Sitting in the Power - Week 39

Compassion

Studies show that kindness can increase happiness and improve overall well-being.

David Ji, meditation teacher and author, says “all compassion starts with self-compassion. If you are not rooting for yourself in each moment, how can you root for others? If you can’t empathize with your own plight, then you are not connected to your own heart. And it’s from the depths of our own heart that compassion is birthed. Healing others begins with healing yourself.”

I am my own witness. I am my own judge. I am my own cheerleader and I am my own condemner.

A mentor once suggested when I am lacking self-compassion, to imagine I am a small child standing before me. This child is lost and alone. How do I treat her? With disdain or compassion?

Sometimes I take it a step further and make this small child a baby animal, like a puppy or a kitten, huddled in a corner, frightened and quivering. Do I treat this baby animal with disdain or compassion?

The answer is easy when this inner vision is a child or a baby animal. It’s not as easy when I imagine myself before me. Where does my compassion go?

The above exercise is a mental exercise invoking self-compassion. I learned about behavioral self-compassion as another way to offer self-compassion. Paul Gilbert, a clinical psychologist and founder of compassion focused therapy, offers this idea.

An alternate way to practice self-compassion

"Mental practices can be re-traumatizing, Gilbert says. Specifically, say, you try to help yourself by saying it is OK to feel sadness. Instead of feeling comfort from your words to yourself, you start to feel anxious because you have an emotional memory of being told that sadness is unacceptable (even if you aren’t conscious of it)."

"The alternative is to practice behavioral self-compassion, or figuring out what you need in the moment to feel soothed—for example, petting your dog or taking a short break from work."

Chris Germer, a Harvard clinical psychologist says, “Everyone needs to customize self-compassion practice for their own, individual needs and life circumstances.” “As a rule of thumb, behavioral self-compassion is safer than mental exercises.”

She’s with Me by Shirley Riga

I don’t remember when I discovered her. She emerged one day sitting in front of me, watching me. She was quiet and patient, attentive and welcoming. I could feel her compassion as she watched me, fully present, loving me.

Loving me no matter what I was feeling or saying or demonstrating.

Loving me no matter who I thought I was or where I was going or should have been.

Just loving me.

In my daily practice of 15 minutes of silence, I am patient.

Sometimes I feel attentive and sometimes not.

Sometimes I am peaceful and sometimes I’m a jitterbug.

Most times I don’t know where I’m going and I am content to be with me.

I am trusting this process.

I discover my wisdom

Her first and last name is mine.

Her middle name is compassion.

The more I observe her, I get to know me.

Imagine my surprise when I realize she has been with me all along

Silence opened the door

Self-compassion welcomed her

I let her in.

Photo credit: Bill Fairs