Finding Self Compassion

There are times in all of our life's that we felt down and out and empty. I'm sure if you think hard enough you could pinpoint the very moments that shut off your confidence and made you feel small and insignificant inside that you still have not recovered from. I challenge you today to dig deep and find a moment. See yourself there and break down what happened that day and how you felt in detail. Write it down if you have the time. Now ask yourself in what way did you help yourself or was it beneficial by subcombering to defeat and feeling helpless? I'm sure there was a good and understandable reason why. We may have been to young to fight back, we may have been to weak or just had no knowledge of how to help ourselves. If someone threw a rock at you and hit you in the head and you fell down in pain the most irrational thing you could do is pick the rock up and hit yourself in the head with it to hurt yourself. Unfortunately that's what we do. Bad things happen to us and not only do we convince ourselves that we are worthless, we punish ourselves for being this percieved worthless. Most of us wouldn't go kick a stranger if we saw them crying but we do it to ourselves all the time. Just deciding to love ourselves isn't how it works. No amount of Instagram and facebook quotes are going to change us into better versions of ourselves. It takes work and commitment and is an everyday battle you have to keep on fighting through. You may not be able to just wake up feeling on top of the world but you can start small and build with practicing self compassion. 

Self compassion is a great way to start because it's just simply treating yourself the way you believe others should be treated. 

You would think that would come natural to us but for most of us it doesn't. Alot of us start the self defeating talk in our head when we make mistakes or someone hurts us. We tell ourselves we are stupid for being so naive or that we can't do anything right. If we saw someone saying that to one of our friends we would jump to defend them. So why is it we believe it's okay to be so mean and evil to ourselves? Well the easy answer is because other's have been mean and evil to us and it's learned behavior.... But still it makes more sense to be on your own side and be your own kind stranger even if you aren't ready to be your own friend. 

  For me I had dissociate myself from myself to teach myself self compassion. I would write down in my journal whatever had happened to myself like it had happened to a friend; or I would imagine that I saw it on the news happening to a stranger. For a long time it was the only way I could keep myself from beating myself down and always blaming myself for everything. Within time it became natural for me to be compassionate to myself and it made me compassionate even to people that had wronged or hurt me . That's important because not blaming yourself doesn't mean blaming others. The truth is we are all battling something and most people don't have malicious intent to hurt us they are usually just acting out from the battles with themselves. Many of us have a bad habit of believing that everyone is out to get us and hurt us. We have been hurt and have developed a victim mentality and now we can't trust no body and fear everything so much that we limit our experience and existence. In reality that believe is just as narcissistic as being conceited. I remember telling my therapist when I was 19 that I was scared to go to college because I was afraid of people looking at me and judging me for not going to a University because I got pregnant. She said to me "Antoinette most people are much too self absorbed in their own insecurities and fears to even notice yours." There is no proverbial spotlight on us with a crowd waiting and watching for us to fuck everything up because everyone in the crowd is having the same spotlight nightmare that you are having. 

  No one is confident all the time because life goes up and down and is constantly throwing challenges. We all feel good on good days when everything seems right in the world. It's how we behave and take care of ourselves when everything feels wrong. When it gets bad the best thing you can do is care enough about yourself not to make matters worst by talking down to yourself. No matter how bad things get or how bad you feel I can promise you that it will not last. Be kind to yourself or name your bad day alter ego or talk to yourself in 3rd person like I do and be like "She ain't feeling good today, I gotta do something for my girl to get her back on track.

How did you get so confident?

When your a fat girl, a minority, an introvert, a strange individual who's only 5,2 in your 3rd marriage? I didn't even get my driver's license until I was 22 years old. I've been rejected far more than I've been accepted in my life. I've dated men in the past that have dragged me through the mud. One only married me for citizenship and most of the others I was just a pretty exotic object to wear on their arm and brag about to their friends. 

   I spent most of my life feeling absolutely worthless and wanting to die. Adding fuel to the fire I felt I was defective after being diagnosed with bipolar 2 disorder. For a very long time my only source of happiness was my first born son. The marriage was a farce but the arrival of my oldest son gave me a reason to live. I can share these things about myself with anyone because I have not the slightest bit of shame in where I come from and what I've gone through. I'm not easily affected by what people say about me behind my back because no one has judged me worst than I have. I am the type of person that when first meeting you I will start with my worst stories so you can reject me now so I don't have to waste time with you later. 

My confidence started with exposing myself and waiting for the arrows to fly.

   I believed myself to be unlovable after my first marriage. I felt completely ruined. I was a single mother with no car no job hitching rides to school. I believed that no man would want me with a child that wasn't his and a stretched out fupa belly that would never go away no matter how much weight I lost. I figured fine that's the way it is I might as well get used to it. I would go on dates just for good food because at that time I was limited in what I could cook and only owned 1pot 1pan and 3 bowls. I would wip out photos of my son right away on dates to deter men from getting interest in me. Alot of them ran for the hills but to my surprise most of them stayed. I didn't trust them still of course so I would then pull out the big guns and slam my celibacy card on the table. Like BAM! You ain't getting none of this player! Alot of them ran while I contently waved goodbye ..... but still some of them stayed. I was like that the hell why are you still here? I dated a little bit until I successfully ran them off and then met my second husband. My second husband was a very good and nice man from a wonderful family that accepted me whole heartedly. I still miss his family because they made me feel like I was a part of something. They gave me a graduation party after I graduated from college. It was the very first party I had ever had for just myself and they bought me my very first car. I cried for weeks in gratitude. I'm crying now just thinking about it because still to this day no one else has ever been as good to me as those people. Other than the family I have made for myself today I still feel like they are the only family that I had that actually wanted me and liked me. Unfortunately my exhusband and I were not in real love. There was no passion or chemistry there that I had hoped would grow eventually. I married him as payment for how wonderful his family was to me because I had nothing else to give to show gratitude. I ruined it hunting for passion and I felt wildly inadequate of their love the entire time because of my own self hatred. I dated alot after that and drowned my sorrows in bottles of wine in my nice apartment a single mother once more.

