Thank you Tara for your wonderful guidance which i have been following for some time and never tire of listening . When i can just let myself feel whatever im feeling , and hug the feeling (Generally fear , inadequacy, shame) the tightness, and constriction in the body starts to soften , i get in touch with acceptance and love which is all i need!
I became aware of a very deep fundamental decision point, a place or state of a sense of “snapping“, A point of choosing survival over vulnerability, an ongoing state that seems to have originated at some point in time where I decided kindness would equal too much vulnerability, too much pain, and becoming annihilated once and for all. A defensive state where I could feel superior to those “ordinary“ vulnerable, weak people. And yet, some part of me feels compassion for how I could make such a decision to try to be strong so I could survive.
Felice Urban, Social Work, Westlake Village, CA, USAsays
Thank you Tara for this very insightful video. I felt like you were describing me 100%. It was sad to be 59 years old that I’ve been struggling with this issue for years.
Never feeling comfortable in my own skin. It’s not just the idea of being authentic to myself but what would that even look like as I don’t even have any idea of what would be my authentic self. So when listening and trying to compassion for my self I feel calm and accepting in the moment. Unfortunately whether I meditate or not I can’t seem to snap out of this compassion the minute I get on with my daily life. I feel like I’m on a treadmill. Like it’s Groundhog Day. It’s really a momentary reprieve from the news constantly please everybody else and worry and be anxious about being found out and what other peoples judgment would be from me. I know what to do but I don’t know how to sustain and internalize it. So bottom line is I felt defeated and negative in ugh momentary acceptance
Tara, I have recently been through a very traumatic time. I first began to respond by becoming “busy” and detached from the emotional distress. I was working hard on getting things done. Finally, I could no longer avoid my emotions. I allowed myself to cry, breakdown, and even laugh hysterically when I felt like I had nothing left. I reached our for support from family members. Some responded with love and compassion, others with judgement and “you should …” I began to realize that my repressed feelings of “unworthiness and not good enough” from my childhood were again resurfacing. I was learning to embrace the inner child within and realize that her suffering was no longer serving me. I send love and compassion to her without judgement. Although the journey has been difficult, I am learning to let go of self critical pain that is no longer serving me.
Thank you for your guidance, calm presence and sharing your personal stories. It reminds me that we are all on our own journey and responsible for our healing with love and compassion.
I felt a sense of ease of being allowed to have my feelings without any judgement from me. I felt that also decreased the intense feelings of anxiousness of needing to do something.
I found a sense of loneliness, subtle and quiet but present. When I witnessed it inside the words, “I love you” and “you got this” came to me. I felt peace just to identify what lay inside and greater still to hear my own heart reassure me that I was loved.
My anxiety and edginess felt like it melted away. I also had an awareness of how I sometimes feel like I need that anxiety to gear up for and face the day. Perhaps I could try facing the day without it?
I think I get stuck in the self kindness which I appreciate but don’t seem to get beyond this. It has helped to recognize feelings and be kind to my self but I am still struggling to go forward. Traumatic experiences as a child and the. As an adult seem to cling to me.
Hello, thanks for these videos, I deeply appreciate your generosity.
When I try to help myself, there is always this idea that I don’t deserve this help, or kindness or support. Help should go to others that are a better person than I am.
I followed recently the 40 teachings you offered with Jack and, when almost at the end, I was feeling impatient with 2 people on a path along a river and I thought, you got nothing from the teaching. I am very hard on myself and it’s not easy to chnge that. I am netter though because I used to think and say outloud that I was intelligent. I might have other qualities but the talent of intelligence. I don’t say that anymore. Improvment. But I still don’t know how to be mybest friend but your teaching certainly open a door. Thanks, with deep gratitude.
I felt grateful for the permission to take a tiny break from the strong feelings of self-hatred and disappointment.
I am looking forward to hearing how to do this when loved ones criticize or show disapproval of me
Hello, thanks for these videos, I deeply appreciate your generosity.
When I try to help myself, there is always this idea that I don’t deserve this help, or kindness or support. Help should go to others that are a better person than I am.
