Minding an Idea III: Mindful Self-Compassion

Tina Geithner, Ph.D.

We often find feeling compassion for and taking care of others much easier to do for someone other than ourselves. If a loved one, a family member, or a friend or co-worker you cared about was struggling, would you empathize or “feel with” them in their challenge? Would you demonstrate your care and concern through listening or offering assistance or support? Most likely, the answer is yes… However, when we are the ones who are struggling or challenged – when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate – we often don’t cut ourselves a break – physically, mentally, or emotionally. This may be in part due to the absence of social disagreement. When no one else is there to stand or side with us, our critical inner voice often speaks unopposed. Or maybe we’re afraid we’ll go too far with self-love and become conceited and selfish, or maybe because we heard messages when we were growing up like, “Pride goeth before a fall”, “Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back”, “Buck up and take it like a man”, or “Pull up your big-girl pants and get it done”. So, as a result of this conditioning and what we have practiced, we often push ourselves too hard, frequently take care of others’ needs before our own. We don’t always slow down enough to feel and acknowledge what’s there for us in the moment and to offer ourselves comfort.

How does this behavior serve us? We get to appear humble, we get reinforced for working harder, and sometimes we are rewarded with parental or significant other’s love and admiration, or we do ourselves a disservice because we rob ourselves of health, joy, and relationship. The most important relationship we have in our lives is the one we have with ourselves – all aspects of ourselves – our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual selves. The good news is that this we can learn to generate kindness and care towards ourselves, just as we have learned to feel and show compassion toward others. It just takes awareness, intention, and practice, and each moment of every day offers us the opportunity to start anew.

We can practice letting go of expectations, competition, and judgment. We can practice “opening our hearts to life as it is” as a mindfulness practice. We can Recognize what is there for us and bring a soft and Allowing attention to what’s there, without judgment. We can begin softening our hearts towards ourselves, just as we would towards a fellow human being. When our internal critical voices start to chatter or run the old tapes, we can bring a mindful awareness in the moment and notice what’s happening. We can be curious about and Investigate our experience. And, we can Nourish self-compassion instead of “being at war with ourselves”. This is the RAIN of self-compassion and offers us a powerful meditation for working with everyday challenges and difficult emotions.

As we enter a season associated with divine forgiveness, transformation, and rebirth, we might practice offering ourselves acceptance and love. As we develop our capacity to generate kindness and care toward ourselves, we also develop our capacity to feel compassion for others. This way of being invites more health and happiness and brings us closer to living into our full potential. As the love comes full circle, we come home to ourselves.

Here are some links to resources that you might enjoy. Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield are masterful mindfulness teachers, Christopher Germer and Kristin Neff are leading researchers on self-compassion.

Brach, Tara. 2018, RAIN: https://www.tarabrach.com/meditation-the-rain-of-self-compassion/ (10:42)

Brach, Tara. 2018. Vipassana – Opening Our Hearts to Life as It Is: https://www.tarabrach.com/meditation-vipassana-20-min/ (19:52)

Germer, Chris. 2018. Meditations. https://chrisgermer.com/meditations/

Germer, Chris and Neff, Kristen. 2017. Center for Mindful Self-Compassion. Guided Meditations and Exercises. https://centerformsc.org/practice-msc/guided-meditations-and-exercises/

Kornfield, Jack. 2018. Meditation on Compassion: https://jackkornfield.com/meditation-on-compassion/

Neff, Kristen. Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. New York: William Morrow (a division of Harper Collins Publishers), 2011. Available from: https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=self+compassion+by+kristin+neff&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=241934519681&hvpos=1t2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14995903340595939676&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9012300&hvtargid=kwd-28095702006&ref=pd_sl_7j3p6nym0h_b