Danielle Thornton teaches a daily self-compassion practice: hands over heart, visualizing loving energy, and repeating reassuring phrases. She explains how it stops the brain from automatically piling on self-criticism, and shares how it helped her through her marriage ending.
October 6, 2019.
October 16 (announced as "starting next week on October 16th").
Hey everybody. Danielle Thornton here. I wanted to come on today to talk about the number one thing you should do as you start your healing journey from anxiety or depression. Today we're going to talk about that. And that is self compassion. This is so important. And one of the things that started me on my healing journey from anxiety and depression and the reason is, is because when we're going through something, we're struggling, we don't know what to do, we often kind of beat ourselves up. And when we do that, it just adds a whole other layer of pain and suffering to what we're already dealing with. So being compassionate with ourselves is so crucial and something that you need to start practicing today if, if you want to start healing.
That can look like all kinds of things for all different people. Everybody's different in what feels good to them. For me, the first thing I started doing is a practice that somebody suggested for about two years before I started doing it. But once I started doing it, it was huge. And what that looks like is putting your hands over your heart and really kind of connecting with yourself in that space. And also the physical touch is really important. So putting your hands over your heart, slowing down and either envisioning love loving energy going into your heart. That's what I do. I just envision positive, supportive, loving energy. Depending on what you believe, you could envision that energy coming from God, from the universe, whatever that looks like for you, you. And then really it entails another big piece of it is what you're telling yourself. So as you're doing this, telling yourself that it's going to be okay, that I or we are going to get through this.
That we're gonna figure it out.
Reminding yourself of the things that are going well versus focusing on the things that are not going well, these are so crucial. And what happens is a lot of times if we're not, if we don't have a daily practice of doing these positive things in our life, then our brain is on autopilot. And if your brain is on autopilot, you're usually beating yourself up or worrying. And again, those two things just add more of a layer of suffering from where you're already at. And so that's why self compassion is so important. And it's really important when you're going through something or struggling with something. A lot of times we expect somebody else to kind of do that for us. And again, no one else can know what we need when we need it.
But really just giving that to yourself every day, even when you're not going through something, it's kind of like a glass of water. When you're, when you're filling that glass of water up a little bit each day when you really need it and you get thirsty, you're gonna have water there. If you're not doing a little bit of that each day and then you get thirsty, something happens, you go to drink some water and there's nothing there. And you can fill it up at that time, but you're going on reserves. So being able to.
Learn how to be compassionate with yourself when you're going through something, not beating yourself up, not blaming yourself, no matter what you're struggling with, no matter what you're going through, we're all just doing the best we can in the time that we have it. And so this is super crucial skill as you start to heal from anxiety and depression. And if you start doing it. I think I noticed right away that when I did start going through something, in fact I probably started doing this a couple days before.
My marriage ended. And prior to this, when I would feel down or upset, it felt like a bottomless pit. I didn't know when the emotions were going to end. I didn't know when I was going to feel better. And it made me scared to actually deal with my emotions. But once I started doing this, it took a day or two and obviously I was going through a difficult time. But I could get upset, I could allow myself to feel those feelings. But then it's like there was a bottom. It was, there was no longer emptiness there and it was because I was finally there for myself and there was some support that I was my whole life expecting other people to give me. And that's just impossible because nobody knows what you need, when you need it, what you want to hear. And so taking that accountability is really huge to healing. Learning that no one else is going to save you from anxiety or depression. You really have to start taking accountability and be there for yourself. So if you liked this video, if you got anything out of it, make sure you hit like below. Subscribe to my channel. I'm going to be offering a lot more information. Since my healing journey, I decided to become a life coach and help people heal from anxiety, depression, relationship. OCD was something else that I suffered from and I'm just super excited that obviously that I've been able to come as far as I have and I really want to help share that with other people. I am going to have my first masterclass on alleviating anxiety starting next week on October 16th. So if you're interested in that, I will post a link below as well. And there's so much information in there that's going to be really, really helpful if you are wanting to start healing from a lot of anxiety that you've been suffering from. Thank you so much for watching today and I'll see you soon. Bye.
