Is spending time and energy writing about what happened to me in psychoanalysis narcissistic? I wonder. Perhaps this sometimes issue of mine will help us explore a deeper question:
Are there benefits to knowing who you are?
Anne Lamott, an author I admire, believes the only way we can see others compassionately, is to see ourselves compassionately. She writes that while this might sound easy, it is difficult to do.
When I began analytical treatment, the focus was on what I didn’t like about myself. On my list of complaints were all the things I thought were wrong with me. If you are thinking that this doesn’t sound very compassionate, you are correct. I didn’t feel compassion for myself.
The paradoxical thing is the more I became aware of what my long term patterns were, and then discovered how difficult it was to change my behavior and ways of thinking, the more compassion I could feel for others.
It’s a funny thing, but the more I knew and accepted my shortcomings and began to look at myself with kindness, the easier it was to give others the benefit of the doubt. We were all in this together.
Perhaps my question about narcissism is part of my old pattern of thinking something is wrong with me. I will let this pattern go. I’m excited about writing this memoir. My hope is that my experiences will in someway be useful to others.
CLUE: Do one nice thing for yourself this week. It can be as little as reminding yourself of all the positive things you do or as big as buying yourself chocolate and flowers. Do these acts with compassion for yourself and let me know what happens. Try the new feature – hit reply to this email. It should be a direct email to me! I’d love to hear from you!
Thanks for exploring the mystery – Nicky Mendenhall
6 comments
I love your exploration this week, Nicky! Narcissism vs self-compassion–sometimes a tough balance! Awareness–and acceptance– of our own limitations/imperfections is always a path to compassion for self and others.
Diane – Awareness and acceptance of our limitations and imperfections as a path towards compassion is such a shorthand way of saying what I mean in this post.
Thank you for reading and for the helpful comment. Much appreciated!
I think using your treatment to discover what you like about yourself would seem more narcissistic to me than looking at your faults. It’s interesting to think about who we are and takes courage to share. I’m not sure about some simple things, example, am I patient or not. Thanks again for making me think.
Nolan – Your comment that you don't feel sure about whether or not you are patient makes me remember what my analyst said to me when I expressed similar doubts: "You don't stay with one feeling long enough to find out what you think." This seemed true for me. I think I didn't stay very long on either side of the question was that I was looking for the perfect answer and when I didn't find it, jumped to the other side. Does that make sense to you?
I had to read it carefully, but yes this makes sense to me. I don’t understand how we evolve over the years or by how much. Do others see the difference? An employee from 25 years ago found me on Facebook and my reply to her elicited this response. “You haven’t changed much!”
Good job deciphering my message – I just noted that I left a word out! I like your word evolve. I think that if we change too much, people around us will give us change back messages because if we change, they will have to change in order to be with our new self. So if you are getting messages that seem different to you (usually not good messages) and you feel like you have changed some things, you probably have. If you have changed and the people around you don't react in any way, it is unlikely that you have changed.
So your employee saying that you haven't changed much could mean that you did change and she wasn't able to handle it and so said – you haven't changed much when it was she that hadn't changed. That is if you think you have changed in the last 25 years.
Hope this makes sense. As for how we evolve, it is very difficult in my opinion. What do you think?
Fun to visit again!
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