Areas › After harm › Meaning after harm
What happened to you is not who you are. Speak to yourself as you would to someone you love who was hurt.
Harm done to you is not a verdict on your worth. Trade the harsh inner voice for a kinder, truer one.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Your Lord has not forsaken you, nor does He hate you (Quran 93:3). If the Most Merciful has not turned from you, do not turn on yourself.
مَا وَدَّعَكَ رَبُّكَ وَمَا قَلَىٰ
your Lord has not forsaken you [Prophet], nor does He hate you
Qur’an 93:3read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Treating yourself with kindness rather than harsh judgement, especially about what was done to you, strengthens resilience. Your worth was never the thing that was damaged.
Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity doi
Treating oneself with kindness rather than harsh judgement supports emotional resilience and wellbeing.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Meeting your own pain with self-compassion, rather than self-blame, supports recovery and resilience.
Where this sits: Posttraumatic growth (Tedeschi and Calhoun).
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
When trauma tells you that you are utterly alone and beyond help, treat that as the wound talking, not the truth. Do not despair.
Healing is not pretending it never happened. It is letting it become part of a life that still grows.
You can relearn, slowly and through safe relationships, that help is near and that you are worthy of care.