Why when people tell us to be gentle to ourselves does it evoke shame?

[Gabben]

Why when someone tells us to be gentle to ourselves does it evoke such painful shame? Why is that? It makes me want to run away farther and hide my face and never show it...it makes me hurt myself.

Why?

[James]

Gabben.....when this happens to me ,i think i feel shame because i'm so used to feeling sorta worthless about myself and being kind to someone like me doesnt seem natural. I also believe that maybe on a deeper level it starts to trigger very deep hurt feelings and i run from these too not knowing what i'm doing, afterall it was the way that i handled the original hurt....by taking the shame of others in order to survive.........Hope you are feeling better today........James

[Iphi]

Dear Lise - I can't know, but I could pose questions that you could see if they feel 'off' or 'on.'  Sometimes I use this process of open-ended questions with myself to try to gain insights.

When you hear that phrase, do you feel as if caught or discovered in a transgression - if no -then can you free associate words that describe the particular feeling when you hear the phrase?

What are your feelings toward yourself at the different points (a) when you hear the phrase and then later (b) when you lash at yourself.

Who are you acting for/on behalf of when you are lashing at yourself?

Here is an iffy one - The part of you that doles out the lashing upon yourself afterward - how is it trying to help?  What is motivating the lashing?  (I don't know for you, but I have found myself doing the following so that is why I am putting them in here in case you feel identification with what I have found in myself) Is it trying to appease someone? Is it trying to keep you safe by keeping you 'in line' or 'teaching a lesson?'

I hope this may be helpful Lise.  I read your struggle with shame and yearn to help and recognize the painful painful experience from my own life, but don't know if I have anything effective to assist you with.  If these words are not helpful or effective, please compost!

[Ami]

I know what you mean,Lise. I guess it evokes shame b/c we are NOT kind and gentle to ourselves and know that we should be,, so we feel" less than.' That makes sense to me.                    Love   Ami

[Gabben]

It feels belittling, I think that is it....I've never told anyone in my life that because I guess I know that anyone who is suffering or does not have a lot of self-respect is not so much in need of hearing the words "be gentle to yourself" as much as they are in need of hearing someome say, "I hear your pain, your OK, I care."

[Gaining Strength]

I have had that experience Gabben.  It is a terrible feeling.  I understand how that is shaming though I could have never expressed it the way you and Phoenis Rising and Ami did.  It makes me want to say - "Why can't YOU be gentle to me?"

[Gabben]

Dear, Ami, GS, PR, James, Iphi -- Thanks for all of your input and for reaching out.

Another thought that came to me is that it could be a transfer of shame; perhaps someone feels the shame that we can unconsciously evoke in them as our way of trying to tell the story of how painful our shame is but instead it makes them uncomfortable for who knows what reasons such as weakness, feelings of inadequacy to fix our suffering, in those fears they transfer it back to us with be good to ourselves as a way to belittle us.

What is belittlement?  Is it not the most toxic feeling when someone does that....thank heavens it does not anger me now...it just hurts but I can rise above it more quickly than I used too...that is progress.

[Gaining Strength]

I definitely think people put their shame on others.  But I think when people say, "Be gentle to yourself."  that they usually are being kind.  It just doesn't always feel that way.  But then again, I suspect not everyone is intending kindness.

Belittlement is toxic indeed.

[Ami]

My Aunt told me to be kind to myself. She did not mean it in a shaming way. She IS kind to herself, so she meant it in the way she sees it.                 Ami

[Certain Hope]

Lise,

I've been married to two men who didn't like me to talk about my faults, shortcomings, struggles, etc. One was NPD and the other is just... a man.

In all of my life, I've never heard my mother admit to a flaw or failing. Not once.
She demands answers, plans, solutions, methods of control and/or cover-up to the issues of anyone who's allowed to gain access to her. She's a fixer.

When somebody tries to fix you and all you need is to be heard, it's very distressing. You're not looking for a solution, you're looking for ears that are willing to remain open long enough for you to fully express the depth of what's troubling you. My current husband is a fixer and there's very little about which he's interested in plumbing the depths... and so I've had to come to terms with a variety of my own reactions to his style.
Part of it may well be that such folks don't want to take a look at their own uncomfortable shame, so they don't want to allow you to pull your own stuff out into the light of day because they're afraid they'll be expected to follow suit.

I'm not uncomfortable with shame anymore. It's a fact of life. I'm ashamed of some of the things I've actually done, but I don't have to confess those things to any tom, dick, or harry who happens by because there's only One who counts. I'm not ashamed for how others might see me... because they don't know my heart. Maybe the shame isn't something that is supposed to be driven away with a whip? As far as I have known and experienced, only the cleansing water of life can wash it away.
But I know what you mean. I've watched people squirm when I've shared something with them that I found shameful. I guess that compassion is the only antidote for that... so that we don't take it personally, as an offense, but can recognize that it's their own issues which don't allow them to connect with us at that level.

Oh, also... there are a couple of people who have told me to be gentle with myself, etc... and I've thought that they say that simply because it's a personal struggle of their own that they deal with regularly, and so they're giving me the  very best advice they know - - what they wish they could do for themselves.

