You matter. You have always mattered. Let the dust settle that contains all the reasons you thought you didn’t matter. Ah!–there is your gem self! Welcome home, my love, welcome home.
Here’s a self-friendly compassionate perspective to help you shift:
- My clients are wonderful-hearted people who can be so very tough on themselves because they still believe the “error” messages they got ten, twenty, fifty years ago. As kids, one of the most hurtful things that can happen to us is when the important adults in our lives don’t explain to us what is going on in difficult situations. As a child we get confused and start to believe things like “I don’t matter,” “There’s something wrong with me,” “If they find out who I really am they won’t like me.”
- Meanwhile, what’s really going on with the adults are things that are totally out of kids’ control, like parents being mean, rageful, distant, anxious, having affairs, depression, being neglectful, losing a job, reacting to a death in the family, illness, parents having unhealthy relationship patterns, and being abusive emotionally, physically, or sexually to their kids.
- Our internal critics–the “tapes,” the peanut gallery, the mean voices–these critics all got “hired” by you as a kid when the only way to make sense of a hurtful situation was to start believing these “error” messages. Kids can’t handle not understanding a difficult situation, and in the absence of a grounded adult offering help, support and understanding about life’s difficulties and especially taking responsibility for their actions as caregivers, kids have to make some kind of meaning in order to stay sane. If an adult isn’t there to take responsibility and explain to their child what is going on, then what all kids do is to take the blame onto themselves and begin to believe that there is something wrong with them. That’s just how the psychology of children works. Kids have to make some kind of sense of things in order to stay sane, and even if it’s the wrong message that’s better than no message at all. Because to not have anything make sense on the one hand, or on the other hand to clearly realize that a parent is out of control somehow, that would be utterly terrifying. In the bind of loving the person who is causing the hurt, kids blame themselves, not their caregivers. That’s when as a kid you began to point at yourself and started to believe you were not enough, didn’t matter, were faulted. At the time, you simply couldn’t afford to believe that parents or caregivers were being hurtful, or neglectful, or out of control, because that would be too frightening.
- Here’s the good news. You can look at it this way–when your only option was to start believing the negative messages about yourself in order to survive, you also did something else really important: You put your Wise Self, your unique Gem, away on a shelf and you did this to keep yourself safe. Now is the time to let the dust settle and come home to who you have always been. It’s time to begin to take yourself off the shelf and be you!
- Something that might sound odd at first but that really helps is to sit quietly and actually thank the negative voices. You might say something like, “You just don’t want me to get hurt, and that’s the only way you know how to do it. Thanks for trying to protect me.” This often brings some settling and calm. Then notice who is doing the thanking. That is your Wise Self, being generous to your kid and to the security team of negative thoughts that was the only option you had to deal with the pain. And when you are seated more in your Wise Self, and in the self-compassion and generosity to yourself, you start to come home to you and that just feels so much better!
- Then give yourself a little hug, each hand on the opposite upper arm, squeeze, and breathe,
- Even if you feel the release for just two or three seconds, even if you begin to believe in yourself just one-hundreth of a percent, even if the voices come back three seconds later, that is enough! Congratulations, you have started to come home to You, to make a new neural connection which you can continue to build on as you discover yourself as an Amazing being.
Say you’ve been slumped over looking at your computer for several hours. Did you know that the brain reads posture like opening a software program! 
One of the first songs I ever wrote arrived in my heart and mind when I was on a wilderness quest in Death Valley many years ago. It’s called Send You Love. You can find the words below. I send you love this morning! Please remember you are a unique and amazing being. Let’s keep supporting one another during this challenging time.
At The Beach* 
Here’s a short video from Stephen Porges, one of the leading specialists on healing trauma through social engagement. It’s so important right now to reach out and both see and hear our friends and family on video and phone because that regulates our nervous systems, restoring resilience, aliveness, compassion and generosity. Texts and emails are helpful, but not enough: We are biologically wired to need to hear, see and feel others as we co-regulate. Though we can’t use touch during this time as we normally would, hearing a loved one’s voice and seeing a friend’s smile go a long way to help us ground and relax. Here’s the link: 
All your choices have brought you to this moment. You did the best you could. Thank the voices that criticize you by telling them “I know you’re only trying to help.” I mean it–really do this–thank them! That’s an audacious and sophisticated act that results in a healing shift in the following way: When you thank your critics, you are actually adding some needed separation between yourself and them and you’re doing something very healing. The self that has the ability to thank your critics is your True Self, so capable and amazing, and untarnishable as gold. Because after all, the critics are the valiant security team you hired as a kid to make sense of a disrupted and hurtful world. They just go into overdrive and that’s the problem. But here’s one way to begin to change the channel. Give it a try, tell them thanks. Feel for the little bit of space and calm that comes. Breathe. Congratulations, you’ve just come back home!
Change up your dinner plans by emailing your favorite recipes with friends! I’m gluten free, but hands down these are the best brownies I’ve ever had, gluten or no gluten. 
Kathleen Dunbar 