Exercises: Compassion for Parts of You that You’ve Hated

You likely have adopted and are continuing to use the same treatment on yourself that you were taught growing up, and for many of us, it wasn't always kind. You may not even consciously realize what you are doing let alone be able to make a conscious choice to treat yourself differently. 

Parts can be parts of you like emotions, external parts such as your physical appearance, or areas of performance, talents or lack of talents. We often learn to mistreat parts of ourselves we don’t like, not for the sake of beating them up, but for the sake of survival. "You need connection like you need food and water (Laura Duncan)" so if a part of you was not welcomed or loved with patience and kindness growing up, then you learn to treat it the same, or may treat it even worse for the sake of emotional/relational survival. We learn on a body based level what leads to safety and connection and if we are taught experientially over and over that some characteristic leads to disconnection or a lack of physical or emotional safety and connection, then we unconsciously do everything to keep it from coming up.

This exercise is to write a list of parts of you that you were taught to hate, punish, judge, mock, or shame etc. growing up. Write out and make conscious the unloving or hateful thoughts you have toward that part of you, and then the challenge is to write a loving statement instead.

Create two lists with the same parts. 

Then write out the thoughts of self-hate or punishment or shame that have been ruling your mind that you are aware of next to the list of one set of parts, and then write a compassion statement next to the parts on a different page.

Explore any bodily or emotional reactions that arise as you write out your list and work to identify and bring compassion to the conflicting emotions that may surface in this exercise.

 Remember you can have conflicting emotions toward compassion itself if it wasn’t safe to even hope for let alone given in childhood. If the resistance is too high, add an "-ing" (i.e. I'm learning that my moody self just needed compassion and a hug instead of punishment etc.)

Follow what I call the comfort pathway: Identify & Attune

(I’m feeling… My body is… tensing or dissociating etc.) , Validate (“It makes sense I’m feeling…), Compassion (“I’m so sorry… or “that’s really hard…”), and Comfort (Compassion statements may be sufficient or a calm hand on your heart or a self hug in a warm blanket since your body and heart were wired to receive comfort as the recovery emotion from difficult emotions or circumstances). 

Go Slow. Be a compassionate witness when this activity brings up reactions inside of you.

Be kind, remember the healing journey is a journey.

You do not need to write EVERY part in one sitting or it may launch you beyond your window of tolerance. This will likely be a list you add to over time as you build your awareness and ability to sit with your internal world. If you start to recognize you are going outside of your window of tolerance (ie dissociation comes on strongly as a freeze response, or anxiety or resistance increase as a fight/flight response, ground yourself back in the present moment. Remember if compassion wasn’t even safe to hope for let alone receive in childhood, your body will revert to threat mode when attempting to give yourself compassion as an adult. It may feel bad, wrong, or you may feel guilty to not be in some form of self-punishment. We often have developed “allergies” to compassion and we can often often only tolerate small doses at a time, so go slow.

When you have done the lists, take your list of self-hatred statements, rip them up or burn them (safely). Then read through your replacement compassion statements again (slowly).

Breathe. Go Slow. Begin. Take a look at the list below, see if any of these parts resonate with you, adapt, change, add, or take away as fits you and your journey.

• My moody self 

• My introverted self 

• My serious self

• My goofy self 

• My tardy self 

• My imperfect self (tasks and appearance) 

• My not quick enough self 

• My creative self 

• My emotional self 

• My sentimental self 

• My appearance, specifically my ______________________

• My talent of ______________________ 

• My ignorant self 

• My indecisive self 

• My reactive self 

• My mocked self 

• My punished self 

• My shamed self 

• My parts that have failed 

• Can also be good parts that threatened a parents security (i.e. talents of singing, sports, or even empathy etc.)