Hope some of this rambling helps.


Love,
Carolyn

[Gabben]

Carolyn,

I just typed the most well written, long and wonderful response to you , Ami and GS but I was not logged in and it got lost....sorry .

Now I have to leave.

Thanks for your rambling Carolyn, I always love to hear you ramble.

I heard all that was written here and I appreciate all of your voices.

Love,
Lise

[Certain Hope]

Oh, Lise, I'm sorry to have missed your wonderful reply...   lol, this technology can be aggravating. Thanks for being so sweet, too. I get cut off alot because of my roundabout detours, or at least that's how it feels, at times. You make it seem far less of a struggle to try to communicate.

(((((((Lollie))))))) I hear you and yes, you're making sense. Been there. There is no scorecard. That is the single most difficult truth I've ever tried to accept and still, I can accept it only by faith. Takes alot of time.... but you'll come to recognize that nobody else has to lose by virtue of your gain. That's just another of the old lies. It's the remnants of someone else's envy imposed on us and we can simply leave it lying in the pit where it belongs.

Love,
Carolyn

[Ami]

Gabben,

This is a very thought-provoking post. I had never really been able identify the feeling I get when someone says that to me, probably because it doesn't feel like one feeling. It won't even come out here as one thought, so please bear with me. 

Shame mixed with frustration is the first thing. Shame, because it never even OCCURRED to me to take care of myself...and frustration because I feel like I don't know how and I should know, right? I remember when I was in my first round of T with "CBT-Man." He would ask me how much sleep I was getting, if I was eating, was I exercising. I swear to God, it never even occurred to me that I should be getting more than five hours of sleep or eating more than a banana and a Ritz cracker. And perhaps part of me thought I wasn't even worth that much. I'm better than that now, thank God, but I still struggle with how to take care of myself...because all of my energy has been focused on taking care of other people. Even when they can do for themselves. When I do something to take care of myself, I feel selfish. And when I feel selfish, I feel as if I'm hurting someone, and then I feel terrible. As if somewhere there's a scorecard. If I do something good for myself and get a point in that column, somewhere someone is losing a point in their good column. Does that make sense?

Of course it doesn't.

Sometimes when people say "take care of yourself," and I know they are genuine, I feel cared for and valued, and yet at the same time, I want to shake them and say, "Easy for you to say. You know what that means! What does that mean?"

Does anyobody know what that means?

Dear Lollie
  You expressed the problem so well. I feel guilty being "selfish". That HORRIBLE word that the N parent uses to cut you to the core ,so you will throw yourself away--out to the breeze.
 Part of reclaiming ourselves IS to take care of ourselves, emotionally and physically.
 It is what "normal" people do. It is what we must do.
 We have to overcome the lies that told us we were NOT worth it.
 Thank you,Lollie ,for your post.   Love   Ami

(((((((((Lollie))))))

[ann3]

I too share these reactions when someone tells me to self-care:  Shame (I don't deserve anything good, so I don't deserve to care about myself), anger (don't tell me what to do,how to feel, why can't you simply listen to me?), humiliation (do I really look like I"m so stupid that I don't know how to take care of myself?)

I'm working on self care in therapy and my therapist explained to me what it meant because I didn't know what "self care" meant:  doing things that make me feel good, things I enjoy, treating my body well, non being self destructive:  hot shower, taking a walk, watching a movie, calling a friend.  For me, the hardest thing for me was to get over the shame hump and force myself to be good and gentle with myself, guess I had to reprogram my brain:  I am worthy of self care, even self love.  It was and is really hard to get over the shame hump & reprogram my brain, but now I find that doing self care things have made me feel better. 

I think self care is a skill that I'm learning.  Maybe self care is like learning a foreign language or any new skill.  Maybe self care is a force of nature, like gravity or physics:  I don't really understand it and I have my doubts and negativity towards it, but it works.  Maybe I don't understand all the implicatioins of my feelings concerning self care, but it works.

[Iphi]

This is such a deep topic with layers and layers I think.  Last night I was thinking more about it.

On Tuesday me and my H had just exactly this kind of interaction.  I learned on Tuesday morning that I have not lost any pregnancy weight (and I gained a lot) in over a year - not a single pound and I've been nursing and restricting my diet too (people said it would melt off dammit) - this made me very upset and I was taking it out on myself.  He said be kind to yourself, treat yourself well etc.   And because this happened side by side with this topic here, it prompted me to look deeper into the experience and how it felt.

A big part of this is our relationship - I am able to accept his caring toward me.  This is not a given.  This was something I had to grow into over time and I have realized I am in a lot of ways blind to caring behavior from others to me - like a perception deficit plus a skills deficit.  If a different person said it to me or difference circumstances - it might mean something different. 

So anyway he was saying that and I could see - it distresses him that I was saying stuff about myself and hating my body.  He was upset for me.

He was witnessing abuse.  And he spoke up and out about it, for me. 

It makes me wonder if when we are abusing at ourselves, if we are being/enacting in the role of our abusers, toward ourselves.  Anything that happens to them they take out on us.  So if someone stepped in and called attention to abuse they would further take it out on us.  I don't know.  I'm just turning this over and over and contemplating it.