No matter what you're feeling, the only way to get a difficult feeling to go away is simply love yourself for it. If you think you're stupid, then love yourself for feeling that way. It’s a paradox, but it works. To heal, you must be the first one to shine the light of compassion on any areas within you that you feel are unacceptable.
Christiane Northrup

When people find out that I speak professionally, the comment I hear the most is "I hate speaking in front of people! I am so petrified." That is almost always followed up with the question, "What's the secret to being able to do it?" The secret is simple: admit to yourself that you are afraid or nervous. I know it sounds stupid, but it works. What generally happens is that we feel nervous about speaking (and, of course, don't most people?) and we try to fight the feeling. We berate ourselves for feeling nervous. The only thing that we accomplish by doing this is to heighten our own anxiety. We create our own negative downward spiral of emotions. However, if, when we feel the nervousness, we acknowledge the feeling to ourselves by simply saying to ourselves, "Wow, I feel kind of nervous, but I suppose that's normal before speaking to a group of people," we are releasing the emotion. The emotion, at that point, has done its job: it has alerted us to some perceived threat or stressor (in this case). As long as emotions remained unacknowledged, they persist and intensify.

This doesn't mean that any negative emotion or thought that we have about ourselves will magically go away by simply acknowledging them (but wouldn't that be nice?), but if consistently applied, we can begin to lessen the intensity of the negative emotion and any negative triggers that go along with it. In this way, we give ourselves the space to heal or grow in a positive way. The way that most of us talk to ourselves about a perceived weakness is akin to the person who keeps picking at an open sore. Nothing heals that way.

Is there an area where you are less than kind to yourself? What would happen if you treated yourself with some compassion?

To Your Success,

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