   I've seen alot, I've suffered alot more... I meet my current husband and we went through alot as well. We didn't get to where we are today easily. We broke up for 2 years after he cheated on me. The load of everything throughout the years broke me down. It was what I needed though because I rose from the ashes like a phoenix and have been flying high and free ever since.

    I spent sometime away in a recovery center and got back in therapy and started taking a hard look at myself. It was hard to try and date again but I tried and I approached it the same way I did in the past... with the candid truth of who I was but not with the self hatred attached to it like before. I did it with pride and dignity baring my battle scars. I declared right away that I was a mother with 2 sons, a fat girl approaching a divorce. I let them know my strange hobbies and nerdy ways. I didn't expect not one message back but it was fine if no one wanted me because I was finally accepting myself. To my surprise.... the line of suitors was out the door and around the corner. It was flattering but I have learned not to apply someone else's feelings to my emotional self esteem rather it be positive or negative attention because people will change their minds and are reckless with their heart. 

   I found my confidence by just accepting myself as I am and receiving only those that accept me as I am. If you don't want to love me don't love me. I dont want anyone to do what they dont want or have passion to do. It's okay if I'm too fat for someone , to black for others. When you stop worrying about what you aren't there is only room for what you are. I'm confident with my body and life flaws. I'm only interest in those that are comfortable with it too; so I always feel beautiful because I don't allow people in my world that dont value me and I don't go trying to be apart of theirs either. Whatever you are just be that. There are billions of people in the world so no matter what you think is wrong with you someone out there will see the beauty in it but it's not about anyone else it's about you. Look at yourself so long and hard until that flaw starts looking cute. Surround yourself with those that see you as beautiful and before you know it... you will see it to.

Your Best Self is Your True Self

• From the perspective of lookers from the outside of my world I'm sure it would appear that I changed. For a while I had believed the same.... but the heart always remembers the true self. Most kids are completely happy as they are until our natural disposition is rejected and then we spend the rest of our lifes trying to be accepted. We teach ourselves to get used to being uncomfortable and pretending so that we don't disappoint or hurt anyone. That's irrational because pain is just an inevitable truth and so is disappointment. It's rare that anyone's indepent choices doesn't come with someone else's disappointment. If you live to please you will never be able to please everyone! Trying to do so is like being on a choke chain trying to keep smiling so you don't upset anyone while they pull you to and fro. All the while the life is draining from our faces from our own self induced suffocation. I haven't changed.... I'm just finally breathing.  

   I have revived my true myself not changed into another. She was under pressure from all the things I piled on top of her and tried to force her to be from other people's point of view of what is good.

  Of course people would think who they remember me to be as good or even a better person than I am today! It was more beneficial to them and others that I was constantly sacrificing myself for their happiness. I was so afraid of being alone for being myself that I hadn't noticed that I had people around me already that only wanted the original me and saw me behind the facade the whole time. People will want you and value you for the way you look, and for what you can do for them; but the only love that is true in value is those who love you unconditionally as you are with no benefit other than the beauty of your company. 

     Ask yourself this: 

If I didn't have a great body,pretty face, money, the right connections with the right people will everyone who's around me now stay close to me? 

If I didn't share everything I accomplish with these people, if I wasn't constantly motivating their self esteem and helping would they still see me as valuable? 

If I stopped doing everything I do to be loved and accepted.... would I still be loved and accepted? 

If you can't answer these questions with a confident yes than it's a very sad no. Valuable love doesn't need you to do anything extra . I feel for the generations that grew up and are growing up in social media culture because it's only making the obstacles course people jump though to be accepted and loved more challenging and damaging to our true selves. There's so many different points of views. There's people posting themselves with new boobs, butts and nose jobs talking fitness and perfection. Then theirs others who believe themselves to be "purists " because they never wear make up or dress modestly and don't believe in vanity culture as a whole. There's the vegans verses meat eaters which are my favorite debates to watch. All in all the only point of view that truly matters in your life is your own. Who you actually are will attract your own real tribe that will love you just for being you. The problem starts when we want to be accepted by people that aren't interested in who or what we are and we try to conform for their love and attention. You will always attract what you are showing up pretending to be. I think it's God's way of showing us to ourselves. Most of my life I have attracted people that weren't really invested in me because I wasn't invested in my true self either. I was invested in my facade because I didn't believe I could be loved for just being me. I even went by another name for many years. There are still people that don't know my name is not Freya! It was a costuming name that turned into a persona and a heavy burden on real Antoinette Lavoisier. Everyone wants to change and everyone will change through life experience but I believe that who we really are is who we already are and was always meant to be. The trick is to stay that person even when the world demands something else and if we should lose ourselves love ourselves enough to go back and look for who we truly are.