I followed recently the 40 teachings you offered with Jack and, when almost at the end, I was feeling impatient with 2 people on a path along a river and I thought, you got nothing from the teaching. I am very hard on myself and it’s not easy to chnge that. I am netter though because I used to think and say outloud that I was intelligent. I might have other qualities but the talent of intelligence. I don’t say that anymore. Improvment. But I still don’t know how to be mybest friend but your teaching certainly open a door. Thanks, with deep gratitude.
Kindness brought in alongside experiencing the video and listening to your words provided an allowance for grace. Almost like I was giving myself permission to be good to myself. A bringing me back to center of who I am, not who my judging mind tells me I am.
Refreshing
It’s hard to know how to help your child when the other parent has opposing values – the kid often feels so torn. I recommend looking into NVC (Non-Violent Communication) resources online & using that with your son (and yourself.) it might take the edge off and create some support for you and your son and should support any therapy you do, as well. Sending love and blessings to you and your sweet son.
How can I help my son learn these skills? I’ve found the gift of these lessons after years of being in the trance. How can I as a parent help my sons learn these skills earlier so as to have them in their toolkit for the journeys they face in life? How can I balance parenting with compassion without being too easy? My ex husband feels I’m too easy and am raising a lazy child who doesn’t have accountability. I see a struggling child who feels unworthy and shamed by his dad and stepmom. I’m desperate to help him. Therapists are hard to find during the pandemic but I’m on several waitlists.
Deep gratitude Tara and nicabm- would you believe that your email popped into my inbox just at the moment I began to journal about my feelings of unworthiness! Deep gratitude to Devine synchronicity. I am in a loop that I cannot seem to shift out of. I have been on my wonderful spiritual journey/journey to true self for a number of years now and have literally just discovered the thing that I believe is keeping me stuck! The belief that I am not enough. I have never even considered that that was it, but oh my! …today I realised it. Deep Joy. Work to do. Your video was a blessing to me and I am keen to look in as you have described and I am so looking forward to video 2 with help to get out of the “loop”. Your voice is very soothing Tara and I have listened to you often. I enjoyed the Radical Compassion summit as I knew this to be key to my progress and I read my notes regularly for guidance and encouragement. Thank you for your time and dedication. Alli x
Thank you, very heart opening.
I felt the stuckness of wanting to be deserving, wanting the evidence of being deserving to show in my world around me. There is frustration, anger, “What is wrong with me? How do I fix it?”
Offering compassion, I felt connected to the part that does not accept itself. I can be with that part, be kind to that part, when I step outside of it and observe it, relate to it.
My undeservingness comes when i am looking at all the tasks undone in my home and work, and in Winter this happens more for me.
After the exercise I made a plan for the day’s tasks, and I am feeling better, and empowered and ….grateful about the beautiful sunny day today.
First going for a nature walk by my local river where I teach walking meditation and in the summer I teach yoga at Walden Pond.
Nature as healer is my ally.
Namaste,
Nanri
~Artist and meditation teacher
Considering my worthiness, or lack there of, made me chuckle. I recently experienced the attention from having done exceptionally well, and now community focus has moved on to others. I am not in the spotlight. I was questioning my worthiness. Wrong question/topic.
What I am working on deeply (and want to work on) right now is building exquisite friendships, being more of a friend by listening deeply and giving my time to my friends and associates. Being out of the spotlight is a gift as I can focus on this personal goal.
I felt a deep sadness. I got to almost 60 years old and had got it so wrong, hurt those who loved me and who have now passed on so that I couldn’t make amends. This left me with both regret and a struggle to forgive myself. I have learnt so much over the passed few years in realising I hadn’t been true to myself. But I was able to recognise my sadness and grief and stay with it and to be kind to myself.
It wasn’t as difficult as it seemed. The awareness felt like it was waiting for me and the focus allowed me not to overthink or be harshly critical. It felt like a friendly sigh.
Janet Campbell, Teacher, UPPER BLACK EDDY, PA, USAsays
I resonated with everything you shared. I am always judging myself and always falling short of approval and love. I’m desperate to get it from others but I do understand that it has to come from within. I’m anxious all the time after 30 years of Recovery I’m still troubled and falling short of my life’s purpose.
I realized that when I lash out at others, it is because I’m having a hard time “being with” my feelings of deficiency and defectiveness. I realized I don’t have to “do” anything because compassion just requires me to “be with” myself and my feelings. I told myself, “I’m here. I’m with you.”
I felt a peacefulness fall over me and a willingness to release and let go of the discomfort, there was a deep sadness, that I am not being all that I can be, there is a need to be perfect. If I am perfect I will be loved.
On self-reflection, I sense a scared child within me, curled up, expecting to be told what’s wrong with me, preparing to be punished. I have to imagine an accepting parent who will hold me with love and compassion, who will validate me that life is tough. I have to become that parent. I have to overcome that childhood helplessness and, as a therapist, begin to recognize it in others. It is my self-compassion that will change authority figures from fearful disruptors of my feelings into people who need that compassion in their own lives.
When I invited in kindness I felt a sense of lightness come over me, almost like a window opening. It felt lighter and I noticed myself sitting taller, there was an openness to my thinking then and I felt more intone with myself more in touch with what was physically around me too.-Sarah Elliott
Thank you Tara for your wonderful guidance which i have been following for some time and never tire of listening . When i can just let myself feel whatever im feeling , and hug the feeling (Generally fear , inadequacy, shame) the tightness, and constriction in the body starts to soften , i get in touch with acceptance and love which is all i need!
Thank you.
The feeling lifted a bit and I gave myself permission to let it go. Amazing
I became aware of a very deep fundamental decision point, a place or state of a sense of “snapping“, A point of choosing survival over vulnerability, an ongoing state that seems to have originated at some point in time where I decided kindness would equal too much vulnerability, too much pain, and becoming annihilated once and for all. A defensive state where I could feel superior to those “ordinary“ vulnerable, weak people. And yet, some part of me feels compassion for how I could make such a decision to try to be strong so I could survive.
Thank you Tara for this very insightful video. I felt like you were describing me 100%. It was sad to be 59 years old that I’ve been struggling with this issue for years.
Never feeling comfortable in my own skin. It’s not just the idea of being authentic to myself but what would that even look like as I don’t even have any idea of what would be my authentic self. So when listening and trying to compassion for my self I feel calm and accepting in the moment. Unfortunately whether I meditate or not I can’t seem to snap out of this compassion the minute I get on with my daily life. I feel like I’m on a treadmill. Like it’s Groundhog Day. It’s really a momentary reprieve from the news constantly please everybody else and worry and be anxious about being found out and what other peoples judgment would be from me. I know what to do but I don’t know how to sustain and internalize it. So bottom line is I felt defeated and negative in ugh momentary acceptance
Tara, I have recently been through a very traumatic time. I first began to respond by becoming “busy” and detached from the emotional distress. I was working hard on getting things done. Finally, I could no longer avoid my emotions. I allowed myself to cry, breakdown, and even laugh hysterically when I felt like I had nothing left. I reached our for support from family members. Some responded with love and compassion, others with judgement and “you should …” I began to realize that my repressed feelings of “unworthiness and not good enough” from my childhood were again resurfacing. I was learning to embrace the inner child within and realize that her suffering was no longer serving me. I send love and compassion to her without judgement. Although the journey has been difficult, I am learning to let go of self critical pain that is no longer serving me.
Thank you for your guidance, calm presence and sharing your personal stories. It reminds me that we are all on our own journey and responsible for our healing with love and compassion.
I felt like I could breath, something softened
I felt calm and relaxed.
I felt a sense of ease of being allowed to have my feelings without any judgement from me. I felt that also decreased the intense feelings of anxiousness of needing to do something.
I experienced a blankness, thinking ‘I don’t know how to do this’. As I stayed with it I felt a warmth in my heart…such a surprise! Thank you.
I found a sense of loneliness, subtle and quiet but present. When I witnessed it inside the words, “I love you” and “you got this” came to me. I felt peace just to identify what lay inside and greater still to hear my own heart reassure me that I was loved.
