#0025 Self-Compassion Revisited

When feeling all the feels can overwhelm

Feeling the feels at sunset. (Source: Photo by Gabriel Garcia Marengo on Unsplash)

Certain people in the world have so much compassion in their hearts for others. Sometimes known as empaths, they feel the feels so strongly, and they absorb others’ pains and sorrows so deeply. It is truly a remarkable gift. 

But sometimes the heavy emotions weigh these empaths down. Causes compassion for themselves to weaken, lessen, maybe even dissolve. 

Please indulge me as I grapple with grief that is beyond the scope of the 100 Rejections Club.

A couple posts back (#0022), I mentioned that it’s not an easy or fast thing to cultivate self-compassion. I shared three practices: (1) acknowledge the Inner Critic, (2) reframe the negative words, and (3) be kind and encouraging, as you would for a BFF, to yourself.

What I neglected to acknowledge is that there may be moments when a highly empathetic person cannot treat themselves with kindness and encouragement. Cannot reframe the Inner Critic nonsense as white noise. Does not recognize the whispers or hisses or screams as that self-same Inner Critic rattling its saber incessantly.

If this description hits home for you, please contact Crisis Text Line by texting HELLO — or anything, really — to 741741 on your US-based mobile phone. (Crisis Text Line also supports those in Canada, the UK, and Ireland via alternative texting lines listed on the first page of their website.)

Join me in a Compassion Restoration Project, would you? Touch base with your quieter writing friends on their rejection goals. Or smile at the worn-down checker at the grocery store next time you make a veggie run. Or say hello to a newer neighbor on your daily walking loop. By extending a momentary connection, you share your compassion with another. Might help that person begin to restore their self-compassion.

Next time: Maybe cutting down those weeds to take the sting out of rejection. (Or not.)