Category: Self-Compassion
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listen to your rage
Listen to your rage and hear the ache underneath— the excruciating gap between “should be” and “is actually.” Sometimes we call it grief. Feel it in your body— a burning, consuming flood of adrenaline priming you for action because “is actually” is actually unbearable. When your rage collapses, listen for its wisdom. Let it tell…
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this is why it hurts
this is why it hurts Did it hurt, the first time you gave yourself away? Did it sting, when the little pieces splintered into fragments that you wished you could take back, offered up like candy on the altar of broken relationships? Unaware, perhaps, of the crime you were committing, you were focused on perfecting…
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Welcome to the In-Between
Welcome to the In-Between Welcome to the in-between. I’d tell you to pull up a chair, but the furniture here never seems to quite fit. I’d say, “Make yourself comfortable,” but we’d only laugh— as though comfort were not the one most pressing desire at the forefront of your mind. God is here; this I…
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invitation to the unburdening
Image text: Enneagram work reveals how the weight of our armor has become more crushing than the things from which it was protecting us. Increased awareness is the beginning of the unburdening. Our personality is a gift that has allowed us to protect ourselves, but as we mature, we may begin to see that it…
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Holy Drudgery
“Anything can become a spiritual practice once you are willing to approach it that way—once you let it bring you to your knees and show you what is real…” -Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World When I’m anxious, I make my way to the laundry area before I even realize it. I watch…
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…even then, you were loved.
Even then, you were loved. When you did something great, something terrible, or nothing at all… When you felt the pressure of praise for performance and when you felt completely and utterly unseen… When God’s voice was loud and clear, and when God was eerily silent… When your pain was unbearable, and when your joy…
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all bodies are good bodies
Maybe instead of lamenting weight changes during traumatic seasons, we could practice saying, “This is the body that carried me through such a difficult time. Thank you.” Self-love and self-compassion can extend to these miraculous bodies we inhabit. Our bodies carry the joys, trauma, and scars of surviving in a beautiful, painful world. When we…
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transformation
Image text: It can be hard to empathize with someone else’s story when you’re drowning in your own. If you’re in survival mode, don’t let shame be piled on top of it all. Let go of the need to perform and instead, try to allow. The lessons of transformation will present themselves. Sometimes the best…
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liminal space
“Much of the work of authentic spirituality and human development is to get people into liminal space and to keep them there long enough that they can learn something essential and new.” -Fr. Richard Rohr “Liminal space” derives from the Latin for “threshold.” It is the space where we are no longer where we were…
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belonging vs. fitting in
Image contents: a poppy in a field of larkspurs. Text says,“‘If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in.’ Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown” I’ve long grappled with a sense of not quite fitting in wherever I go and have always wondered if everyone else…
Lindsay L. O'Connor 