A light in the darkness

As I was reading the book Real Self-Care, the author quoted various examples. One of them I try to explain in my way. "I feel sorry I spent so much time in the spa when I could have taken care of my family." "I deeply regret not attending to your needs." "How can I relax when there is so much to be done?" I just can't relax." "When I take time for my care, I feel selfish." In my quest to understand what is happening with self-care and help, I happened to meet with some of the harshest realities. Sometimes it seems that I am pushing myself for my self-care and, deep inside, building the base of self-hatred. I started looking into this new and most ignored concept when I started reading the book Real Self-Care . The author showed this with many examples. I got similar things in these two posts about what guilt has to do , and White Hot Truth soothes self-help fatigue as she enlightens it in her book White Hot Truth , which also confirmed ...

As we discover ourselves more, we gain much knowledge about boundaries. What are boundaries?  In Katherine's words (2010, p. 14) "A boundary is a limit or edge that defines you as separate from others." We all know this, and we have also seen a boundary wall around our garden, for example. I am sure you all also have fought with your siblings like me, saying, "This is my cupboard/bed; do not touch it." If they try to fiddle, World War II broke off in the house.  We know what boundaries are. I will now carry you to how to set these boundaries and how these boundaries help us in our self-love journey.  As I was searching for this topic, I came across the book " The Empowered Empath " by Judy Dyer. It resonated with me completely, and so setting boundaries made much sense to me.  I was carried back to those days when I was at home and was waiting for my life to witness some beautiful turns. She was one of my good friends in whom I had much trust. She had ...

  Another familiar topic, yet a very essential one. After an introspective talk with ourselves, we gain much insight about ourselves. Some of these insights highlight darker sides of us, which makes us feel guilty and ashamed.  The psychological definition of self-forgiveness was given by Enright and The Human Development Study Group in 1996. They describe it as  “a willingness to abandon self-resentment in the face of one’s acknowledged objective wrong, while fostering compassion, generosity, and love toward oneself” (Enright & The Human Study Group, 1996). There are three components to this definition. Let us explore them to understand it better.  a) Self-forgiveness encompasses release of negativity directed towards self:   Self-talk fills us with self-resentment (holding oneself guilty of what had occurred, being filled with bitterness, and trying to find ways to punish oneself). A newer understanding of this self-resentment says that it has two par...

  We have all heard about mindfulness in the present era. Mindfulness training, mindful meditation, mindful yoga practices, etc.  Mindfulness means moment-to-moment awareness of one's experience without judgement. I have read this many times, but within myself I always felt I didn't understand it fully. What do you mean by moment-to-moment awareness? The American Psychological Association says that mindfulness means an awareness of one's internal states and surroundings. What do we mean by awareness of one's internal states? This means that you are fully present and aware of your experiences, i.e., your senses, feelings, and thoughts, without being overly reactive and judgemental. (see here ) This insight took me those days of my life when I was learning to be mindful. Comparing those blissful days to my present days, I can sense the difference. I can understand the change of feeling that has taken place and the thoughts that have been rumbling in my brain. When I star...

  In my previous post I had been talking about self-compassion. The formula Dr Kristin Neff has given is Self-Compassion = Self-Kindness + Human connection + Mindfulness Now, compassion means sympathetic consciousness of other's distress together with a desire to alleviate it. (taken from  https://www.merriam-webster.com/ ). So, self-compassion means sympathetic consciousness of one's own distress together with a desire to alleviate it.  Kindness means the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. (taken from oxford languages dictionary .) This means that in order to be sympathetically conscious about one's own distress, I need to be friendly, generous, and considerate to myself. Three questions arises here a) How can I be friendly to myself? b) How can I be generous to myself? c) How can I be considerate to myself? In order to understand this topic, I have referred to these study materials. a) Self-compassion: The proven power of being kind to yourself b...

In my last post I talked about accepting ourselves as we are. This brought me to a place called transparency. "Am I transparent to myself?" Can I say, "I am the same from the back as I am from the front"? This took me years to answer because I was never the same. I still remember those days when I would smile and talk to people and speak rubbish behind their back. This was the aftermath of what I received from others. I could sense this quite early before it was uncontrollable. I never wanted to be bad like this, but I became. My heart started to hate myself because this was not what I wanted to be. At this moment, my inner voice said to analyze what went wrong rather than to blame and hate yourself. Every time I would try to do good, the badness I received from others stood before me, and I pulled back.  These incidences flew me to all those people who did me wrong, and I was madly angry at them. They never asked me sorry. I was able to forgive them because I made ...