Let me take a guess about you. I bet you’re a kind person. And that you’re good at thinking about, caring for and looking after other people. You may even be called ‘kind’ or ‘compassionate’ by those who know you.

But I’ll also guess that you’re not very good at being kind or compassionate to yourself.

Does this resonate for you? If so, you are definitely not alone. Most people I work with are decent, kind, thoughtful human beings. But they also find the whole concept of self-compassion at best a struggle and at worst completely alien. And this is a big problem, because there is now a huge amount of research into the beneficial effects of compassion – both for ourselves and others – and its antidote-like effect for all of the psychological problems we struggle with, like stress, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem…. and trauma.

So it’s a key skill, or set of skills, that you really need to learn. And if developing this healing superpower is a problem for you, we need to help you solve that.

How trauma affects self-compassion

Sadly, we know that people with a trauma history find self-compassion especially tough. There are a whole host of reasons for this, so let’s run through some of the most common.

First, your ability to be kind, compassionate, soothing and nurturing to yourself will be determined by the kind of relationships you had in early childhood, especially with your key attachment figures (for most of us, this is mum and dad, but can also include your siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, best friends, favourite teachers, and so on). Let’s focus on your relationship with mum, because for most of us she is the central character in the story of our childhood.

Remember that babies cannot manage their own emotions. They just don’t have the neural architecture to do that because their brains, bodies and nervous systems are not developed yet, so they literally cannot do it. If they are angry, upset or scared, they need someone else to help them regulate those emotions. And for most of us that someone is mum. If we’re lucky, we internalise her loving, caring, soothing presence (her kind facial expression, warm and soothing voice tone, kind words, just enough eye contact, lots of hugs and kisses) and eventually internalise all this goodness, so we are able to start soothing ourselves. Babies can’t do that, but older children can.

But, very sadly, many trauma survivors were not loved and cared for in this way. Their parents might have been heavy drinkers, or had a serious mental illness, or were just really harsh, cold, angry or critical. If that’s true of you, I’m afraid you wouldn’t have developed those self-soothing (= self-compassion) skills in the way that other, lucky kids did. So self-compassion would be a struggle for you from day one.

Negative core beliefs

Another problem for trauma survivors is that you may have negative core beliefs that get in the way of being kind and compassionate to yourself. Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) discovered that these beliefs usually form in early childhood, from around four to six. They can either be a direct result of the horrible things people say to us, if we’re called stupid, lazy, weak, a waste of space, or something similarly hurtful. Or they are an interpretation based on the way we’re being treated, so we start to think, say, ‘Mum clearly loves Johnny more than me, so I must be unlovable.’

And these horrible, hurtful ideas about yourself then stick, so when you are 40, you still think, ‘I am stupid/lazy/a waste of space/unlovable.’ Clearly not good – and also a huge, un-climbable barrier to treating yourself with care and compassion.

Finally, some good news

So far, so depressing. If some or all of these things were true of you, at this point you might be feeling hopeless, or that you are broken beyond repair and will never develop self-compassion skills. But, as anyone who often reads my posts will know, one of my core beliefs (and a founding principle of the Heal Your Trauma project) is, It’s never too much and never too late to heal.

I passionately believe this. It’s why I get out of bed every morning and come to the office, where I spend long days helping trauma survivors to overcome the painful legacy of their less-than-functional childhoods. It’s also, incidentally, something I have lived experience of. I recently wrote a post about how I healed the wounds caused by some horrible bullying at school – one of many traumatic aspects of my childhood.

This childhood trauma led me to form some pretty damaging core beliefs – and to be really harsh, critical and unloving with myself. But through a great deal of therapy, meditation, reading and more, I now do a pretty good job of being kind and compassionate to myself on a daily basis (which is why I provide all of these things for you, through Heal Your Trauma).

I will be teaching you some of the breathing techniques, self-compassion practices and guided imagery I use with my clients (and myself) on my 26th February webinar, What is Trauma and Can it Be Healed? If you would like to be more compassionate to yourself, do click the button below to find out more.

I hope to see you there, or at one of the many exciting Heal Your Trauma events we have planned for 2022.

And wishing you luck on your healing journey.

Warm wishes,

Dan