Last Call for My Self-Compassion Webinar – Saturday 27th May

One of the Buddha’s great insights was that leading a human life is inevitably painful. We get sick, grow older and must face the existential reality that, someday, our life will end. The same goes for everyone we love. That alone is, of course, incredibly painful and hard to accept.

We also have to deal with stressful global events like war in Ukraine or Sudan, climate change, poverty and hunger. In the UK, the cost-of-living crisis affects millions, making day-to-day life incredibly tough. It’s clear that being human is no picnic.

But the Buddha’s other great insight was that this pain and stress alone is not what causes most of our suffering – that is caused by the way we react to these events and experiences. We can either do so with self-criticism, blame and frustration; or find a kinder, more compassionate way to deal with these daily challenges.

This message is especially important if you struggle with your mental health. If you suffer with low self-esteem, chronic stress or anxiety, low mood or depression, learning to be more self-compassionate could be life-changing. Why? Because there is now a huge body of evidence supporting the power and effectiveness of self-compassion in helping people lead calmer, happier, more resilient lives.

Kristin Neff, one of the world’s leading experts on self-compassion, states that, ‘Higher levels of self-compassion are linked to increased feelings of happiness, optimism, curiosity and connectedness, as well as decreased anxiety, depression, rumination and fear of failure.’

Learn the skill of self-compassion

That’s why my upcoming webinar will help you learn this key skill. The Healing Power of Self-Compassion takes place from 3-4.30pm on Saturday 27th May 2023 and is the latest in a series of Heal Your Trauma webinars and workshops throughout 2023.

This event offers half-price Reduced-Fee Tickets (£10), for those who need them, or please choose the Supporter Ticket option (£20) when booking if you are able to support the Heal Your Trauma project. Your support enables us to help as many people as possible with their mental health.

In this powerful, highly experiential webinar you will learn:

• The difference between empathy and compassion – and why one leads to burnout, while the other protects us from it

• The key role that self-compassion plays in healing from any psychological problem, but especially trauma

• Why, sadly, having a trauma history makes self-compassion difficult – but also why these obstacles can be overcome

• Key experiential exercises – such as breathing, guided meditations, journaling and imagery – you will learn to help you develop your self-compassion skills

• How self-compassion is crucial to help you deal with stress, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, being overly self-critical, eating disorders, substance abuse and most other psychological problems

• And, during a 15-minute Q&A, attendees put their questions to Dan Roberts, Founder of Heal Your Trauma and an expert on trauma healing and developing self-compassion

Don’t miss this chance to learn from a leading trauma therapist and expert on mental health. Book your place now using the button below.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Do You Worry That You're Not Good Enough?

Image by Ayo Ogunseinde

How do you feel about yourself, deep down? Do you like yourself? Feel good about your achievements? Think you are doing OK, day to day?

Or, like so many of us, do you feel that you’re not good enough – unworthy, not likeable, not achieving much with your life, or somehow bad or wrong at your core? If you do feel this way, you will probably lack confidence, perhaps struggling with low self-esteem. You might have a tough time with public speaking, or being assertive when you need to set limits or put your foot down.

You may also externalise this inner dislike, by not liking what you see in the mirror – your appearance, body or weight. This is especially common among my female clients, as are the eating disorders that often go with this way of thinking. So it may lead to restricting food, or even being bulimic, as you desperately try to achieve an – often impossibly demanding – ideal weight or body shape.

You are not alone

If you do feel this way, I want to reassure you that you’re definitely not alone. Most of my clients feel this way. In fact, most of the people in my life feel this way! It is so common, even in people who seem on the outside to be super-confident. Trust me, on the inside many of them feel very differently, but have just learned how to act like a confident person.

In schema therapy, we see this not-good-enough feeling stemming from a Defectiveness schema. This is the most common schema I see in my clients – almost all of them struggle with it (as do most of the therapists I know, including this one!). The schema usually forms when we are children, often as the result of trauma, abuse or neglect. It might be one or a series of big things, like being shouted at or spanked on a regular basis (spanking makes kids feel hurt, humiliated and powerless, which can easily lead to a Defectiveness schema).

Or it may be more subtle. Maybe your sister was really smart and high-achieving at school and you just couldn’t keep up, no matter how hard you tried. Or you had highly demanding, pushy parents, who called you names like ‘lazy’ or ‘bone-idle’, because you could never match their unreasonable expectations for you.

Schemas can be healed

Whatever the cause of your schema, it’s important to understand that it can be healed, because all schemas can. A schema is just a neural network in the brain and, because your brain is plastic (which means mouldable, like clay), with new learning and experience, you can weaken those unhelpful connections and build a new network. (If you’re interested in the science behind this, try reading books like The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge MD).

This is the basis of schema therapy – and all other forms of counselling and psychotherapy, even if they call the healing process something different. Over time, you can learn to think, feel and behave differently. We can help you with that public speaking problem, or get you to realise that your body is actually perfectly healthy and beautiful, just as it is.

It is never too late to do this, so please don’t think you are too old to change. Reading blogs like this one, or self-help books, having some form of therapy, finding a loving, supportive partner – these are all great ways to start healing those painful schemas. So why not start today?

