A few things are foremost in my heart tonight as I start to think about a new post for my blog.

1)     Sometimes you have to let go of things that make you feel unloved or disrespected and as crazy as it sounds, letting go of these things can be very painful and hurt like hell.

2)     The fallout from self- judgments can be more damaging than a broken heart.

3)     What is the greater tool passion or compassion?

Today this above quote and face book posting by a friend caught my attention and well… it surprised me.

Along with this quote my friend was admitting to the recent ending of a relationship that had made her feel unloved by two people;

1)     Her possible sweetheart

2)     And HERSELF.

By her own admission she expressed sadness at how looooooong she had been “holding on” to this relationship that had been making her feel disrespected and unloved.

BUT…The fact that she thought she loved someone who was not able to return her feelings was not the only misfortune that brought about her loss of self-esteem.

´I finally realized that it was just my lack of self-esteem that was holding on to the drama when what I really needed was to just love myself!!’  Is how she expressed it.

Wow, I thought as I read… even the beautiful, talented, gifted and seemingly self-confident are not exempt with struggles with self-esteem.

And THIS was really my true surprise at her post…  I HAD THOUGHT THAT CONFIDENCE PLAYED A BIG ROLE IN HAVING SELF ESTEEM?

So seeing her in this situation made me question my belief in this??

My friend has always been one who has not only good looks and talent but lots of personality and seemed to all us looking on, to have plenty of self-confidence.

 I have watched her grow up really… and it surprised and sadden me that she would be disappointed in herself. I said a silent prayer for her after reading the post.

“Lord bless her for standing up for herself and loving herself enough to walk away. And please bless her with a compassionate heart. May she be as gentle with herself as she would be with anyone of her loved ones who had been so wounded.”

…IT IS NOT SO MUCH THE FACT THAT "LOVE IS NOT RETURNED" AS IT IS, THAT WE ALLOW "THAT"… to be what we measure our self-esteem by that hurts us.

Reflecting on my own experiences of misfortune and disapointment…I am left to consider and question then how shall I measure myself?

When something happens in our lives that sets us back and makes us doubt our self-worth, how shall we measure our self-esteem and self-worth then? Should we really let the fact that we weren’t “loved back” stand as a way to measure our self-worth?

Have you ever experienced this?

Recall just one incident then and... YES...I am guilty. Ever have someone throw a disaproving look your way? Or a group of friends decide that you weren't invited? Why is it that just when we need a friend to mend our hurt and are feeling like there is no one in the world who will love us...we THEN, turn on and betray ourselves, beat our self-up for not being GOOD enough.

Instead of realizing where the blame lies we decide the problem has to lie within OURSELF? Not always but most of the time I am sure this is the battle we fight when sad or bad things happen.

Is it then a true measure that we are somehow unworthy of not only another’s love BUT Our own love of self? This measuring tool left to stand on its own in such a harsh situation is really not enough. Something else is needed…

BUT FIRST… Here is a little something we all know about love...BUT seem to need to be reminded of when it is “our own” heart hurting…

and that is...
YOU CAN NOT MAKE SOMEONE LOVE YOU! Try if you want…BUT remember love is a gift from one heart to another.

Love has its own time, its own season, and its own reasons from coming and going. You cannot bribe it or coerce it or reason it into staying. You can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when it comes to you.”

Kent Nerburn quotes

I believe this to be true…
Just as I believe there are somethings in life that just hurt... I don't think they should make us less of what we were before they happened...these things do affect us but cannot make us less than... unless we let them. We cannot fully appreciate love unless we have experienced being unloved. There is always a way to see things for what they are...human experience and time teaches us that all things work to give us experience and teach us how to live and in this case how to love.

Love is a gift and a very mysterious feeling…and you know yourself, why and how we feel love for someone is an affair of the heart. Or as the song says, “Love is a battlefield” and I would add  “a battlefield in the brain as well as the heart”

If I have learned one thing about love from my own life and watching my children fall in and out of love it is that…When hormones start pumping…we lose brain cells. It is the loss of these brain cells that cause us to stay way past time to leave. J just kidding but you know what I mean...ever do something foolish for love??

We have all been a fool for love at times in life. BUT this foolishness is one thing I use to measure love by anyway…So, if you love me… then don’t be afraid to act the fool…for I would take great delight in knowing then that I had finally found  a man who really loved me more than his own pride. 

BUT…You can not make someone love you, I say again.

If we could, I would be living a different life or fairy tale today and my name would be Cinderella.

Love is not the only emotional trial we bear in this life is it?  So then we have good reason to worry for the loss of self-esteem and self-worth...unless we find a truer tool for measurement it seems we may be left very bitter at the end of it, when all is said and done.

Therefore, why take it so personal then…even as a sign that you are not worthy, especially if it is something you have no control over?  

