How old were you when somebody said something about you that you never quite forgot?

Perhaps you were eight. Thirteen. Seventeen. Perhaps you are now in your forties, fifties or sixties, and yet if you allow yourself to remember that moment, you can still hear the words. You can still see the face. You may even remember exactly where you were standing when they were said.

That was what struck me so deeply during our self-compassion practice today.

I invited people to gently recall a time when something said to them, perhaps about their appearance, their body, their voice, their intelligence or simply the way they were, had left them feeling that there was something wrong with them.

Not the biggest wound. Just something manageable that we could tenderly turn towards.

As people shared their direct experience afterwards, it was moving to hear just how clear and vivid some of those memories remained. Decades may have passed, yet the wound could still feel remarkably close.

Because sometimes the mean voices we hear when we are young don’t simply disappear as we grow older. Somewhere along the way, their voice can become the voice inside our own head. We repeat the judgement to ourselves until we forget that it was never ours to begin with, and perhaps never held any truth at all.

This is one of the reasons I love self-compassion so deeply.

Self-compassion doesn’t ask us to erase the past, minimise what happened or tell ourselves that we should be over it by now. Instead, it allows us to turn towards the part of ourselves that was hurt and offer some of the kindness, soothing and support that may have been missing at the time.

A hand resting over the heart. A gentle touch to the cheek. A tender hand placed on a part of the body we learned to judge.

Of course this hurts.

May this wound be held with gentleness.

May I give myself what I need.

We are not trying to get rid of the wound. We are simply changing the way we hold it.

And perhaps, with practice, compassion begins to soften around the edges of those old hurts. The memory may remain, but the mean voice no longer needs to have quite such a powerful grip on how we see ourselves today.

This theme feels especially close to my heart as we prepare to launch my new children’s book, Loving the Me I See. It was written to help children recognise how the words of others can shape the way they see themselves, and to give them another, kinder voice to turn towards.

But perhaps it is also for those of us who grew up long before anyone taught us how to do that.

If you are carrying an old comment, judgement or unkind voice that has stayed with you for far too long, I’ve recorded the guided Holding Wounded Parts with Compassion meditation from today’s practice for you.

Come and practise with me. Perhaps there is a younger part of you who has waited long enough to be held with kindness.

Watch the guided self-compassion meditation here: