Self-Compassion in the Alleyway

Fifteen years ago my experience of losing touch with reality was a sliding scale. My sister was missing and I was mentally, emotionally, and spiritually overwhelmed by what we were experiencing. Today as I walk past this alleyway on a park route, I can picture the scene, a day in a life unraveling.

It’s Autumn 2010. She is 32 years old, a wife and mother of a baby and toddler. Arriving home at the end of the day she finds no one at home. I don’t know where she has been. She has no key to get into the house.  It seems a logical idea to go to her friend’s house, a ten minute walk away. The clothes on the washing line are getting damp so she quickly unpegs them, and dumps the laundry into the baby’s buggy left outside. She doesn’t want the clothes to get stolen while she’s gone. So she pushes the baby buggy full of laundry through the neighbourhood. These actions make perfect sense to her. She walks through the local park going quickly through the alleyway where has recently feared for her safety. When she arrives unannounced to her friend’s house there is no one there. Sighting the petrol station at the corner of the street, she’s off on a mission. At the end of this day, this crazy day, she is taken from the floor of the petrol station for a mental and physical assessment (and is later sent home). Another day, much more unwell she is committed under the mental health act and admitted to hospital.

Today as I walk along this path, I don’t recoil, it’s not a trigger of sorts. Quite the opposite. I actually sense a warmth inside of me – a deep sense of God’s compassion for me. I also feel this compassion from me to myself. I now understand this woman, this mother, so vulnerable. This stretch of large trees and grey gravel has become an almost sacred place. For there the Holy Spirit reminds me time and again, that God was with me in my distress. I was seen and loved.

The reason I have shared this small snippet of a day in decline is because I want to encourage self-compassion for those who have come undone, often in front of others. When looking back on events that you’d rather forget – please know there is more self-compassion to feel. It might be a mental health episode, it might be something else. It could be in your family, at work, church, all of these or more. However it happened, you unraveled.

Making peace with yourself is easier said than done. If appropriate, apologising for what you had control over can be helpful. Shame can loom long. I am so grateful to those who showed me how gracious God is by what they said, didn’t say, for loving reassurances (those were uncountable) and for putting the old things behind us. Women helped restore my life, to germinate confidence and to focus on hope for the day at hand.

‘We love because he first loved us’ – 1 John 4:19

We learn to love because we are loved. To learn self-compassion I first needed to experience Father God’s compassion for me through important people in my life. After a mania, a psychosis that lasted months, I came out the other side highly anxious, severely depressed and cognitively affected. My friend and mentor Bron Tait helped guide me to the arms of the Father. Bron and my mother were compassionate and wise souls giving soul care that helped save my life.

What I share about self-compassion has come out of a long walk with a loving heavenly Father. Those earlier times were marked with wrestling, grief and angst. Over a long period of time I came to a growing revelation of Jesus’ love for me. I came out of that desert more in love with Jesus than ever before.

In receiving God’s love, I think there is some soul care to be done independent of other’s. I think in a sense we need to scoop up and hold our ‘self’, however unattractive, before the One who loves us. It is surrender to love. It is acceptance of where we are, who we are right now. We can lean our weight of belief in God’s forgiveness and kindness towards us. We can activate our faith in Jesus’ work at the Cross for us – to align ourselves with the freedom this brings from condemnation*. We can also learn to trace the compassion of God in our story. Journaling can help with seeing the thread of God’s love and faithfulness in our lives. We can know that all along we have been loved and ever will be. This is true self-compassion first born in Love.

Perhaps you are one who can help encourage another, holding the compassion they need. Or like me – you’ve been the person at the centre of this story. If you can’t find this compassion, seek out a wise and loving friend who can hold that that for you, until you feel it for yourself. Belonging to a healthy Christian church is also a great foundation from which to grow and heal. You may also want to ask God to give you a place of revelation, scriptures, things that help you hook onto God’s compassion. And in doing so, may you find compassion for yourself.

I pray that for you,

Arohanui,

Bronnie

*Romans 8:1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

P.S. It’s been a slow start to the year but more material is coming!