are dust oh, yes, right. And if the Lord can look at us and know our frame and know what we are made of and know how he created us, he knows our limitations. Jesus himself came to the earth and had our limitations right. He had to eat, he had to use the bathroom, he had to sleep, he needed rest, all of those things. He knows us from the inside out because we're his creation.

Speaker 1:

So when we're extending compassion to ourselves, we are actually reflecting the heart of God. He has compassion on us and when we say, well, I can have compassion on someone else, but not myself, then we're actually missing a piece of the heart of God in this. And if we look even at Jesus's life and ministry, he had enormous compassion on those who are hurting. You never see him say anything harsh to someone who is struggling, who is broken and hurting. You know the Bible says a bruised reed he will not break, a smoking flax he won't quench. So anyone that's in that vulnerable state you see Jesus come alongside and give enormous compassion to when he tells his disciples here's what leadership looks like. You will not lord it over the Gentiles. You will not lord it over each other like the Gentiles do as he's washing their feet. You will be a servant. Whoever wants to be first in the kingdom will be last right. That is a place and position of compassion, because when we see others the way that God sees them, and then also see ourselves the way that God sees us, compassion is actually a bit of a natural outflow eventually. It's not going to feel that way at first, but it is eventually a natural outflow. When we are extending compassion to ourselves, we are evidencing the heart of God toward us. We are saying. I believe you that you say this about me, even if it doesn't feel super true right now, and that is part of the way that we begin to shift Now.

Speaker 1:

If you've read Body and Soul, healed and Whole and you've gotten to chapter nine, where I talk about vows and curses, you know that how we speak to ourselves matters greatly. Our self-talk literally shapes our reality and I know it can be so hard when the negative and the critical feel true. Maybe it has been spoken over you your entire life and you don't know how to feel differently about yourself. This is where good coaching and therapy and support can come in. But if we really look at things, there are a lot of places that talk about this from a theological perspective. There is a particular church called the Table Church, and the way that they name self-compassion is the missing piece in sacred self-care.

Speaker 1:

If you are begrudgingly doing self-care, then you are just checking off a box. You're not really giving yourself care and kindness. You're doing it because a therapist told you to, a pastor told you to, your coach told you to. Maybe you're listening to this and you're like, well, yes, I need to. Or you've read my book and you're like, yes, I need to, or some other book, but you're doing it not because you believe you deserve the care, but because it's a box to check and you're supposed to do this to get better. However, it is a place where we can learn to have shift and we can learn to enter into it from a place of I am actually worthy of this.

Speaker 1:

Now, sometimes it starts with just a little bit of radical acceptance and opposite action. I know this is true, so I'm going to go do it, but you're really leaning in and you're doing it with your whole self. You're not doing it begrudgingly as a checkbox, and when we are carrying the voice of someone who's abused us and harmed us in our souls, then we just might be walking in something that isn't true, something that is a very simple. Entry point is when you think I can never get better. This is never going to be better.

Speaker 1:

You can reframe it to say something like I'm learning and growing, even if it's messy. And I really like this one because it doesn't minimize the hard of it all. It doesn't minimize that you are growing and things are messy, right. It doesn't minimize the hard stuff, but it is a reminder that things are changing right, you are not at the very beginning if you're not at the very beginning, if you're not at the very beginning and things are growing and changing. And that's why I say often to clients that a journey of a thousand miles does begin with a single step. And that might seem like such a trite little adage, but if you look at it, it's so incredibly true. When we look at where we were a year ago, it's probably not the same as today, and if we take the next step forward, we will be farther than we could have ever imagined. And I know that that's been even true in my own life. It's been something that I have had to walk through, especially because I have struggled, and sometimes still struggle, with very negative self-talk. My goodness, the way I talk to myself, I would not talk to another person, and I really sometimes have to get real about that and go Tabitha, what are you doing? Oh, my goodness, girl.