Warm wishes,

Dan

The Schema Linked to Low Self-Esteem

Image by Lucas Metz

Many of us are overly self-critical, focusing on our perceived failings and ignoring our many strengths and good qualities. For example, you may think you are a failure, or just not good enough in some fundamental way. This kind of thinking is, clearly, extremely unhelpful – and can lead to low self-esteem, depression, eating disorders, anxiety disorders and many other psychological and life-limiting problems.

In schema therapy, we see one or more schemas at the root of these problems, particularly Defectiveness/Shame, which is perhaps the most common schema I see in my clients. This might form in early childhood, for example if you have parents who tell you that you’re slow, or stupid, or a bit too chubby.

You might get bullied by your siblings, or find it hard to measure up to them, especially if you’re the youngest. Or the schema might develop at school, if you have (especially undiagnosed) dyslexia, struggle with one or more subjects, or find it hard to make friends.

How negative beliefs develop

As a child, you might start to think ‘Maybe I am a bit stupid,’ or ‘Why can’t I keep up with the other kids? Maybe it’s true - I am clumsy and useless at sports.’ These thoughts begin to coalesce into deeply held beliefs – the cognitive layer of a schema.

You probably feel your confidence sinking through the floor, or a deep sense of shame at your perceived failings – this is the emotional part of the schema. And you feel those emotions in your body – shame can feel like a horrible prickling sensation in the skin, nausea or tightness in the throat. And this is the physiological part of the schema.

What then happens is that, as you get older, this psychological construct gets triggered by people, situations or events that remind you of the stressful events from your childhood. You fail your driving test and suddenly your Defectiveness schema gets triggered and you are gripped by intense feelings of worthlessness and shame, which are completely disproportionate to the situation (you could just take another test – it’s not such a big deal). This is how schemas operate, which is what makes them so painful and the root cause of every psychological problem.

Schemas can be healed

The good news is that, although they are stubborn and hard to change, schemas can be healed. Using techniques like imagery and chair work, or the attachment-based relational approaches that make up ‘limited reparenting’, we can slowly but surely start to challenge and modify the schema.

We might help to modify some of those unhelpful beliefs about being stupid or useless; work on the unhelpful modes that keep you behaving in self-destructive or self-limiting ways; help you focus on and enjoy your successes, which you probably discount or ignore; keep pointing out your strengths and good qualities, to meet those parenting needs that were not met for you as a child.

Using these techniques and ways of understanding your problems, schema therapy offers a powerful, effective and deeply compassionate way of helping even the most hard-to-treat problems.

Warm wishes,

Dan

How to Improve Your Self-Esteem

Image by Sane Sodbayar

If you had to describe yourself in a few words to someone you had never met, what would you say? Would you use words like smart, funny and lovable? Or stupid, useless and pathetic? Sadly, if you have low self-esteem, you are far more likely to opt for the latter three – even if they bear no relation to your true self, or the words your friends would use to describe you.

At its simplest, self-esteem is the extent to which we respect and value ourselves. If the way you perceive yourself is critical or unkind, your self-esteem is likely to be low, causing a host of problems – from a lack of confidence and self-belief to depression, anxiety, underachievement, addiction, problems with anger and self-destructive behaviour.

Developing self-esteem

Self-esteem – or the lack of it – is inextricably linked to our childhood and family dynamic. Along with keeping us clean, safe and fed, it’s our parents’ job to make us feel lovable and worthwhile. Especially when we are infants (because that’s when our sense of self, as a separate entity to our mother, is developing), they do this by giving us lots of physical affection, playing with and singing/reading to us.

As we grow they reinforce this by taking an interest in and praising us, both telling and showing us how much we are loved, wanted and important to them. If we are lucky enough to get this kind of parenting, we will emerge into adulthood with an strong set of interconnected beliefs that we are worthwhile and deserve all the good this world can offer us.

Problems with self-esteem in childhood

But you, like many other children, may not have been so lucky. Your parents might have been distant or emotionally unavailable. They might have criticised rather than praising you. They may have had mental health problems, been addicted to alcohol or drugs, or punished you overly harshly.

If so, you would have been profoundly hurt and confused. Why were they treating you this way? It must have been, you concluded, because there was something fundamentally bad or wrong about you.

As you grew up, if that treatment persisted – and perhaps was echoed in the wider family or at school – your sense of self would have been affected. And as an adult, if you believe you are a bad person and deserve bad things to happen to you, it’s incredibly hard to be positive and outgoing; to forge loving relationships or find lasting success.

You are likely to see the world through grey-tinted glasses, seeing only the bad in it and yourself. It’s hardly surprising that low self-esteem is at the root of many forms of mental distress.

Low self-esteem can be unlearned

But it doesn’t have to be this way. As low self-esteem is learned, so it can be unlearned. Cognitive therapy is an effective treatment for low self-esteem, because it helps you challenge and modify the negative, self-critical thoughts and beliefs that keep you feeling bad about yourself long after your cold or neglectful parents, nasty teachers and school bullies have faded out of your life.

I strongly recommend Overcoming Low Self-Esteem: A Self-Help Guide Using Cognitive Behavioral Techniques, by Melanie Fennell. The books in the Overcoming… series are all excellent, but this is one of the best. If you have low self-esteem, it explains how this developed and how your adult thinking and behaviour stops you from shrugging off negative early experiences and embracing life.

Most importantly, it gives you simple, effective techniques you can use every day to feel better about yourself, boost your mood and increase your self-confidence.

Warm wishes,

Dan