Simply because someone you love does not feel the same… does that somehow diminish you? After reflecting on this with me here, I hope you can now say with more compassion "NO".

Come on…show a little compassion for your heart here. It has no brains at all…just a beat, beat, beat that is totally at the mercy of your hormonal emotions.

So the real loss of self-esteem in a relationship gone bad or situation that makes us feel unlovable or unworthy comes about because we take it so personal.  

By our own measuring standards we have doomed ourselves.  

“Why am I not good enough for this person to love me back?” “I must be unworthy of happiness’ Hence - loss of self-esteem.  

Self-esteem is built from standards we internalize. We in fact, ourselves, decide what they shall be.

No....I am not saying that we don’t need measuring standards…indeed we do.

But we do need to understand where they come from.  Just be careful of the measuring standards you are using to determine your self-worth.

Love is an emotion and maybe emotional judgments need more of a balancing tool for measurement?

This sheds a little different light on self-esteem for me. You too?

How about Compassion as a tool then.

How about self-compassion?

From Rich Hanson's book, Just One Thing:

"You can have compassion for yourself-which is not self-pity. You're simply recognizing that 'this is tough, this hurts,' and bringing the same warmhearted wish for suffering to lessen or end that you would bring to any dear friend grappling with the same pain, upset, or challenges as you."

When asked by my troubled children in the past, what should I do? I have often pointed out this tool to them by saying, "What would you tell your best friend or someone you loved beyond measure to do?" I have used this tool compassion in all my mothering years but sadly very seldom think to give myself the same advice.

I find I am always measuring my success or lack of it too harshly. My standards are pretty high but they are based on my moral convictions and spiritual beliefs, so I feel the measurement is a worthy one.  

BUT tonight I have decided that…my tools are incomplete.

Compassion is an essential tool when struggling to change anything about your life. Not in just dealing with the pain of letting go of things that hurt like a love gone bad, but anything that becomes a road block in our life.

Like… failing again for the umpteenth hundred time!

I have judged myself pretty harshly as I go back and forth with my commitment to change my life.

This unfair and inhumane judgment just makes my life choices so much harder on me and can actually become a road block in itself.

"Feeling compassion for ourselves in no way releases us from responsibility for our actions. Rather, it releases us from the self-hatred that prevents us from responding to our life with clarity and balance."

Unlike self-esteem, the good feelings of self-compassion do not depend on being special and above average, or on meeting ideal goals. Instead, they come from caring about ourselves—fragile and imperfect yet magnificent as we are.

And the good feelings of self-compassion don’t go away when we mess up or things go wrong. In fact, self-compassion steps in precisely where self-esteem lets us down—whenever we fail or feel inadequate.

Self-compassion requires self-kindness, that we be gentle and understanding with ourselves rather than harshly critical and judgmental.

It requires recognition of our common humanity, feeling connected with others in the experience of life rather than feeling isolated and alienated by our suffering.

AND it requires mindfulness—that we hold our experience in balanced awareness, rather than ignoring our pain or exaggerating it. We must achieve and combine these three essential elements in order to be truly self-compassionate.

From Tara Brach's book, Radical Acceptance:

An island of calm

This suggests that self-compassion provides an island of calm, a refuge from the stormy seas of endless positive and negative self-judgment, so that we can finally stop asking, “Am I as good as they are? Am I good enough?” By tapping into our inner wellsprings of kindness, acknowledging the shared nature of our imperfect human condition, we can start to feel more secure, accepted, and alive.

It does take work to break the self-criticizing habits of a lifetime, but at the end of the day, you are only being asked to relax, allow life to be as it is, and open your heart to yourself. It’s easier than you might think, and it could change your life.

There is a beautiful song I have sung many times called “Gentle” by Michael McLean that says what I am trying to say so much better than I am doing here.

Below are the lyrics if you need to be inspired to have compassion for yourself.

“I want to dedicate this to my face book friend. I love you my dear…you are so worthy of love, passion and compassion. I hope you know this. May God bless you with all these and more.”

Words and Music by Michael McLean

Gentle

Like a gentle wind can blow the clouds from the sky,
Like a gentle touch can ease the pain of goodbye,
Like a gentle smile embraces empty souls in lonely places,
We should be more gentle with ourselves.

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Like the friend who gently builds us up when we're down,
Like a gentle kiss can turn our world all around,
We've been hurt by others often,
We've forgiven and forgotten,
We should be more gentle with ourselves.

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Life can be hard but
we need not be so hard
on ourselves,
If we will see

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Like the Shepherd leads his flock with gentle commands.
With his gentle voice that only hearts understand.
One thing we can know for certain, He has borne the awful burdens
so we can be more gentle with ourselves.

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One thing that I know for certain:
He will bear my every burden,
So I can be gentle with myself.