Speaker 1:

One of my favorite exercises from Body and Soul, healed and Whole, is when I talk about thanking our bodies for different things, and it is a little bit of a way to enter into. Not only getting back into our bodies after trauma, but also to give is a little bit of a way to enter into not only getting back into our bodies after trauma, but also to give ourselves a little bit of goodness and self-compassion. So something might look like thank you hands for being able to pick things up or thank you for being able to open a bottle of water or to hug someone with these arms right or to hug someone with these arms right. Those are things that we can be thankful for in our bodies, even when we struggle maybe in other places with self-compassion. And it's a way to kind of get started just a little bit.

Speaker 1:

And self-compassion really is soul care. Self-care is so much bigger than just bubble baths and scented candles although those things are lovely and important and I will not minimize them but it's really being tender and tending to your whole being. You know again, as it says in the Psalms, you know we are made from dust. God knows there are these weak moments. I always think of Beth Moore saying things like Jesus knows that we are scared sometimes, like he's not unmoved by it. He loves us so much. When we are really entering into good self, soul care, we're listening to our physical body, knowing it signals without shaming them, and that could be that gut feeling that, oh, I shouldn't be here right now, or, and I mean like in a situation where it's like maybe not safe and you need to go. Or listening to your body's hunger and fullness cues, listening to your body's need for movement and rest, things like that are very, very much giving yourself self-compassion From an emotional perspective.

Speaker 1:

It's giving yourself permission to feel all of your emotions, all of them. Some of the emotions occasionally get vilified by churches. I don't know if it's purposeful or accidental, but things like anger, particularly for women, can get really vilified and I really want to pull us out of that, because there's a whole verse that says be angry and do not sin. And we know from reading scripture that all of our emotions are given to us by God and that we are created in his image and likeness, even in that space. So we want to be able to feel grief and joy and sorrow and anger and fear. We don't want to give ourselves over to them right, that goes back to that being mindful peace, but we want to acknowledge them. They are a check engine light from the Lord. They draw us into lament and crying out to him when we experience sorrow and grief and deep sadness. We want to glorify God when we experience happiness and joy. We want to cry out God, help me when we experience fear. These are things that are tender spaces of self-care for us and tender areas of self-compassion From a spiritual perspective.

Speaker 1:

We are opening ourselves up to God's grace and truth about who we are, even if it doesn't feel true yet, we know that it is true. Right, because if God said it, then it's definitely accurate. But we can start to enter in and go. I want to believe, help my unbelief. I want to see myself the way that you see me. God, help me, see me well. I want to see myself the way that you see me, god, help me, see me well, help me, see me in the way that you do. No-transcript, and if you notice the way that I'm even talking about it is with a tender voice and that is so important. God does not speak to us harshly, even in the garden.

Speaker 1:

When he said where are you? And if you listened to the episode with Chuck DeGroote, we really talked about that question from his book Healing what's Within? Where are you, wasn't that? Where are you? You're in trouble. It was oh, children, where are you, wasn't that? Where are you? You're in trouble. It was oh, children, where are you? I love you.

Speaker 1:

And that really is the perspective that God gives us. He wouldn't have sent his son to die for our sins if he didn't care for us. He could have just wiped us out, created a whole new creation that weren't a bunch of dingbats. Frankly, right, he could have created us without sin. He could have created all kinds of things and been like yeah, yeah, y'all messed up, let's try this again. And he didn't. He didn't.

Speaker 1:

He came and said I love you so much that I'm going to save you. Y'all cannot save yourselves. I already know this about you and I'm going to come. And I'm going to come for you and heal you and save you Now, yes, if you are deep in the weeds right now, you're like I could use a little saving, a lot faster than it's happening. And, man, I hear that. I hear that so much. And the Lord is so merciful. I wish his timing was my timing. I know I'm going to get to heaven and be like, oh, this all makes a lot more sense, but right now it's like I don't know what you're waiting for.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes, you know and I think that we're all in that when we're like, oh, I'm just ready to go home, home, all right, and he understands Again. He knows what we're made of. He knows that we are a vapor. We don't always understand our vaporiness, but he is looking at things in light of eternity, with enormous compassion for you, and so we can look at ourselves with enormous compassion in light of eternity, but also knowing it's hard here and now. I know I say this often in sessions with clients, but all of our affliction is light and momentary and it absolutely feels like neither light nor momentary. So I will acknowledge that and I will acknowledge this is a hard road, with lots of suffering at times and so challenging. But when we enter into self-compassion, it does make this hard road just a little smoother. So let's talk about some practical steps here.

