Tag: selfcompassion

The Small Things

Posted on by andrew

Raghavi (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

 

New Year’s is a time of reflection for many. A time to look back on the past year and to look ahead to the future. I used to write out a list of lofty goals every New Year, and then promptly forget about them by the end of January. I would put far too many things on the list and end up too overwhelmed to work on any of them. Over the last few years, I’ve realized that starting small is the best way to accomplish change for me. Now I am much more sparing with my goal setting. I don’t put pressure on myself to set goals for the sake of the new year, so some years I have just one or two goals, and some years I have none.

 

I also don’t wait for the new year. Instead I just do it throughout the year, as I identify things that I want to work on. I use the same approach with my to-do lists, paring the tasks down to the absolute essentials, and now I am much more successful in getting those tasks done. On the hard days I skip the to-do list altogether and write a have-done list instead. I write down all the things I have accomplished throughout the day, even if it is something as small as getting out of bed or having a shower. It instantly makes me feel better about myself.

 

When it comes to working toward an actual goal, embracing small steps has been a game changer for me. The old adage “Rome wasn’t built in a day” is a good way of visualizing this. You cannot go from a beginner level guitar player to a virtuoso overnight. It takes many small steps over time. Often when I set a goal, it’s hard to know where to start, as it just seems like one giant, unscalable mountain. This is where breaking it down into smaller parts is helpful. It makes it less overwhelming, and the work I need to do becomes much clearer.

 

Also, realizing that there will never be a perfect time to start working has been a lightbulb moment for me. I just have to make use of the time I have, even if it’s squeezing in five minutes in the morning before work or a few minutes before bed. The old me would wait for inspiration and motivation to strike, preferably when I had a big chunk of free time, but that ideal confluence never happened. It seems like such a simple concept, but I still catch myself thinking, “I’ll wait for a better time” to start something. I have to actively push myself and say, “I am going to do it right now, even if it doesn’t seem like the perfect time.” 

 

A lot of times, especially when a task is difficult or laborious, my mind throws up a wall and I find myself avoiding the work. A technique that I have found useful to help me break through this mind block is the Pomodoro Technique, which is setting a timer for 25 minutes and working without stopping for those 25 minutes before taking a break. I usually aim for 10 minutes and I don’t always use a timer, but the concept has been incredibly useful in helping me get started. I find that once I actually start, I get into a rhythm and often keep going well beyond 10 minutes, but even if I only do 10 minutes of work, I still feel a sense of achievement. 

 

Self-improvement is a wonderful pursuit, but it is important to remember that progress might not be linear and it might not be fast. There will be ups and downs and productive days and not so productive days. We are our own worst critics and often place unrealistic expectations on ourselves. It is important to have patience and self-compassion and to celebrate the small wins. We may not make giant leaps every day, but the small steps will add up over time to make lasting change. So don’t be harsh on yourself for not getting enough done, instead congratulate yourself on every small step that you take toward the future you dream of.

 

—

 

Leave your thoughts for Raghavi in the comments below — better yet, start up a dialogue with the Low Entropy community in person at a Conscious Connections meeting or online at our community site. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube to stay up-to-date with Low Entropy news!

Live Aloha

Posted on by andrew

Low Entropy Volunteer Writer Nicole Riglietti takes us on a transformative voyage, escaping from despair and self-contempt to Hawaii and the curative love of the Aloha Spirit.

 

With the carefully constructed confines of society, it is amazingly easy to feel lost in the day to day, in the moments and minutes of a grim reality. Lost in the crippling anxiety, lost in pleasing everyone, lost in self-neglect. A few years back, I was lost to who I was. On an unglamourous healing journey of self-discovery, I found kindness, compassion and self-love. Drowning in my own skin, stuck in the wretched grasp of my tormented mind. I felt like a captive prisoner held hostage to past hardships. It terrorized me as fierce flames engulf a house burning from the inside out. There was nowhere left to run. I felt my heart, mind and soul fill with self-loathing, unworthiness and the inescapable illusion of being unlovable. I felt it deep within my core, a belief I carried and held on to for years. Staring at myself in the mirror, screaming, begging, pleading for me to love me – all of me. Mocking tears gushed down my cheeks, and I had enough. I couldn’t escape my painful existence, so I escaped my surroundings and all the people in it. 

 

“The Aloha Spirit” . . . her words echoed as they left her lips, bouncing off the corners of my racing mind. ‘Aloha’ was nothing but a greeting, simply ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’. How could it mean anything more? On the plane I ruminated over my self-destructive ways and inability to feel love for myself, only  interrupted briefly by the flight attendant’s safety plan. 

 

“When the oxygen masks eject, put one over yourself first before helping the child beside you.” Even in the greatest heights of tragedy, one must help themselves first, before helping another. One must love themselves first, before loving another. What a concept. At the time it was completely foreign to me. ‘Self-love’ – what does that even mean?

 

Landing in Hawaii, I felt a sacred energy buzzing throughout the majestic island of Maui. Aloha. Just one word held so much power indeed. I saw it everywhere. Black bumper stickers with bright red lettering read ‘Practice Aloha’, and these bumper stickers were posted all over, hidden in plain sight to the untrained eye. When the locals said “Aloha,” it carried great weight. I discovered Aloha meant respect, honour, kindness, compassion, love, hope, responsibility, acceptance, openness and joy. All these profound words, these attributes embody the Aloha Spirit. Given to others, and especially to one’s self first. It never occurred to me that I should be treating myself in this way. Holding enough respect for myself to take care of me. Honour my worth, my skills and talents. Have the responsibility to fill my life with that which brings me joy. Speaking to myself with gentle kindness and compassion. Accepting all of me just as I am. Showing up for myself, having the courage to fight for a love I can be proud of and feeling completely whole.

