Self-compassion and childlessness
As childless people we love talking with other childless not by choice people. Sarah Lawrence is our co-founder and a trauma-informed person-centred counsellor (MBACP) at After The Storm. She works exclusively with people who are childless. In this Medium article she talks about self compassion and reflects on our episode with Karin Enfield De Vries on how we may choose to transform ourselves as childless not by choice people.
Here’s the Full Stop podcast episode if you’d like to listen.
As a counsellor I get to give back, in a more meaningful way, along with The Full Stop podcast and online community space, of course. But, that feeling really hit home in our latest episode with the wonderful Karin Enfield De Vries — fellow counsellor and very dear friend.
Now, I know that my childlessness has had a profound effect on me, as it has with many of you, I’m sure. People that haven’t lived this experience will often just see the surface issue, and assume it’s just not having children, but actually, it’s so much more. Things like loss of the years-long friendships, a loss of meaning and purpose, will all be familiar to many of us.
It’s often the thing I remember most, as I sit with my clients and they speak of the losses, the grief and the traumas that they’ve had no choice but to sit with. And it’s so painful for many of us, as the reasons for the inner critic to really ramp up, are paraded before our eyes as to why we’re unworthy of the children and the life that we’d dreamed of.
But, what’s the answer to this I hear you cry! Well, if you listen to this episode, you’ll hear Karin speak about self-compassion, how it helps us to just dial down the inner critic so that we can have a breather, and start to get some head space from that negative voice that’s on a bloody rampage.
Self-compassion is something I speak about a lot with my clients, and I’ll be honest it’s the thing I have wrestled with the most when it’s come to my own recovery from childlessness and my inner critic. It can sound like a fluffy, ethereal term that gets banded about, without any real explanation, but the truth of it is, it’s about being able to be kind to yourself.
And if that sounds a bit ‘meh’ as well, have a listen to the podcast, because it really helps to illustrate why this aspect is so key to being able to move through the grief, the trauma and the pain of being childless.
It’s like being able to ask yourself ‘do I really want to go to Tarquin’s naming ceremony?’ and if everything but the voice in your head is screaming no, then it’s giving yourself permission to say, ‘I won’t be able to attend, but I’ve sent a card/gift’. Rather than the alternative (which we’ve all done), which is to turn up, plaster on the mask and the rictus grin, spend hours trying to hide the pain. Or worse actually holding Tarquin because our friend absolutely insists, we should and they want a photo of it. Eugh! and then going home to collapse in a heap for days, that makes it impossible to be able to do anything else.
I mean honestly, why do we put ourselves through it? Whose benefit is it for? It’s certainly not ours and so actively giving yourself permission to say no to things is the smallest act of self-compassion you can show to yourself.
But, even better, is to watch it grow as you give yourself permission to do all sorts of things, like not sticking to a job that is triggering your anxiety, not living up to other people’s expectations and…who knows what else. But, it all starts with being able to show yourself the compassion that you would offer someone else with your story, because we have this habit of offering to others but not ourselves, because goodness knows so many of us need that to start out healing.
Sarah Lawrence
P.S. If you would like to catch up with Sarah and Karin you can check out Sacred Woman Retreats. Join them, with Yvonne John, on 8 to 11 May 2025 for a four-day live retreat: a deeper, transformative journey in Seaford, UK