My anxiety and edginess felt like it melted away. I also had an awareness of how I sometimes feel like I need that anxiety to gear up for and face the day. Perhaps I could try facing the day without it?
I am able to do this but it does not ease the empty nest syndrome and not having a mate.
I think I get stuck in the self kindness which I appreciate but don’t seem to get beyond this. It has helped to recognize feelings and be kind to my self but I am still struggling to go forward. Traumatic experiences as a child and the. As an adult seem to cling to me.
Re-Experiencing the defensiveness, anger, judgment I have felt recently toward a friend I have been helping with medical problems.
I felt an internal softening and warmth.
I didn’t want to accept it. It felt patronizing. Like I should just suck it up and get in with things.
Love your neighbor as you love yourself!
I felt peace calm and lightness. And a strength and optimism emerged. Thank you for this tool of insight.
When I asked myself, can I be with this with kindness, my body softened. The feelings were not longer intense, and I felt ok, even supported.
Hello, thanks for these videos, I deeply appreciate your generosity.
When I try to help myself, there is always this idea that I don’t deserve this help, or kindness or support. Help should go to others that are a better person than I am.
I followed recently the 40 teachings you offered with Jack and, when almost at the end, I was feeling impatient with 2 people on a path along a river and I thought, you got nothing from the teaching. I am very hard on myself and it’s not easy to chnge that. I am netter though because I used to think and say outloud that I was intelligent. I might have other qualities but the talent of intelligence. I don’t say that anymore. Improvment. But I still don’t know how to be mybest friend but your teaching certainly open a door. Thanks, with deep gratitude.
I so relate to your comments. Thank you for yelling me to not feel so alone. So much needless suffering in the world.
I felt grateful for the permission to take a tiny break from the strong feelings of self-hatred and disappointment.
I am looking forward to hearing how to do this when loved ones criticize or show disapproval of me
I felt LOVE
Hello, thanks for these videos, I deeply appreciate your generosity.
When I try to help myself, there is always this idea that I don’t deserve this help, or kindness or support. Help should go to others that are a better person than I am.
I followed recently the 40 teachings you offered with Jack and, when almost at the end, I was feeling impatient with 2 people on a path along a river and I thought, you got nothing from the teaching. I am very hard on myself and it’s not easy to chnge that. I am netter though because I used to think and say outloud that I was intelligent. I might have other qualities but the talent of intelligence. I don’t say that anymore. Improvment. But I still don’t know how to be mybest friend but your teaching certainly open a door. Thanks, with deep gratitude.
I felt a gooey warmth and an urge to stay with myself longer than just that moment.
Thank you, Tara. You are the embodiment of kindness.
Helpful to remember to face discomfort w kindness
the same kindness one would offer a friend.
I realized I was capable of most that was placed in front of me . Thank you. That is a monumental boost
Always beginning with where we are and taking time to notice offers so many options.
Kindness brought in alongside experiencing the video and listening to your words provided an allowance for grace. Almost like I was giving myself permission to be good to myself. A bringing me back to center of who I am, not who my judging mind tells me I am.
Refreshing
It’s hard to know how to help your child when the other parent has opposing values – the kid often feels so torn. I recommend looking into NVC (Non-Violent Communication) resources online & using that with your son (and yourself.) it might take the edge off and create some support for you and your son and should support any therapy you do, as well. Sending love and blessings to you and your sweet son.
How can I help my son learn these skills? I’ve found the gift of these lessons after years of being in the trance. How can I as a parent help my sons learn these skills earlier so as to have them in their toolkit for the journeys they face in life? How can I balance parenting with compassion without being too easy? My ex husband feels I’m too easy and am raising a lazy child who doesn’t have accountability. I see a struggling child who feels unworthy and shamed by his dad and stepmom. I’m desperate to help him. Therapists are hard to find during the pandemic but I’m on several waitlists.
Somehow my message to you about your son posted above your comment.
