{"id":1356,"date":"2006-01-17T00:14:15","date_gmt":"2006-01-17T08:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2006\/01\/17\/self-portrait-tuesday-the-child-within\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:45:10","slug":"self-portrait-tuesday-the-child-within","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2006\/01\/17\/self-portrait-tuesday-the-child-within\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-Portrait Tuesday: The Child Within"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This photo was taken February 1965, when I was 20 months old. I don’t know exactly when the picture was taken, although I imagine it to be on a Saturday afternoon, and my mother would have begun to prepare supper. My Dad worked two jobs. He was an elementary school teacher, but supporting a family on that salary was a stretch, so he worked some evenings and each Saturday at a family-owned furniture store. Perhaps he had come home from his second job and in greeting me, plopped his hat on my head. Maybe that happened, and they decided I looked too cute not to memorialize with a photo. <\/p>\n

This photo is special. When I was mired in my depression during graduate school, I struggled with deep self-hatred and self-destructive thoughts. In my therapy, one approach I tried was to detach from that kind of selfishness and to see myself with more compassion. So I pulled this photo out from the childhood album, framed it, and set it on my home altar. When I felt acutely harsh toward myself, I would look at this photo and ask myself if I would treat that child as heartlessly as I was tempted to treat myself in that moment. The answer, of course, was no. How could I imagine hurting that sweet-faced little being? Then I would wend my way back toward her in my heart, remembering the fact that she and I are one, and I would soften toward myself. It was a powerful tool. Being able to genuinely love others is rooted in a healthy self-love. I would give love to others but did not feel it for myself. I came to understand that this was not really lovingkindness, but rather it was my wish for love projected onto others. I hoped that someone else would give me the positive regard I wouldn’t give myself, the kindness I believed I did not deserve, the tenderness I rejected when it was offered. In truth, I was<\/em> loved by others, but I wouldn’t receive it. When I learned to be compassionate toward my being, I became receptive to the love that had always been there. This photograph was an essential component of that process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This photo was taken February 1965, when I was 20 months old. I don’t know exactly when the picture was taken, although I imagine it to be on a Saturday afternoon, and my mother would have begun to prepare supper. My Dad worked two jobs. He was an elementary school teacher, but supporting a family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-social-science"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11006,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356\/revisions\/11006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}