12x12: February #5: "Kindness"

This is part five of a Saturday-long Conference I attended with Adam Young and a guest speaker. This was held on February 4, 2025. The Conference was entitled: "On Fear and Failure: From "My life is an Endless Struggle" -- to -- My Life is a Compelling Story." In this lecture, Adam Young discusses having kindness to yourself.

A year of kindness to yourself will take your farther than weekly sessions with your dream therapist. The harm we do to ourselves through self-contempt is often greater than the actual trauma itself. How do you respond to yourself? 

When you think back to yourself as a ten-year-old, what is your posture toward that child? What about at fourteen? At what about today, when you have an argument with your spouse?

Self-contempt blocks the healing process more than any other single factor. The anecdote to self-contempt is kindness. Romans 2 says, "The Kindness of God leads to repentance." Then, why does a part of you feel like the best way to change and grow is to be harsh with yourself? What comes up for you when you even think of being kind to yourself? Or in receiving kindness from other people? 

Is it easy to ask for someone else for care or support? For many of us, when we aren't doing well, we tend to get angry at ourselves about the fact that we are not doing well. In the moments when we are most in need of care and soothing, we are usually the most harsh with ourselves. What do you tend to say to yourself when you are anxious or afraid?

"This is because I don't trust God enough."

"If I had faith like so and so I would do better."

When your body floods with cortisol, I chastise myself for not being more mature than I am. How is it that my dysregulation becomes an occasion for me to accuse myself for not having grown enough or matured enough? 

Self-contempt blocks the body's natural healing mechanisms. What if you began to explore your story with kindness? 

"That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself -- that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness -- that I myself am the enemy who must be loved -- what then? As a rule, the Christian's attitude is then reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us “You fool,” and condemn and rage against ourselves." C.G. Jung

For some reason, Christians feel selfish if they care or think about themselves? We think that thinking about ourselves is a bad thing. It's not! It's a human thing! He made our brain with a default-mode-network that needs to think about heart, mind, body, etc. 

1. We have a relationship with ourselves.

2. How would you describe your relationship with yourself? 

If I asked you how you felt about your best friend, you could tell me. But what characterizes your relationship with you? Is it warm? Affectionate? Or is it harsh, conflicted. You've got a relationship with you. 

We are called as Christians to the hurting one? But what if the hurting one is you! I can be kind to others in pain. Why can't we be kind to ourselves? We are resistant to receiving kindness. One of the bi-products with trauma is a war with kindness. 

Your past is present. Your past story is playing out in your present story. Have you ever considered why it is so hard to bring kindness to your own heart and body? What if it has to do with a time in your past when you had a need of kindness and care and when you were, were you shamed for that? Were you abandoned in your moment of need? When you were hopeless? Overwhelmed? Upset? Were you shamed for having a need?

Are you willing to bring caring kindness to yourself when you are dysregulated? Why does this situation continue to bother me? Why is this person still affecting me so much? 

It is very common for people with a history of trauma to be at war with our emotionally activated body. People with a history of trauma, they get emotionally dysregulated more often. One of the harder things in life is actually allowing yourself to receive care and kindness from others. 

Comfort comes from with and strong. Comfort is being with someone to strengthen them. To be with. Withness is so important. To be with someone out of a desire to strengthen them. And anytime someone is truly with you, you are strengthened. To be emotionally present with someone, you are inevitably strengthened. They may not understand you completely. But they have the courage to enter your hurt with a desire to hear you and understand you. 

As you explore your story, it is very important to grow in kindness to yourself. And bringing comfort to yourself is something that can be learned. 

Remember, every child needs THE BIG SIX from their parents.

Would you consider giving yourself the Big Six.

1. Are you attuned to yourself? Are you aware when you are in pain? 

2. Responsiveness. Are you emotionally responsive to yourself when you are struggling? 

3. Engagement. Do you engage your own heart? 

4. Ability to regulate your arousal. Can you handle when you get dysregulated?

5. Strong enough to handle your negative emotions.

6. Willingness to Repair.

You don't have to respond to your story by joining in violence toward yourself. You can have kindness to your frailty ... the way God would!

God says, "A bruised reed I will not break." God doesn't hate that we are bruised reeds. Why do we hate that we are? 

Do you just strive harder and turn against yourself when you are struggling? You don't have to respond to your brokenness with all matter of self-accusation? What is keeping you from responding to yourself with kindness instead of grinding it out. 

Have you made a list of those things that bring your body a sense of calm, soothing, comfort? What music calms you? Have you made a playlist? And if you, will you be kind enough to your body when it is struggling next time and listen to that soothing music. Engaging in your story is about tending to your dysregulated body AND writing out your stories and looking at your past. We need to do both. 

When we treat ourselves with kindness, it begins to awaken unmet longings that weren't met in other parts of our life. So we don't want to be kind to ourselves. Because then we will feel the angst of unmet need.

For some of us, the desire for comfort and care, actually brings us a sense of humiliation because we realize we have needs. And being needy is a shameful thing. 

But, child, you have been designed to need. That is part of what it means to be human. We need care. 

Are you at war with the way you have been designed?

Here's a side-note: For many people with a history of trauma, the person who offered you kindness, care, and comfort, also then abused you. That is the nature of the grooming process. Therefore, receiving another's comfort will feel way too close for ways you were abused and groomed. Your brain has therefore paired kindness, care and comfort with something bad is going to happen. Therefore, when someone is kind to you now, your gut thinks, "There's got to be a catch. What does this person want from me? What will be asked or required from me?" This is a huge dilemma for some people with trauma. 

When do you tend to turn against your heart? It is often when you are hurting and there is a possibility of comfort. 

In the end, it is not truth that changes people. It is kindness. 

Truth is necessary. But we need kindness even more. From others and from others. This is why a year of kindness to your own heart will take you farther than anything else on this journey of healing. The more we are kind, the more are brain heals. 

The more we are open to receiving comfort from others and from ourselves, the more our brain seems to change.

Will I open myself to receiving good care, now, especially when I am struggling? There are people who have come into my life that offer withness and we sometimes become suspicious and push them away. You have neurons that have paired kindness with something bad is about to happen. 

But ponder this: What is your posture toward yourself? And what would it look like to bring some kindness into your relationship from you to you.