The Why of Self-Compassion
How to Shift Out of Self-Blame
Many of you know that when I was 19, I was asked to sign off on my mother’s death, to euthanize her. And at 34 I was also in charge of my father’s death and carried that burden too. These are only the most obvious reasons that I’ve wrestled with critical, judging (self-hating, self-blaming) parts. There are more reasons I won’t mention — I don’t want to trigger anyone.
When bad things happen to humans, humans tend to blame ourselves, judge ourselves and berate ourselves. Sometimes forever. Mostly we are wired to do this so that as children we don’t cut ties to our parents. Instead we blame ourselves. Our brains are wired to stay connected.
But those blaming, critical parts (which most of us just experience as “ourselves”) can be really hard to live with and really hard to silence. Carl Jung said, “What we resist, persists…”
We might even live from our perfectionist, exacting parts as if they are who we are. We might not even know they are parts. And even when I first realized these parts were not me, I didn’t know how to un-blend from them. I didn’t know how to create distance. Most importantly, I didn’t know how to heal.
The easiest way to help ourselves and these parts is to start a Self-Compassion Practice. I have written about these simple practices that I use here. Scroll to the “Wholeness Tip” for my practice and other links. Or check out Kristin Neff and Tara Brach — they are Self-Compassion Experts!
But why should we do this?
There is a neurology and a physical reality to our existence which includes how we respond and/or react to stress/life. You think you have free will, but your actions during a stress response are Not Up to You. Your responses are conditioned from your earliest development. (But change is possible.)
We all have a nervous system. When we are startled, our bodies release adrenaline, and we experience that as Anger. Many kinds of people (especially those of us born female) are punished for displaying this biological reaction. We are (in childhood) conditioned to hide this natural, helpful response.
Anger typically arises when we need to set a boundary. If we are socialized to resist this feeling and its urgent messaging, we live at a disadvantage in an intrusive, violent, judgmental world.
If no one soothes and calms us when we are startled as young children, we continue to feel threatened (unsafe) and release more adrenaline and then cortisol.
If we cannot actually fight or flee, we must fawn/appease.
If our caregiver is dysregulated and cannot calm us because they don’t have access to their own sense of calm, the baby tries to calm the parent. This becomes a life-long conditioning to people-please, a precursor to autoimmune disease. This is where the language, “I’m on my own… it’s up to me… if I don’t do it, who will…” comes from.
Fawning/appeasing is a newly acknowledged step in the model of what we know about our Autonomic Nervous System’s response to threat.
Steps in our Autonomic Nervous System
if we can't get back to Calm from a Startle, we move up this ladder
5. Moving into a FREEZE response
a numbing experience of overwhelm
The Dorsal Vagal State
4. Thwarted Movement
includes FAWNING: Automatic Obedience
3. THE STRESS RESPONSE
FIGHT/FLIGHT (cortisol and more adrenaline released)
2. STARTLE (adrenaline released)
includes Automatic ANGER
time to check Are We Safe?
time to set a Boundary and return to Calm if possible
1. CALM
The Ventral Vagus State
when the Vagus Nerve sends
clear messages of safety up from
our organs (heart, tummy, gut) to our brainSee Step 4 where we behave with Automatic Obedience? No one ever told me about this automatic physical, biological response to threat. No one ever mentioned that we can be conditioned to respond this way. We can also be conditioned to skip from a Startle straight to Freeze! We can dissociate to manage stress if we learned this as babies. Were you a quiet, well-behaved baby? Maybe you were in a freeze state.
We think of our responses as personality, but it’s mostly conditioned wiring. This means that whatever we did in a dysregulated state IS NOT OUR FAULT. Even if we persist in insisting that it is. But we cannot just tell ourselves this and bypass the work necessary to re-educate our inner critics.
We need to create a lived sense of safety. The Autonomic Nervous System is not Automatic - we can teach it new things. We can learn regulation. I did this by creating and practicing internal feelings of kindness and self-compassion. Learning to self-soothe changed my internal experience, my demeanor, my whole life.
This is why a Self-Compassion Practice is necessary and worth doing, even in the beginning when you might feel as if you’re faking it.
Even if you can only offer compassion to your pet, start there. Activating compassion in your system is a way of increasing your capacity to lead from Self. You will be healing parts you didn’t even know were hurting.
artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudio on instagram
The Prompt:
How does anxiety affect your characters? What sets them off? What puts them over the edge? What do they do about it?
How can you let their anxiety escalate? How can you create a build with it? Pace them. Find 3 steps toward an ultimate disaster. How can their behavior show this escalation? What do they do?
Some characters talk when anxious and some silence themselves. What happens if two anxious characters, (one talkative, the other tending toward silence), are forced to spend some anxious time together?
Create the reason why they are stuck together - maybe the elevator’s broken, maybe they are locked in a closet or classroom during a school shooting - whatever you decide, make sure there is a good reason that they are stuck. But that’s not what is important. That’s only the surface problem. There are two other layers.
These two have a history, and they each want something from the other. What do they each want? How do their wants speak to the deepest level of their unspoken needs?
Begin with the easiest level and ramp up the stakes and the events until 1. they are actually really stuck, 2. they can’t get what they want from each other, and 3. they must go for what they truly need. They may not have even been aware of what they needed from each other when this began, but it’s how it ends.
Whether or not they each get what they need, something is transformed in the process of trying. Let me know how it goes!
