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Compassion for our story

"You're stronger than your past, because of it."

There's one thing we can know for certain.. we are here! We've survived. It's not been a smooth road - far from it most likely - but you've made it, and when we think about it, it's quite a magnificent thought.


Not only did we survive but the actual experience of existing at all is also quite astonishing to consider, but that's another story.


For some of us the past is more difficult to hold than others, but we have all had moments we regret, things we wish we'd done differently, things we wish we'd have tried, things that happened to us that weren’t our fault.


Sometimes this history pops up as a conscious thought in this moment and washes us away down the road of shame or regret, other times it lurks under the surface as a fear or limiting belief and dictates the choices we make without any conscious effort at all. This is how life is and this is how humans are.


We are all products of our past conditioning, and quite often the most powerful influences happened when we were young little sponges soaking in everything we could about the world. We were issued a set of genetics and ordered to live in an environment that we had little or no choice over, for better or for worse. When we think about ourselves like this it seems absurd to beat ourselves up for making mistakes or not being the perfect person from time to time. We could easily fall into the trap of blaming our parents or the generation before but they were the same little children growing up in a strange world too.


It is useful to consider the quote from Louise Hay:


“We’re all doing the best we can, with what we’ve got, in this moment".

It’s an adaptation of the quote from Theodore Roosevelt, “Do the best you can, with what you have, where you are".


When we sink into this understanding we can forgive ourselves for not being the perfect person, friend, brother, sister, mother or father.


When we look back at all our choices in life with the same heart we can soften slightly and accept ourselves a little more, and when we do that, we begin to accept others as they are too. This is living in peace with ourselves. This is what I call living in truth.


When we see that all of life events have led us to THIS moment right here and right now, THIS opportunity to wake up from the spell of self-criticism, doubt and self-limiting beliefs, then we can be grateful for it all.

We sometimes think that life - be it a year, a day or even 5 minutes, goes in a straight line from A to B. When in reality it wiggles, turns, twists, blobs and bounces all over the place. There are NO wrong turns, no alternatives and nor are there ‘meant’ to be. This is our life, all of it, as it is, and if we can embrace ourselves with a compassionate and forgiving heart then we can heal and learn from all that stuff, and we can help others on their wiggly journey too.


Through self-compassion we can develop a kind and warm relationship with our past, however it happened.



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