Speaker 1:

Mindful check-ins this is where you really pause and notice what's happening in your body and mind, and if you are used to functioning on autopilot and you are not used to checking in with yourself about anything, I would encourage you set a timer on your phone, because this is a skill that you really want to press into, enter into and learn. You definitely want to make it more of a habit. I was listening to someone recently on a podcast talk about habit stacking. Where could you habit stack this? Where could you habit stack checking in? Maybe it is in the shower in the morning. You know you're already in the shower, you're washing, you're connected to your body. I hope at least a little. Sometimes I know that's hard in the shower, but maybe you could check in and say how am I feeling, what am I noticing, what do I need?

Speaker 1:

You can also use the shower to enter into compassionate self-touch. Now, you can do this other places as well, but you could simply give yourself compassion. I am washing my body so that I am feeling good and clean. And oh, thank you, legs for helping me stand in the shower. Or, you know, thank you arms for you know being able to wash my body, whatever it is right. You can give yourself that compassion and touch yourself gently in the shower or at other times. You can also do something like placing your hand over your heart and saying I'm here with you, I'm here with myself, I'm here with myself. I'm going to give myself just a moment to be present, and that might seem a little bit hokey, but even just doing it now, demonstrating it and talking about it. I felt my body relax. So notice if you feel your body shift or change in those spaces. That can be a really big indicator of that being good for you. And try different things. You can try all kinds of different. You know ways to touch yourself and to see what feels good and what feels calming.

Speaker 1:

Another thing that you can do is take your favorite scripture and read them over yourself, for example, just the one about God keeping people in perfect peace when we focus on him. Lord, I know that you keep people in perfect peace when we focus on him. Lord, I know that you keep me in perfect peace when I focus on you. I have a hard time with that and sometimes I don't feel very peaceful. Please be with me, god. I need peace. God, help me.

Speaker 1:

It can be super simple If you grew up or have been in a tradition where prayer was weaponized and vilified and you were told oh, I have to do this, that or, third, it has to look like this man. It really isn't. It's really just talking to your friend. I think about how the Lord spoke about Moses. He talked to him like a friend. Talk to him like a friend. How do you talk to your friends. You don't call them up and go oh most holy friend, how can I speak with you today? How may I enter into your presence? I mean, if you're doing that like we probably need to have a whole different conversation here, but you just call up your friend, you're like hey, how are you? What's going on? Right, we can talk to God, like that the veil has been torn and we get to walk into the throne room of grace. We also can engage in community reflection, and what this means is letting safe people remind you of your worth.

Speaker 1:

I do this with clients a lot, where I will encourage them to send out a strength survey to a friend and or a series of friends and say what strengths do you see in me? Super simple question, that's it. We don't have to be multiple choice. Every single one of them freaks out a little bit and is like, oh no, like it's going to be terrible, nobody's going to have anything good to say, and that is such a product of trauma, honestly, and all of them to date have been pleasantly surprised when they send that survey out to safe people and they hear things like you're kind, you're loyal, you are beautiful, you're a delight, you're funny, whatever it is, there are so many things that they end up hearing, but it's always scary. It's a vulnerable ask. It is a vulnerable ask but if you are willing to do it, you can do it in a Google form, an email, a text message. You can create a whole survey monkey survey and send it to people if you want, but the information and the affirmation and the compassion that you'll get from them is going to be probably life-changing.

Speaker 1:

Honestly, if you've never done this and one of the things that you can also do then is take those things and say, lord, these are hard for me to see. I know so-and-so sees that I am loyal and compassionate and fun, but I don't see those things. Will you help me to see myself more clearly? And that is a beautiful, beautiful prayer. And you can always do again opposite action. That's where we do the opposite of how we feel with our whole selves.