Do you know someone who wants to be more creative but they have trouble starting (or finishing)? With prompts, grounding practices, & discussions, Brave Space inspires even the most blocked creatives! Playwrights, poets, painters or potters! Writers of any genre & creatives that do things that don’t start with the letter p! Brave Space is a safe place to make meaning in community. $5-25 suggested per session. 5x/week! On or off camera. Try it!
Brave Space Schedule:
(11/21 Thursday Brave Space cancelled)
11/22 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
Friday 3pm ET Brave Sharing Salon
11/24 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
11/25 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
11/26 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
11/27 - 12/1 Thanksgiving Holidays Wednesday - Sunday
12/2 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/3 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
Tuesday 7pm ET Brave Group Coaching for ALL - for support around the holidays, self-regulation, self-compassion & connecting with parts, ask for a link!
12/4 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/5 Thursday 10am ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
Thursday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/6 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/8 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space & 730pm ET Sharing Salon
12/9 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/10 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
Tuesday 7pm ET Brave Group Coaching for ALL
12/11 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/12 Thursday 10am ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
Thursday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/13 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/15 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
12/16 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/17 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
Tuesday 7pm ET Brave Group Coaching for ALL
12/18 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/19 Thursday 10am ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
Thursday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/20 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
12/22 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
12/23 Monday through Thursday 12/ 26 Winter Holiday
12/27 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
Friday 3pm ET Brave Sharing Salon
12/28 through 1/4/25 Winter Holiday
Each week Tuesdays includes fast feedback for up to 1 page (@250 words) of writing or you can bring in a craft issue/ask for help with your project.
Each month there are 2 Sharing Salons: Second Sundays (730pm ET) and Final Fridays (3pm ET) for sharing up to 10 minutes of work (up to 1500 words).Amazing People Doing Amazing Things:
Morgan Jenness died. I’ve linked her name to her obit in the NYTimes, so you can read about how amazing she was, how she touched so many of our lives, and how blessed we all were to have known her here on this earthly plane. May her memory be for a blessing.
NYTW is offering virtual programming of many previous events (videos of interviews and talks) including Master Classes & Fireside Chats with some amazing theatre artists! Check it out!
11/7 - 23 Cafe Utopia a 90 minute comedy based on frontline unionizing experiences with Nayib Felix performing in the final 4 shows!
11/8 - 11/24 GO SEE Mercutio Loves Romeo Loves Juliet Loves by GINA FEMIA! At ART/NY at 502 W 53rd.
11/8 - 11/24 Get your tickets to Tom Block’s "Oud Player on the Tel" starring Mark Quiles (he played Stu in my play Winners this past June). Code ACCESS for $10 tix (only 10 available per night) Code FOT for $25 tix TIX LINK (insert code at checkout)
12/4 - 12/29 Get your tickets to the world premiere of the beautiful land i seek (la linda tierra que busco yo) by Matt Barbot produced by Fault Line Theatre with Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater and Latinx Playwrights Circle. Use the DISCOUNT CODE FLT10 to purchase any ticket at a 10% discount. It’s funny, it’s theatrical, it’s philosophical, it’s political and truly remarkable. I love this play! Go! (I’ll be there 12/5 - sit with me!)
12/6 Sair Kaufman (Sair played Fran in my play Winners) will be performing at the Pink Frog Cafe in Brooklyn. Join me!
12/21 Transcend, a trans/gender-expansive chorus, will perform their Winter Solstice concert in person and live-streamed from NYC. TICKETS HERE (start at $5 for streaming)
Opportunities:
The 50th Annual OOB short play contest! Submit here while the link is open! They will only take 850 subs.
11/1/24 - 1/31/25 Autistic Oral History Project is offering grants of $3K to Autistic folks and Autistic-adjacent folks who want to participate in collecting oral histories.
11/1 - 12/31 Autistic Voiceover Artists is a new initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering autistic adults through voiceover training and practice. AVA’s mission is to create an inclusive and engaging space where autistic adults can explore voiceover as a means of self-expression, skill-building, and creativity. This November and December, AVA is offering free online voiceover workshops for Autistic adults! Webinar schedule and more info here.
11/11 - 11/18 Ojai Playwrights Conference will be accepting applications for their summer festival!
Due 12/1 Produce your one act at The Chain! Submissions and more info.
Due 12/15/24 The Orchard Project is accepting submissions for:
The Orchard Project Performance Lab (link), for development of work intended to be performed in front of a live or virtual audience.
The Orchard Project Greenhouse Program (link), for collaborators generating new works and collaborations in a multitude of forms;
The Orchard Project Episodic Lab (link), for writers working on the advancement of original TV scripts;
The Orchard Project Audio Lab (link), for early development of scripts and ideas in the audio storytelling form.
Due 12/17/24 NYFA grant deadline for Playwriting/Screenwriting, Photography, Choreography and other disciplines for New York artists. For $8K, no strings attached, it’s a tough application, but worth it. Break a leg!
The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis offers the following programs to apply to:
-Core Writer Program - open to any committed professional playwright, deadline in January 2025
-Jerome Fellowship - for any early career playwright interested in spending two years in Minnesota, deadline in November 2024
-Many Voices Fellowship - for any early career BIPOC playwright interested in spending two years in Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-McKnight National Residency and Commission - open to established playwrights outside of Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting - open to mid-career Minnesota-based playwrights, deadline in January 2025
-Many Voices Mentorship - open to beginning BIPOC playwrights based in Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-Core Apprentice - open to playwrights in or recently graduated from undergrad and graduate programs, deadline in February 2025.