Be Kind

At the end of emails to good friends, I sometimes add these words: "Be kind to [their name] today." Occasionally I'll add, "[Their name] is someone I like very much and deserves your kindness."

Not everyone responds, and I don't write it to hear from them. I write the words because I mean them. I also write them because I've had to say them to myself many, many times to remind me. When I've messed up, said or done the wrong thing, feel low or lonely, that's when I decide to be kind to myself.

How do I show myself compassion?

My words go like this: "I like Cec; he needs me to support him and he deserves all the love and respect I can give him."

Be kind to yourself.

Say only positive, loving thoughts to yourself. If I occasionally hear myself bordering on negative and self-condemning words, here's what I say: "Cec, I'm sorry I felt that way. You don't deserve the harsh things I've said about you. I promise you that I'll be nicer."

Loving God, today help me be kind to myself.

And tomorrow. And the days after that.

This post is excerpted from Cec's book More Than Surviving: Courageous Meditations for Men Hurting from Childhood Abuse (Kregel, 2018).

The Exercise Factor (Part 4 of 4)

Along with moving the body, something else I’ve learned is to incorporate positive self-talk while I’m on the move. We chatter to ourselves all the time, and it’s impossible not to talk to ourselves. When I caught on to that years ago I realized I could improve my life by choosing to say positive things to myself and about myself.

My rules (which I learned from others) are simple.

1. State facts that are true.

2. Commit yourself to goals you can easily achieve.

For example, I started making two statements to myself:

• I need to exercise.
• I will exercise three times a week.

Both were positive and easily accomplished. At times I had to push myself to do three mornings a week. But once it became habitual, I increased it to five times. Over a period of weeks, I realized how much better I felt about Cec, and I was more energetic and creative in my work. And in those days I was running one mile. Before long I got up to six miles each day.

I kept telling myself the positive effects of those two things. I kept my goal simple and obtainable.

Perhaps I sound like a fanatic on this topic. I know only that I’ve reaped immense benefits, and exercise has played a major role on my healing journey.

Energy, Energy (Part 3 of 4)

I am and have always been a high-energy person, but even people like me have bad days—really bad days. Some mornings it takes immense effort for me to get out of bed and go for a run. Days with rain and freezing weather add another reason to turn over and sleep.

Then I remind myself that I’ll feel much better after running. And I always do. A few times I drag myself out there on the streets early in the morning and I start out wondering why I’m doing it. Even on those days, by the time I’m home and ready for a shower, I know why.

I feel better about myself. It’s that simple. I don’t have to fight negative self-talk or beat myself up emotionally. I realize how blessed I am and enjoy my life. That’s the reason for being able to develop the self-discipline of getting up every morning—and it’s worth the effort.

I kiddingly say to my friends, “I’ve saved $300,000 in therapists’ fees through exercise.”

I’m a self-starter and I realize that some people need others to keep pushing them forward. If that’s you, recruit a friend. Get one or two buddies to run or walk with you or whatever exercise you choose.

I’m a professional writer and work at home. Almost every morning I see others in my neighborhood exercising while I’m at work. One man and his wife jog (which I use to refer to a slower, more relaxed pace). A little later, two wives in their early 30s make the loop in front of my house, which is at the end of a cul-de-sac.

I live 1.3 miles from a high school and sometimes I run there and do a few laps on the track. For the past several weeks, a group of five women have been coming out. They yell at each other, laugh, and I can hear them halfway around the track. They’re having fun.

In an earlier blog I wrote, “Start small.” If there is any secret to an ongoing exercise, that’s it. Don’t set lofty goals of learning to run a 10k race in a week

In my next blog, I’ll give you one more tip on developing an exercise program to push away negativity and depression.

I Deserve Compassion

I can now say the words, “I deserve compassion,” but it took me a long time to admit that. For years, I tried to be self-loving and self-forgiving, but a voice in the back of my head whispered, “You know all the wrong things you did. You’ve earned your pain.”

In one sense, of course, none of us merits anything good in life. (That sentence reveals my theological basis of everyone being a sinner.) What I failed to understand is that God loved me and forgave me. Once I truly accepted divine forgiveness, that led me to forgive others and feel compassionate toward others. Why couldn’t I love and befriend Cec the same way?

