Aug 8
For an awfully long time, I believed that I could only be happy when I'd changed something about myself. Then, several years back I went through a bereavement which changed all the relationships in my life, not least the one I have with myself. Here's what I learned that helped me finally let go of self-attacking.
As a wellbeing coach and mindfulness teacher, I don't just share from the theory of mindfulness, but from my own experience too. Here's my own story about how mindfulness and self-kindness transformed my relationship with anxiety - from outright war, to acceptance and befriending.
It takes a massive amount of courage to accept feelings of loss and sadness, without trying to fix them - to open to them instead, fully feel them and let them transform you. At first I feared that turning towards these feelings would keep me stuck in them. But I discovered the opposite: it freed me to move forward, into something new and unknown.
It used to be easier to believe there was something wrong with me than to accept that being human comes with emotions that can be deeply uncomfortable. But when I discovered mindfulness, I began to broaden my emotional repertoire, and become fully human. I learned that I could cope with feelings of anxiety, sadness, shame... and open to much greater joy, beauty and gratitude.
Sheila Bayliss 