Deep gratitude Tara and nicabm- would you believe that your email popped into my inbox just at the moment I began to journal about my feelings of unworthiness! Deep gratitude to Devine synchronicity. I am in a loop that I cannot seem to shift out of. I have been on my wonderful spiritual journey/journey to true self for a number of years now and have literally just discovered the thing that I believe is keeping me stuck! The belief that I am not enough. I have never even considered that that was it, but oh my! …today I realised it. Deep Joy. Work to do. Your video was a blessing to me and I am keen to look in as you have described and I am so looking forward to video 2 with help to get out of the “loop”. Your voice is very soothing Tara and I have listened to you often. I enjoyed the Radical Compassion summit as I knew this to be key to my progress and I read my notes regularly for guidance and encouragement. Thank you for your time and dedication. Alli x
Thank you, very heart opening.
I felt the stuckness of wanting to be deserving, wanting the evidence of being deserving to show in my world around me. There is frustration, anger, “What is wrong with me? How do I fix it?”
Offering compassion, I felt connected to the part that does not accept itself. I can be with that part, be kind to that part, when I step outside of it and observe it, relate to it.
Thank you!
My undeservingness comes when i am looking at all the tasks undone in my home and work, and in Winter this happens more for me.
After the exercise I made a plan for the day’s tasks, and I am feeling better, and empowered and ….grateful about the beautiful sunny day today.
First going for a nature walk by my local river where I teach walking meditation and in the summer I teach yoga at Walden Pond.
Nature as healer is my ally.
Namaste,
Nanri
~Artist and meditation teacher
As I let myself really touch on my feelings and brought Kindness to them I felt my anxiety decrease.
It felt foreign
Considering my worthiness, or lack there of, made me chuckle. I recently experienced the attention from having done exceptionally well, and now community focus has moved on to others. I am not in the spotlight. I was questioning my worthiness. Wrong question/topic.
What I am working on deeply (and want to work on) right now is building exquisite friendships, being more of a friend by listening deeply and giving my time to my friends and associates. Being out of the spotlight is a gift as I can focus on this personal goal.
Thank you
-What’s happening inside of me
-Can I be with it w kindness
Self discovery in the moment to hear that and ask self
I felt a deep sadness. I got to almost 60 years old and had got it so wrong, hurt those who loved me and who have now passed on so that I couldn’t make amends. This left me with both regret and a struggle to forgive myself. I have learnt so much over the passed few years in realising I hadn’t been true to myself. But I was able to recognise my sadness and grief and stay with it and to be kind to myself.
It wasn’t as difficult as it seemed. The awareness felt like it was waiting for me and the focus allowed me not to overthink or be harshly critical. It felt like a friendly sigh.
Thank you Tara♥️
I felt a sense of opening like there was more space and freedom inside
I resonated with everything you shared. I am always judging myself and always falling short of approval and love. I’m desperate to get it from others but I do understand that it has to come from within. I’m anxious all the time after 30 years of Recovery I’m still troubled and falling short of my life’s purpose.
A sigh of insight and relief.
I realized that when I lash out at others, it is because I’m having a hard time “being with” my feelings of deficiency and defectiveness. I realized I don’t have to “do” anything because compassion just requires me to “be with” myself and my feelings. I told myself, “I’m here. I’m with you.”
I cried , because i felt so sad about what’s happening in my life right now. And it felt good and soft inside, to be with it. Thank you !!!
I felt a peacefulness fall over me and a willingness to release and let go of the discomfort, there was a deep sadness, that I am not being all that I can be, there is a need to be perfect. If I am perfect I will be loved.
On self-reflection, I sense a scared child within me, curled up, expecting to be told what’s wrong with me, preparing to be punished. I have to imagine an accepting parent who will hold me with love and compassion, who will validate me that life is tough. I have to become that parent. I have to overcome that childhood helplessness and, as a therapist, begin to recognize it in others. It is my self-compassion that will change authority figures from fearful disruptors of my feelings into people who need that compassion in their own lives.
When I invited in kindness I felt a sense of lightness come over me, almost like a window opening. It felt lighter and I noticed myself sitting taller, there was an openness to my thinking then and I felt more intone with myself more in touch with what was physically around me too.-Sarah Elliott
Thanks.Very helpful to use with clients.