For an awfully long time, I believed that I could only be happy when I’d changed something about myself. For example, when I was more calm and confident, or when I stopped making mistakes and always got everything right. Only once I’d become that other person (I believed) could I stop feeling there was something wrong with me.
Then, several years back I went through a bereavement which changed all the relationships in my life, not least the one I have with myself. Here’s what I learned that helped me finally let go of self-attacking.
In my 20s, I’d tried endless self-help books in an effort to become someone else. I hated that I always felt anxious and lacking confidence. I was determined to rid myself of these defects so that I could finally be happy. In my early 30s I discovered mindfulness, which helped me enormously in recognising that my thoughts weren’t necessarily facts.
Mindfulness got me through the seven miscarriages I had before our son came along. But when he was a toddler, I suffered another loss, this one particularly traumatic. During the aftermath, things got very messy. I knew that friends were finding it hard to be around me. In truth, I found it hard to be around me. I felt like I couldn’t rely on anything, my anxiety shot up, and my reactions to others were unpredictable. I wanted friends to support me even though they didn’t have a clue how, and I was very sensitive to well-meant comments.
Sadly, this led to the breakdown of some friendships. In the past my response would have been to blame myself. My self-talk would have sounded something like this: “see, you’ve chased everyone away because you’re handling this really badly and you’ve become a horrible person.”
But I turned instead to compassion meditation. Not only did it (eventually) help me to heal some of those rifts, it prevented me from attacking myself. I remember sitting in meditation one day offering myself the phrase ‘May I have ease of being’. Suddenly, the phrase became ‘May I have ease of being, just as I am‘. Not ‘May I have ease of being – when I’m perfect’, but right now, just as I am: messy and heartbroken and chaotic.
This learning for me was huge. I didn’t have to wait till I was getting things right to feel OK about myself. I could love and accept myself right now, because being human is hard.
I no longer believe that we have to fix our perceived defects in order to be happy. We can be content just as we are, even when parts of our experience are difficult. And we can wish that others too have ease of being, just as they are.
When we can bring this gentle acceptance to ourselves and to others – no matter how human or unskillful our behaviour, we can let go of the added burden of (self-)criticism. This means we can use that energy elsewhere: for compassion, support and love.
How would you use this extra energy?
This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post website, where you can find other blogs written by Sheila Bayliss.
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Thank you for this. You moved me to tears. I have had similar experiences and it is a relief to think that I might have ease of being just as I am and stop my painful and incessant striving to be someone else
Thank you so much for your comment Geraldine. It can be a huge burden to carry around I know. Of course, life always gives me something new to work with, but it’s very freeing to remind myself that we’re all enough, just as we are.
Interesting to ponder. I think the more we intend on experiencing deeper levels of happiness, the more we let go of limiting beliefs systems such as poverty consciousness. The thoughts we think lead us to experience joy or displeasure. Repetitive patterns of thoughts form our belief systems. I think that choosing to be happy and letting go of self-sabotaging belief systems go hand in hand, ie they are positively correlated. Excellent work on mindfulness and meditation.
Thank you for your comment Christopher. Yes, the beauty of this kind of practice – for me anyway – is that it takes me beyond how thoughts can keep me stuck in what I call my ‘limited self’. In mindfulness we see that thoughts are often a response to (or judgement of) our direct sensory experience, whether it’s perceived as pleasant or unpleasant. Over time as my meditation practice has deepened, I’ve learned that sometimes thoughts arise strongly, and sometimes ‘feelings’ arise strongly, and that I don’t always need to work out which way round they happen – I can just be with them all as part of the ever-changing flow of experience, without judging some as good and others as bad.
Great post Sheila, thanks for sharing your story.
It’ so easy to get caught up in the whole self improvement game, and it’s great to have a reminder of what really matters from time to time!
Oh thank you Luke. That’s so true – we often start with things like mindfulness because we want to be different in some way, but realising that it’s about being ok with how we already are is really powerful.
Beautiful! Thanks for sharing and being so open, and I’m glad to know I’m not the only one reading tons of self-help books and thinking I’m unworthy! : )
Thank you Stan, I’ve got braver about sharing more openly over the years – mostly because the teachers I’ve learned the most from have also been very open. I really believe it’s important that we learn to appreciate our human-ness, rather than try to escape it!
This brought such a smile to me today, thankyou. I not only did 1,000 self help books in the 80’s , but even years ago in meditation, Metta was only an add on. The meditation training I did,was all about being hard on yourself! ( 10 day silent retreats)
Having recently resumed practise after many years, I’m so glad my teachers now stress self-acceptance & self-compassion.
Thank you so much for your comment Marianna, it really resonated with me. I was very lucky to be taught within a tradition that emphasised kindness as much as mindfulness. I think when I first tried meditation years ago I thought that it was all about controlling my thoughts and that I was also failing at that! Once there’s an emphasis on being gentle and accepting with whatever we meet – in meditation, in ourselves, in life – then we can begin to be with our experience in a whole new way.