Although the process I went through is too complex to relate, for me, it came down to this. I didn’t warrant compassion until I saw myself as a beloved child of God. If that was true, I didn’t have to prove anything or do anything to make myself lovable.

I have three children and I love them very much. If I look at their lives, I can easily point to their flaws or take note of the ways they disappointed me. Instead, I knew I loved them and thereby I accept each of them as they are.

The hardest words I recall saying to myself were these: “I am loveable.” Although I said them aloud to myself daily, for almost a month I wanted to add, “because I . . .” and list my good deeds. Or I’d have to fight myself by adding, “But look at . . .”

I know I’m loved and worth loving.

I’m loveable;

I can show myself compassion.

Journal to the Center of the Soul

(By John Joseph*)

One of the simplest and most effective tools in my recovery has been soul journaling. There’s something powerful about the act of writing out the pain, the people, and the prayers (positively and negatively) that put them all in a better perspective. I don’t know if it’s the power of the words themselves or just the fact that I write them out of my head that brings some relief, but time and again I’ve experienced good things from journaling.

I’m not a write-in-the-journal-every-day kind of guy. I write when I feel like I need or want to. It’s sporadic, and weeks can go by in between entries. Sometimes I write four or five pages; at other times, only a paragraph.

Recently, when I needed to do some journaling about my mother, I could write only one sentence: “Mom . . . upside down spells ‘wow.' ” Obviously I have some work to do on that relationship.

I think it’s important to write positive things as well as negative. It’s good to celebrate even the smallest victories in our recovery from abuse—a day with less depression or the realization that each day is a gift. It’s also possible to address the true self in our journals—that part of our soul that responds to nurturing through self-affirmation and blessing. There’s a lot of healing we can gift to ourselves through positive words.

Writing things out is an ancient prescription for soul health. Journaling, even sporadically, can be part of your journey to the center of who you really are.

(*John Joseph is a pseudonym of a pastor. He's a regular contributor to this blog.)

Why Me? (Part 8 of 8)

I was targeted.

I was chosen by my perpetrator.

Those two sentences were so freeing to me. During the early days of my healing, I regularly repeated them.

I could now add:

• They were bigger and more powerful.

• They didn’t have the right to hurt me or take advantage of me.

• They were hypocrites. They tried to manipulate me into believing the lie that they did this out of love for me. Instead, they were doing it to meet their own addictive craving.

If my perpetrators were still alive, here’s something I would like to say to them: You kept saying you loved me, and I know it was a lie. Love never hurts or destroys another.

By Now I Should . . .

Once in awhile, when I’m emotionally down, I stumble or become aware that I’m not at the end of the healing journey. Then it’s easy for me to berate myself. “By now, I should be . . .” is one of the most self-destructive things I used to say to myself.

I finally figured out ways to ward off that kind of thinking. First, I reminded myself of something my friend Malcolm George said to me in one of my dark moments: “When you tell yourself that you ought to be farther down the road, you’re probably healed more than you know.”

Second, I remind myself of who I used to be. I reflect on the insights and breakthroughs I’ve experienced over the years.

Third, I wrote a simple prayer when I was a pastor. For years, people reminded me of it and told me how much they valued it. Finally, in my dark moments, I started reciting my own prayer:

God, show me the truth about myself

no matter how wonderful it may be.

“I Love Myself”

For a long, long time, I didn’t love myself. I felt different, defective, and worthless. That’s common among survivors, and a few become braggarts or bullies as if to yell to the world, “See! I am worthwhile.”

It took me a long time to feel compassionate toward myself. Not only did I have emotional support from my wife and a few friends, but I began to experiment with what some call positive self-talk.

That experiment began after hearing a lecture. One statement went something like this: “You can change who you are by changing what you say when you talk to yourself.” I read several books on the topic and came to this conclusion: We can say positive things to ourselves to overcome the negative things we’ve been saying all our lives.

Here’s one such sentence I began to say to myself every morning and have been repeating it several times for the past 15 years: I love who I am, I love who I used to be, I love who I am becoming.”

I follow up with a second self-affirmation: “I lovingly embrace every part of myself—known and unknown.” I can’t tell you when the change began, but I can say I believe and joyfully accept those words today.

