For some people it is easier to be compassionate to yourself. For other people it is easier to be compassionate to others. Everyone's personality is somewhat different.
I always found it easier to be nicer to others before I was nice to myself. Part of this was the macho I was taught in the 1950s growing up then. Luckily, I was big enough and strong enough mentally and physically to pull macho off in my life plus I was always very coordinated too.
But, in my family people didn't give compliments. If you succeeded it was expected of you and if you didn't you would be often criticized for not succeeding. So, the only way forward was to be perfect all the time (which isn't possible for human beings anyway).
The end result was I found it easier to be nicer to others than to be nice to myself.
So, for me, suicide was a way to punish myself for not being perfect enough in my own eyes, in my parent's eyes etc.
Luckily, I found psychology which showed me this kind of thinking ONLY leads to death of one's body or one's mind or both.
I discovered this by reading a Psychology Today magazine while attending Palomar College in San Marco around 1970 or 1971. This changed my life a lot at the time.
I began to realize that I could dump about 90% of what was bothering me because it wasn't keeping me alive and instead it was killing me.
This all led to me finding how to have compassion for myself in addition to having compassion for others.
This combined for me with the Buddhist adage: "Life is suffering". This taught me to become even more compassionate not only to others but also to myself as well.
This totally changed my life completely in a truly wonderful way. By having compassion for all beings in the universe including myself I was ready for a Path of Compassion.
By God's Grace
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