I occasionally rely on [sometimes reiterating] this brief affirmation:

"I am worthwhile: Worth the While!"... 

Cis, Please do let folks know about your private Facebook page so they can have discussions that require more discretion -- I think it's great to have as many discussions going as possible!

Christy, YES, we need to head in the direction of finding what really works and create useful structure around those findings and insights so we can offer them to alll...

Donna

Hello Randy,

I agree with you--how can we devise some structure and agreements around this so that the sharing is not only alive but also informs a healing manifesto, if you will.  We know so much--and the sharing and learning from one another is essential.  Perhaps we can have a call to suggest a way to share and also in a way that both enriches ourselves as we share but informs our shared goal to move into driving self, family and community led healing!

In terms of basic goodness, I agree. It is a lived experience that there is an organic drive for healing and unfolding and integrating childhood trauma can be activated perhaps only by first grounding in and believing this this basic goodness.  I'm not sure we could do the work of healing or even long to without this consciousness.  So, activating our capacity to heal requires embodied belief in our goodness and worth yet this is the very thing impacted in trauma--it is a tricky yoga pose for sure and we need one another in this dance of healing so much to border each other in self-love as we build it and then move into an unstoppable healing journey!

More soon I hope.  Christina

You are so welcome, Randy...  Love to speak with you more about meditation and how it heals us...

You ask "what other people do to cultivate feelings of self-worth. What do you do to remember that you are intrinsically worthy?"

Wow, feeling is the key word there...  I can tell myself, remembering in words, til I'm blue in the face, that I'm worthy - but that's all head talk.  That's why Brenee Brown's "solution" to just paint "I am worthy" on our chests doesn't work.

Essentially what I have to do to is A. Do a lot of meditation to practice being Present so that I can even find out what the heck I am feeling (thus my Stardust blog)

B.  Then once I can find out what I'm feeling, I go sit with other human mammals who are safe for me (don't want to get anything from me) and tell them my feelings, especially my "bad" feelings, and see that they can listen and not make me bad for my feelings.  And then my bad feelings about me, start to become good feelings about me. Once I've done that enough with someone, then I can even do it by phone with them.

Thank you all so much for your responses. I am taking them in. It is so good just to have people--real people--with whom to dialogue.

Thanks to all of you for sharing these thoughts. In following 13 people through their journeys when writing Childhood Disrupted, I found that everyone had different practices that resonated for them. They kept trying things and then found two or three that resonated on a very deep level -- and that voice of self-loathing began to grow less harsh, less frequent, quieter. For me I meditate, do yoga poses, ground myself in the moment by taking note of my feet on the ground, or a leaf blowing in the wind, or a cloud traveling in the sky.  I use a lot of self talk these days -- Tara Brach teaches this so well -- I put my hand over my heart and say, Forgiven.  I tell myself, Donna, it's okay, it's okay sweetheart (Sylvia Boorstein teaches this so well). Little by little throughout the day these small moments add up and I am less likely to get caught up in the super black hole of self hatred, self-flagellation, the trap of unworthiness. Recently, I have been going one step further, and noting my deepest triggers, what causes them, and how when they occur I get caught in a cycle of feeling I am bad, and the other person is bad, and hearing the thoughts, noting them, and coming back into my practices. It's constant work, and I only know that year by year, the work is paying off. It is also allowing me to be a better parent, a better friend, a better person on the planet.  Thanks, Randy for starting this conversation!

Hi Randy, 

I can totally relate to those challenges. When things are really tough, it's a struggle. I search for distractions and struggle to just sit with feelings of discomfort. I find that if I'm mindful of diet, exercise, and sleep, I can maintain more calm and ease with the world. Body movement is so key to my happiness. Little do we reflect on how basic this nutrient is for our well-being. I've found breath work to be super powerful in the moment. The simple act of slowing your exhale down as slow as you can make it will cause your heart rate to drop and your parasympathetic nervous system to kick into gear. This gives you the strength to avoid feeling overwhelmed. It's surely a lifelong journey to become aware and to learn what care we need to feel the peace we all deserve. 

Chris

Hi Randy,

Beautiful, I just made a tape for my therapist Aug. 6 entitled "I'm Not Bad."   No coincidence; the psychiatric & neuroscience literature tells us that when we don't get holding and love as kids, especially as infants, while our very "self" is forming, then we early on don't think, but rather deeply feel, that we are bad.

So indeed the problem is to move this from our thinking frontal cortex knowledge, to our feeling limbic brains -- that's the $256 billion question. Just on Aug. 6, I actually started to feel -- that I'm not bad. After 5 years of bone-crunching on grief, meditation, and finally good attachment therapy.

I too have a Buddhist "Self-Compassion" meditation practice, and like Cissy, I also listen to Pema Chodron Tara Brach, and Rick Hanson.  I wanted to share with you both a blog I wrote on what happened to me when I started to really take Tara seriously one day on being Present and "intimate with all things."  Here is the link and I am eager to hear everyone's feedback ? 

http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/stardust/

Kathy

Hi Randy,

I listen to the same people (Pema Chodron and Tara Brach) as well as Cheri Huber and Rick Hanson and find they all help. That said, when "in it" it is very hard to hold the wisdom or to even feel like it's possible to let it in. It's like a physical resistance or a tightness or I'm just stuck in anxiety and NOTHING gets in. I find this frustrating because my brain knows this is a pattern and all but it doesn't mean I can always switch or get to yoga and do the slower things that help me center. Like my body is tense and constricted and all that will help is relax and release but I can't access that part. That's how it feels to me and I find it frustrating. Other people and calming centering things (that I usually don't feel like doing) do help. 

Donna's group is perfect for this kind of conversation and for more privacy, the one on Facebook that's a private group.
Cissy