Last Monday night, thirty six women showed up at our 2nd Arkitekt Conversations to talk about How to Be With People Who Are Hurting (starting with yourself).
So many brave, vulnerable things were spoken into the space. At the end of the night, we went around in a circle and each woman shared one way she would practice being kind to herself as a spoken out loud pledge of intention and accountability.
We collected these nuggets of wisdom and offer them here in the hopes that something said might offer a way in to practices of compassion.
One of the common threads through the questions asked was how universally HARD on ourselves we are as women.
No matter what we do, it’s not enough. The voices in our heads are punishingly cruel, unrelenting in their comparison talk.
As we shared stories of the mean voices, we circled around a few ideas..
The antidote to Comparison is Curiosity.
When you feel comparison arise, turn it into a question, “What is this and what do I have to learn?”
It could be that when you feel comparison arise, it’s your own conscious letting you know that something is out of alignment, that something is in Cognitive Dissonance. Cognitive Dissonance is when your character and your choices are not lining up. Comparison voices could be teachers pointing you in the direction of your own integrity.
Sometimes, comparison is there to help you realize you need people on your Design + Build Team, that you need Mirror People to remind you of WHO YOU ARE. You are not supposed to go at this life alone. We need to practice calling each other into the light. We need to practice giving the kind of love we long to receive because in doing so, we WILL receive that same love echoed back in our direction.
Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.”
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise
Someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a
Full moon in each eye that is always saying,
With that sweet moon language, what every other eye in
This world is dying to hear? - hafiz
Sometimes the “I’m not Enough” script isn’t ours. It’s been handed down through generations in our lineage, through expectations around what it means to be a woman, and it’s time to cut the ties with those untrue stories and start writing a Counter-narrative, one where we are the hero we’ve been waiting for.
WAYS TO PRACTICE COMPASSION
—Learning how to speak to myself the way I would a dear friend
—Paying attention to my INNER KNOWER and trusting what it says.
—Allowing the strong and hard things to come.
—”Be done with Enduring”
—Every morning, I write down all the things I long for, then I choose three: one for myself, one for my circle of people, and one for fun, and I try to do those things.
—Once I HONOR myself, I go serve.
— “I am enough” as a mantra. Belief in my worthiness.
— Listening to my body when it’s talking to me and really hearing it.
—BREATHING. Paying attention to my Parasympathetic Nervous System …google that :)
—Not making moral judgments on my feelings. Allowing myself to feel what I feel without categorizing my feelings and then letting the feelings be expressed.
—GET IN NATURE. When I walk, I see 3 things, smell 3 things, hear 3 things. Sometimes, when the choices in front of me are hard, this makes them feel less hard and also helps me remember GRATITUDE that I have a choice.
—Not taking everything so personally. Assuming everyone is doing their best, including me.
—Allowing myself to take up space. Writing myself permission slips.
—When I feel overwhelmed, exercise. And baking.
—I named my EGO a silly name, and I made it speak in a Donald Duck voice so that when it talks, it helps remind me not to take the stories so seriously.
—The awareness of my connectivity to everything helps me remember my responsibility: the energy I’m creating here is universal energy
—Letting go and surrendering
—PERMISSION SLIPS to rest without feeling guilty
—Taking the thought captive and then counterbalancing it with kindness, like how I would speak to a child
—Asking for time to replenish, even to take a break from work so that the energy I bring to my job is my highest and best self
—Opening myself up to the SOURCE of abundance and infinite love and allowing it to fill me. It’s a daily/hourly practice of allowing myself to receive love.
—In the morning, TRUST. In the evening, letting myself know that I am enough and I did enough
—Exist in the present and respond instead of always preparing or judging in my head. Whatever I put out there, I will be met with.
—DANCING in the morning for 5 minutes. Shaking myself into joy
—It doesn’t have to be me who does all the things. Practicing freedom to open my hand and pass it. Just because I can do it and want to do it, doesn’t mean I have to do it.
—Physical rest. Naps. And the awareness that I’m a CHILD OF GOD and I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
