Why so harsh with yourself? softness as your super power

Many times the places in our lives we would like to change and find more ease in, are places where we will find inner harshness hidden.

We learned to internalize a harshness, impatience and compassionless with ourselves as a way to find our will power.

We often choose to be harsh with ourselves rather than attentive to what it is that we are feeling or needing. Rather than using the compass we naturally have of attuning to our emotional state and inner experience, we tend to quickly be harsh and suffocate what is happening with in us.

The harshness suffocates everything that might feel “weak” or what we have learned to see as being weak or shaming.

We are often mistaken harshness with a sense of determination.

We may mix us between harshness and the energy that anger or frustration can move in us when we are confronting some old fears.

With harshness we cover up the places in us that need caring and tending.

Harshness appears in the moments we confront some deep old fears that want to be resolved. In that moment, harshness tempts us and gives us the illusion of finding the path to overcome. In truth, it leaves us feeling even more ashamed: we believe to have a horrible monster inside that is out of control.

Harshness may also appear, when we revisit an old wound. When we are touched by people and life where we once got hurt or experienced some loss. A place that still hurts. Then the harshness convinces us that if we will follow it, we will be stronger. We will be safe from the hurt. We will not feel the need or the longing. But what it really does is it keeps us away from being able to tend to and heal it. It makes us trapped behind a wall further away from what we long for and love.

Harshness has a deceiving power.

It masks itself to make us believe it is on our side.

It plays with us letting us believe we are safe with it.

Harshness collects its “slaves” by sneaking in at the moments people are most vulnerable and could not find help. It sneaked into us when we were victimized in some way and could not find he adequate way to step away of the situation.

It was mainly when we were children. When we were soft and welcoming. When we did not have the strength to stand alone.

In those times, being harsh with ourselves was our way to find some strength or better yet rigidity and numbness that have made the torture of the times seem to be gone. It is the way we could find use to the need in us to resist, run away, demand from things to stop, or even ask for help and attention that we could not express nor be heard.

Today we may be grabbing onto inner harshness, when we meet some hidden old parts in us that are still trapped in the past. When we meet the rejection we have experienced that made us be ashamed of who we are.

You may not be always aware of the harshness you direct towards yourself.

But it is so important to start and identify it. To eradicate it from your soul. To eradicate it from your life so that you can be who you truly are. So you can enjoy from the sweetness of life also in difficult moments. So that you will be able to grow and move with the changes around you.

You have the responsibility to eradicate it for yourself and for life around you. You must eradicate this inner harshness, so it won’t leach on to your children, onto your students, and workers.

So think for a moment: How harsh are you with yourself?

How do you treat yourself in your mind for example:

When something went wrong for you, or when you dropped something?

When you get tempted to react again in a way you know you would like to change?

When you try to find motivation to do something you were postponing for a while?

When you look in the mirror?

When you see someone who impresses you, how quickly are you tempted to say something nasty about yourself?

How does this harshness keep you away from experiencing things you long for?

How does this harshness keep you away from daring to show and express who you truly are?

How does this harshness keep you distant from others?

How does this harshness

If you want to find your courage. If you want to be able to be free of the past. If you want to be able to trust yourself. If you want to enjoy a life of expansion and beauty.

If you want to create and contribute.

If you want to respect life….

Expose your inner harshness and its lies. Tear off its mask and rebel.

Each time you find yourself getting harsh in the way you talk to yourself, rebel by refusing to do so. If you want you can just say: I am fine. It is all as it needs to be for me to make the next step.

Each time you are aware of the harshness you hold in your chest, in your jaw or belly, rebel by breathing.

Rebel by refusing to become tight and rigid.

Rebel with a little dance of softness.

Rebel by softening your shoulders.

Rebel by embracing what it is that you long for.

Rebel by connecting to the space around you.

Rebel by insisting go trust yourself.

Rebel by connecting to your lower belly and legs.

Rebel by agreeing to feel yourself. Feel your body. Feel your fear or your pain with as much compassion and attention you would wish to get from others.

Rebel by keeping a connection to what you love.

Rebel by refusing to hate yourself.

Rebel by making a choice.

Rebel by feeling the vulnerability of letting go.

Rebel by refusing to know how you should be.

Rebel by feeling the preciousness of your life and all that is around you.

And then be aware of what you would like to do. What fills you up with a sense of lightness, excitement or warmth and expansion? And at the same time be aware of what you need to simply refuse to. What brings you a simple stability without a fight?

Let the inner harshness find no crumbs to feed on. No more parts of yourself you are ready to cut off.

The more you take all of yourself back, the more it will dissipate from your life and the more your life and how it can gift you, will grow.

Sending you much love

Anna

Photo by Evie S. on Unsplash