Speaker 1:

Lord, if I am seen as loyal, kind and compassionate, then I am going to walk in this earth as if those things are true, and this is not fake it till you make it. This is I'm going to walk in what is actually truth until I feel it A very different experience than making something up. Now, if you have a friend, that's like I think you should play NBA basketball and you're like me, five foot two and fluffy that was not a real statement, right Like I'm not playing basketball at a professional level, this is not happening, but I can definitely take to heart. You are kind and compassionate, You're fun to be around, you have a lot of energy, right. Those are things I can take to heart and I can say, even if it doesn't feel true in this moment, lord, help it feel true. I'm going to trust that this person, who's not inside my own head, living through my own trauma, maybe sees a little bit of something that I can't see.

Speaker 1:

And another way to engage in this is journaling prompts. So I'm a big fan of journaling when you can do it. It does not work for everybody. So if you're like I am not a journaler and it does not work for me, do something else, right, you can make voice notes to yourself. You can think it in your head. I'm a big fan of journaling for those who can do it, because handwriting things makes such a big difference in how we experience it and saying things out loud makes such a big difference in how we experience it. I don't know how God wired our brains that way, but he did, and so I embrace it and I encourage it with people when I can.

Speaker 1:

What does self-compassion look like in my body today? There's your first prompt and I'll repeat it what does self-compassion look like in my body today? Oh man, that might be a little bit of a hard one to write out, right? This also might be a great one to start with in the morning. What is this going to look like in my body today, lord? What do I need? Oh, that can be a deep question and, honestly, it might be something super tiny, like we're not talking go big or go home here. We're talking start somewhere. We all have to start somewhere, and the tiniest move still moves you forward. By the way, the next question you can ask yourself is what kind of words does my soul need right now?

Speaker 1:

I recently heard a podcast where an author her name is Rachel, and I'll try to find the rest of her name and the name of her book she was writing on grief. It was really interesting, but she talks about three word prayers God help me, god guide me, god X, you know, god help, you know. Basically super simple prayers, and one of the ones I was thinking about in a three word prayer after I listened to that was God, comfort me, god, hold me, god, help me speak kind things over myself. I know that one was more than three words. We had to get a few more words in there. Those things can be very simple.

Speaker 1:

What are the nice things I need today? The Lord, what do I need to say to myself? What comfort words do I need? Well, tab, it's going to be okay Eventually. Maybe not even on this earth sometimes, right, but eventually it's all going to be okay Because God's going to come back. I'm going to be with him.

Speaker 1:

Eventually, all this crap gets sorted out, and that might be the word I need. God, I'm going to be with him. Eventually, all this crap gets sorted out, and that might be the word I need. God, I'm lonely. I need to go ask for comfort from someone. I need to give myself some comfort.

Speaker 1:

Today, I need words of goodness. Any of those things can be really beautiful, and then you tell those kind words to your soul. I may not feel like I am a good friend today, but my friends say that I am. I'm going to choose to believe that today I'm worthy of care and compassion, I'm worthy of love. Those might be the things I need to say to myself today. And so, be creative with this and, you know, be a little uncomfortable. If you need to be truly, it's worth doing. And I know that that can be hard, where you're like, oh, my goodness gracious, what am I going to do with myself? And just try, just try again. Micro movements still move you forward. I just want to reiterate self-compassion is not self-indulgence. Honestly, it is an act of holy rebellion against the lies of trauma and I love me some holy rebellion. I want to invite you to just pick one, pick one of the things that we talked about and give it a try Again.

Speaker 1:

Micro-movements, enough micro-movements, and you've got a long way. Think about a snail. Snails get places. It might not be real fast, but they're gonna get there eventually, and they are a whole bunch of micro-movements. So even if you're a snail, that is a-okay. Go ahead and be a snail. Make some micro-movements and be compassionate to yourself. You are not playing the victim. You're not self-indulgent, you're not being selfish. You're actually walking in who God created you to be. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of hey Tabby. I'm so glad that you are here. I can't wait to see you again next time.

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Tabitha Westbrook, LMFT-S, LCMCH-QS, LPC-S, CSAT, CCTP, CCTCP

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