Transformative Self-Compassion

Transforming your dysfunctional patterns and addictions with Self-Compassion

 SCIENCE is now showing... through multiple researchers... that Self-Compassion is the most MOTIVATING and TRANSFORMATIVE way to resolve the dysfunctional patterns and addictions that hold us back from what we really want.*

This guide could profoundly help you turn the corner if you're dealing with a pattern you feel stuck in: 
• any addiction
• drinking more than you 'want to'
• working 'too much' and not being able to relax or enjoy yourself
• feeling 'negatively' towards someone [when you really love them and want to like them]
• chasing people or experiences that you 'know' aren't good for you

Let me start this by being super vulnerable and share how this has played out in my life: 'I was desperate to weigh 111 pounds.'

For 20 years I used:
• will power, positive mindset and affirmations
• tracking, rewards and goal setting
• traditional psychology and counseling
and I failed to heal and release my patterns of overeating and bulimia.

My entire approach until this point was based in the faulty premise that my 'dysfunctional' pattern was 'the problem'. And that I just needed to focus on the positive outcome: 'the solution'.

But after just a few months into my Masters of Spiritual Psychology I began to learn that my unresolved pain or trauma was at the heart of my addiction. And within 3 months I stopped purging. And now 10 years later, I magically weigh my dream weight, despite eating whatever I want, and truly feeling so free and relaxed about food and my body.

My relationship with food, or my body, or purging was NOT my problem.

The unresolved, ignored and abandoned pain from my childhood was.

Within about 3 months of letting myself radically and completely:
• being kind and forgiving to myself for overeating and throwing up
• actually ALLOWING myself to overeat AND throw up [Yep, I began to say Yes to it and allow it]
• to feel the pain and shame this pattern was trying to protect me from, and in doing so I learned I was needing to let go of that pain and shame
• to thank this pattern and be grateful for it for how hard it has been trying to protect me for 20 years... so that I could graduate and complete it.

Through feeling what I was trying to avoid by overeating and purging, I was reunited with the 12 year old Zoë that turned to food when my Mum was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer.

I talked to the 12 year old that was told not to cry, when she learned her mother had cancer. 

I held and loved the 13 year old Zoë that felt like she was failing and falling down in trying to save her Mum's life.

And I broke down, multiple times, with the 14 year old Zoë that watched her Mum die in her arms.

I love the way Dr. Gabor Mate* puts it.

Instead of asking 'why the pattern?' We need to ask 'why the pain?' 

Why are we trying to escape? What are we numbing from? What pain inside still needs to be... Heard, Seen and Loved?!

I have created a version of the 4-Step Healing Guide to directly address our dysfunctional patterns.

It walks you through how to move from holding your pattern inside of you in judgment and as something that is negative and against you. Through to a pattern that HAS served great protection and support in your life, but is clearly NO longer needed... so it's time to celebrate it, thank it, and graduate it!

I know it feels like we're always talking about the most sh!tty 💩 parts of life. And that kinda sucks. Because this work and Allowing.Love™ is about Love, about living your calling, is about unleashing the Big, Brave, Bold, Brilliant, Beautiful YOU more fully into this world.

But I am CALLED to continue to shine the Light on this small but missing piece 🧩 that I call Feeling for Healing... because despite having such wonderful scientific research available to us, I still experience such a profound bias in Spiritual and Self-Help support that focuses on mindset, on positivity, and on spiritual bypass. 

This approach is NOT popular... because the ego is going to choose pretty much ANY solution that doesn't involve actually feeling the HURT and PAIN we're all trying to avoid [both consciously and unconsciously]. 

TRANSFORMING PATTERNS FROM DYSFUNCTIONAL PROTECTION TO PURPOSE & EXPANSION

F. Feel Your Feelings
You can't get from your head, and into your heart, without being willing to be present in your body and feel.

E. Embrace & Express
Accept and embrace what's present. Let go of anything being different in this moment. Be with yourself.

E. Examine & Evolve
Why am I doing this? How is this trying to help me in some way? Evolve from protection, to compassion and transformation.

L. Love & Forgive
Be loving and forgiving of yourself. Your patterns were created to protect you. Now thank them & let them go.

F. Feel Your Feelings

It's not your HEAD that's going to do the healing today, is your HEART.  So let yourself be aware of how you are feeling?  Let go of thinking. There's nothing to FIGURE out just now. Close your eyes. Relax. And breathe. And Allow yourself to simply FEEL whatever it is you're feeling in your body, in your heart, in your stomach, in your emotions right now.

What are you feeling right now?
Where do you feel it?
What color, texture or movement does it have?

E. Embrace & Express

Once you’re connected with your feelings, even subtly: the next step is to accept, embrace and really welcome them to be with you. Sometimes what we’re feeling, can be our resistance to just feel our emotions. So it’s an important to accept them fully.

Next we’re going to treat our feelings as if they are their own unique little being or part of us. Now let them express, freely, without censorship.

What do you need to say?
What is it that you want, and need?

E. Examine & Evolve

We're going to examine and evolve with the following questions. Our focus is evolving from fault, blame and condemnation... to forgiveness, kindness and compassion.

Be Open to the (now proven) Possibility that:
Your patterns and addictions, were created as a protective response to a hurtful situation earlier in life.

Why am I doing this?
How is this pattern trying to help, protect or serve me?
How can I help, protect and serve myself in a new, more expansive and functional way?

L. Love & Forgive

Continue to consider that your pattern or addiction, has been doing a wonderful job at helping, protecting or serving you. Consider that it was needed when it was created, but it may no longer be needed anymore?

It may now be ready to be released and graduated.

Can you feel loving and gratitude for how this pattern has been working hard to help, protect & serve you for so long?
Celebrate this pattern! Honor it! Thank it for it's service!
Now it's time to graduate and release this pattern by simply replacing the same purpose with an new expansive functional way to help, protect and serve yourself!!!

Completing Your Experience

Take the time to thank and celebrate yourself!
Thank yourself for feeling and healing! That is a Big, Bold and incredibly Brave action! Great job!

Receive Clarity and Courage 
Directly after healing we are often aligned powerfully with our intuition and inner knowing. Take some time to journal, or ask the big questions that are most important to you.

And if you do not feel complete, Lighter or a little better... scroll down for additional support.

Advanced Notes & Next Steps

Use these additional resources to guide you further in your healing expansion.

If you do not feel complete, Lighter or better after healing, consider...

Statements of Self-Forgiveness & Truth
"I forgive myself for buying into the misbelief that... [complete the sentence not from thinking, but from whatever spontaneously pops into your mind]
And the truth is that... [allow your Loving heart to complete this sentence]
Repeat these sentences until you feel a shift.

Talking to a Qualified Counselor
And if you need to talk to someone, use this list of Free, Confidential Helplines to reach out and talk via phone, text or online chat: https://findahelpline.com

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