I lovingly embrace every part of myself—known and unknown.

Feeling My Feelings

One of my big struggles in my healing journey has been to feel my emotions, especially the intense ones. That’s the curse and the blessing of my childhood abuse.

The pain and the memories were so intense, I blocked them out.

That unconscious action was a marvelous survival technique and a way to avoid my deepest hurts. Other men use artificial means to deaden their pain—alcohol, drugs, or sexual experiences. And when they’re not engaged in them, they’re in agony.

I’m one of those who didn’t feel the anguish and lived in denial. I didn’t remember my childhood trauma for a long, long time. Whenever an emotional situation became acute, I numbed out. And wondered why.

Over the years of writing this blog, responses from other survivors have shown me that many of you are like I used to be.

I’m a strong believer in self-talk, which is (for me) also a form of prayer. One of the things I said aloud to myself daily for at least two years was this: “I feel my feelings.”

Part of the problem was that I was afraid of those powerful emotions, especially my anger. My friend David said, “You haven’t killed anyone yet, so trust yourself and open up."

One day my emotions seeped through my resistance and I began to weep. Not just a few tears, but convulsively. For hours the pain was so severe I couldn’t stop. A few weeks later, anger was one of those powerful emotions that erupted, but I was able to accept.

And yet, in the midst of that excruciating trauma, I was glad. “Finally,” I said. That didn’t lessen the pain, but it pushed me down the road toward reclaiming my emotions.

It hasn’t been easy, but I can now say that most of the time I feel my emotions and they’re no longer as terrifying as I once thought they were.

I feel my pain, as well as a wide range of emotions,

to make me healthier and to connect more fully with others.

* * * * *

Are there questions or specific topics you'd like Cec to address in upcoming blog entries? If so, please send an email to his assistant at the following address: cecilmurphey(at)mchsi(dot)com.

Embracing Myself

Sometimes the loving rebuke of a friend does wonders for us. Immediately I think of one powerful experience. Four years ago in telling my best friend, David, about an incident, I called myself an idiot for something I had said.

"Why do you talk that way about yourself?" he asked. "You're not stupid and it hurts me when you speak that way."

That's an example of a loving rebuke—and I needed to hear it.

As we continued to chat together, I realized how often I criticized myself. Then David said, "You don't talk about others with that critical tone. Don’t you deserve the same kindness as you give them?"

His words shocked me, but they were exactly what I needed. I was kinder to other people than I was to myself. (And that's probably true with most of us.)

The next day I began to make a self-affirming statement every morning: "I like who I am; I like who I used to be; I like who I am becoming." And I repeated it several times. I still say those words every single morning.

I needed to learn to embrace myself—to love myself and to be patient and kind to Cec. It wasn't easy because I've long held him to a much higher standard than I have others. But I also prayed for God to help me feel compassion for Cec. I tried to envision him as something apart from myself.

That's when I realized he deserved my acceptance and my loving embrace.

I like who I am;

I like who I used to be; 

I like who I'm becoming.

Self-Affirmations

I was skeptical about positive self-talk, and I'm still not fully comfortable in some of the practices I read about. Some seem to imply they accomplish magical things just by repeating certain phrases.

Self-talk refers to the ongoing internal conversation within ourselves. We do it constantly, and it influences how we feel and behave. We talk to ourselves all day long and too often our self-talk is negative, focused on guilt about our past or anxiety about our future. Our thoughts inspire our actions. If we can redirect the way we think, we can change the actions we take.

Daily, I've repeated self-affirmations or positive self-talk, but only those that I believe are possible. They're what I consider reachable goals. Research shows that if we focus on those possibilities and keep reminding ourselves, eventually our behavior and attitude change.

As an experiment I began to say several times a day, "I accept my feelings; I feel my emotions." I started that because of my abusive childhood, when I became overwhelmed with good or bad news, I numbed out. I wanted to experience my feelings, so I began to say those two statements.

I can't remember when the transformation took place, but months later I realized that I was feeling and I no longer numbed out.

Here's another I repeated for a long, long time and now believe it without having to say it: I am lovable.

Try your statements. They might make drastic changes in your life.