We find it very hard to give ourselves compassion. Without a doubt the majority of people are capable of feeling compassion for others in distress but would deny compassion to themselves. Adversity is something we all experience at some point in our lives: sometimes it just comes and hits us and at other times we bring it on ourselves. Yet do we forgive ourselves when we make the mistake? very rarely. Deep inside lurks that voice that says “You are stupid, you are cruel, or you shouldn’t have done that.” There are, of course, some people who could not care less about hurting others, hopefully they are a minority even though we hear a lot about them, life has a way of balancing things and we cannot always know why they act the way they do, and these words would be of no interest to them.
Supposing that we do, or say, something to another person that is either untrue, or causes them harm or loss, we are then the object of their anger, distress, or even their need to ‘get even’ with us. We try to apologise but our apology is not accepted, we may be shunned, demonized or even harmed in some way. So the voice that lurks inside says “see, you are not worth forgiving, you are useless, nobody likes you.” The anger directed towards us helps those feeling it to release some of the unhappiness that our error may have caused, but we, the unfortunate perpetrator, do not have a release and this is where the need for compassion for the self comes in.
Perhaps you have made a mistake at work, or started a business that failed, and lost all your money and possibly other peoples money, you are a complete failure you think. Even when that loss of job is not your fault you may still feel useless, a failure.As all the negative feelings build around you, which is very normal in these sort of situations, this is the time when you have to take some steps towards healing for yourself. By this I do not mean feeling sorry for yourself but accepting that sometimes we get things wrong, life does bad things to us, we make mistakes and sometimes other people get hurt.
Yes, it is even worse if those around are not prepared to forgive, and we then have to accept that and move on, even if that means some people have gone from our lives.
The travails and adversity in life sometimes leaves people homeless, friendless, and in poor health: and people in that situation may feel that they are in a deep dark hole with no way out, they do not have the will to look for help. There is one thing around us wherever we are that is free and that is colour. Stop and allow colour to be absorbed into the system, look at the blue sky, imagine it bringing healing as the colour is breathed in. Look at green leaves, study the structure, give the brain some moments of relaxation whilst the balance and harmony of that colour creeps into your system. The fact that light is made up of all the rainbow colours is something that’s available to be used wherever the need arises. Pink is generally considered to be the colour of compassion so spend some time visualising varieties of that colour, or even look at pink flowers and again study the structure. Affirm to yourself that you are of value, you have something to give and that you forgive your past mistakes. It is time to move on.