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My therapist has directed me to resources regarding self compassion. There’s a website and everything. I took the test for my self compassion index. According to it, I have my work cut out for me.
It’s hard to describe. Most of it is finding ways to treat oneself with the same kindness as a friend. The idea is something I’m having to get used to.
As with other things in the past, the cynicism in my depressive mind wants to say nothing will work. This will fail like everything else has failed. It’s like I have to succeed at everything instantly or get frustrated and abandon it.
That frustration is something I’ve been able to bypass. Results are not instantaneous. Like quitting smoking, it happens one day at a time. I cannot promise forever, but I can promise today.
During these trying times, it’s something I want to remember.
Amusing Nonsense 
Indeed, in times such as we find ourselves in, one must learn to be kind to themselves
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I’ve just sent you a book (PDF) to your Yahoo email which I’m reading right now and has the best techniques I’ve seen so far on this. The beginning is a little bit slow, but give it a chance and you’ll see that a few chapters in the whole thing starts to make a lot of sense. It’s particularly interesting for people who have lived under forms of extreme stress, and that includes because of religion.
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From that book: “Repeated messages of disdain are internalized and adopted by the child who eventually repeats them over and over to himself. Incessant repetitions result in the construction of thick neural pathways of self-hate and self disgust.
Over time a self-hate response attaches to more and more of the
child’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
Eventually, any inclination toward authentic or vulnerable self-expression
activates internal neural networks of self-loathing. The child is forced to exist
in a crippling state of self-attack, which eventually becomes the equivalent of
full-fledged self-abandonment. The ability to support himself or take his own
side in any way is decimated.
With ongoing reinforcement, these neural pathways expand into
a large complex network that becomes an Inner Critic that dominates mental
activity.”
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