 

Like trust, love has many layers that take years to build. I’m still building these layers. After much grueling inner work, I have a foundation which grows stronger daily. I found myself accepting my sorrow and celebrating my joy, for they are two sides of the same coin, forever intertwined. As I released the resistance, I also let go of all the fear, shame and doubt. I had courage to follow my heart.

 

I went on a hunt for this bumper sticker so that I might be reminded to practice Aloha. A woman stared at me oddly at my request, as I was not a local, just some woman clearly struggling with her own self-worth, held together by her faulty insecurities. Before I could grasp the bumper sticker in my hand, she told me I had to promise to practice Aloha. This calmed some of my anxieties, yet doubt is a persistent thing, always lurking in the shadows, pouncing on the vulnerable. Especially when one had been battling the darkness within, it was difficult to trust a newfound freedom.

 

Waiting for a bus to take me to the airport. Doubt and chaos controlling my mind, questioning the hallmark advertisement of ‘Aloha’, a kind “Hello” brought me back to my surroundings. On my left there was a cute old man who wanted to talk. To my amazement he brought up the ‘Aloha Spirit’, filling me with absolute hope. It raised my vibrations. How could he know that I’ve been focused on this phrase? I felt connected to him, connected to the ebbs and flows of the universe. As a native to Maui, he had a deep understanding of what the Aloha Spirit meant. His late wife, born and raised in New Jersey, had had it. He didn’t think it possible for a person not native to Hawaii to be filled with the Aloha Spirit.  In that moment, for different reasons, we both marveled at the possibility. 

 

After being strangled for years by suffering, when I gave into the idea of self-compassion, I began to feel lighter. Self-compassion opened the doors to the ‘Aloha Spirit’ and living in Aloha led me to the unconditional love I feel for myself, where I truly feel wholeheartedly complete. Self-love has shifted my perception on life, and I am genuinely able to spread the joy within me to those around me. Though the healing journey is a long, winding road, feeling like utter destruction at times, don’t give up. Keep going. Practice self-love. Live Aloha. 

 

Everybody has a spirituality specific to them – tell us about yours in the comments or at a Low Entropy meet-up . . . who knows? You could be one of those special moments on someone’s journey to self-love.

Practicing Self-Compassion to Improve Mental Health: My Personal Experience

Posted on by vwideski

Low Entropy Volunteer Writer Vivien Hannos discusses how being kind to herself creates opportunities for personal growth and improved mental health.

It was 1980, on Valentine’s Day, when I was diagnosed as a type 1 diabetic. I was only five years old. It was a life-altering diagnosis and the end of my childhood innocence. I had to learn how to administer my own shots of insulin and deal with both high and low blood sugar difficulties.

Low blood sugar reactions happen when there is not enough sugar in the bloodstream due to an excess of insulin. They cause me to become confused and shaky, and it is a life-threatening situation if I do not consume juice or sugar immediately. High blood sugar, on the other hand, is equally bad and, over time, can require limb amputation or result in kidney issues or blindness. 

My parents, at the time of diagnosis, thought that I needed to do a sport so that I would not lose my limbs to diabetic complications. My dad signed me up to learn to skate at Kerrisdale Arena, and that is where my love of skating started. It wasn’t long before I was wrapped up heavily in the competitive figure skating way of life. I practiced for hours and fell many times in my attempts to land new jumps so I could compete at a high level of skating.

Figure skating, being a subjective sport, relies on judges to determine the rankings of the competitors. I believe that over time, as a result of my disordered thinking of being judged continuously and my desperation to try to advance my ranking, I often examined myself in my attempts to fix my faults and gain a competitive edge. Unfortunately, all I accomplished was learning how to be too self-critical. For example, judges would look at how you behaved, what you wore, your facial expressions and how your body looked, and these were all factors in how one would place in rankings. I dwelt on my negative attributes daily and gave myself constant self-criticism.

According to Dr. Aaron T. Beck, the creator of cognitive behavioral therapy, depression can be caused by negative thinking. Therefore, spending a lot of time in a state of negative self-reflection as I did, can and did lead to an altered mood.

To make matters worse, severe depression, if left untreated, can cause a shift into psychosis, which leaves a person unable to tell what is real and not real while in that state. 

This is exactly what happened to me. I got sick with psychosis in 2006 after suffering unknowingly with depression for many years. At the time, leading up to the diagnosis and after already completing my university degree in communications, I was in a school that was training me for medical transcription and under a lot of stress, which put further strain on my brain.

This mental illness devastated me because of many factors. Not only was I humiliated to have a mental illness because of the stigma around mental health issues, but I also felt unlovable and rejected by society.

Psychosis is a serious mental illness, but is treatable with proper medication, which can bring the individual back into reality. As long as the medication is taken at an appropriate dosage, the state of being disconnected from society can be rectified. However, all you hear in the news are stories of people who are violent with mental illness. This is actually quite rare, but stigma remains.

I was brought under the careful watch of a psychiatrist, and with medication and talk therapy (cognitive behavioural therapy), I was told and shown that I was actually very hard on myself. This was the turning point.

I needed to change, and changing is very hard to do. It takes practice. I started to look at myself as imperfect beauty: I am beautiful because of the flaws that I have, not ugly because of my flaws. After retraining my brain to think in this manner by writing in my journal daily, I found that relationships were easier to maintain, and my confidence in myself grew.

I also found that allowing myself to make mistakes frequently, without judging myself, helped as well. It wasn’t long before I noticed that my mood was improving. My mood was further helped with an antidepressant, but the real benefit is from the positive self-compassion I have now.

Have you experienced your own journey toward self-compassion and kindness? Share your stories in the comments, or check out Low Entropy’s services for opportunities to spread positivity to others in a virtual meeting.