I started this website to offer the tools that I have learned from more than sixty spiritual teachers, philosophers, and psychologists. Many of them also asked me to test the teachings in my own life, and I found several that worked and a few that did not.
An interesting consequence of using the tools every day began to show in my attitude toward myself, my life, and the changes that life threw at me every day. Once I began to practice the tools, especially meditation (one of the tools I espouse; however, meditation isn’t necessary), I started to treat myself better. By treating myself better, I mean that I offered myself more acceptance, forgiveness, and grace. In other words, I started treating myself more kindly, even when I made mistakes.
Four years after I started practicing meditation, I was writing my second book, and I used the word self-compassion for the very first time. The word stuck in my mind, and I began pondering it and using it in my talks and classes. Then, three years after that, I bought the website name (domain name) Self-CompassionateLiving.com and did nothing with it.
Self-CompassionateLiving.com went unused until 2017 when I began building a basic site ...which I didn't publish (and then changed a dozen times) until about 2021 when I finally published it live on the internet and only used it to inform about my class Creating Self-Compassion.
Finally, in October 2024, I began writing a monthly newsletter about self-compassion. The newsletter has grown considerably in size and depth. Now, I start each newsletter on about the 20th of each month and work on it until I send it on the 7th of the following month. I spend between ten and twenty hours per newsletter because I want to make sure the information is completely in line with my personal experience; that statement sums up my goals for the website and classes that I offer.
I want everything I teach to align completely with my own experience! I teach self-compassion as a bio-mechanical process which can be cultivated and grown with practice. I want everyone to love themselves and treat themselves the way they truly want to feel loved and cared for!
As the quote above and at the bottom of each page says, I want to offer tools to anyone in any belief system so that they can minimize and sometimes eliminate suffering (negative-feeling emotions) in their lives.
I hope you find some knowledge and tools that improve your life. To paraphrase Fr. Richard Rohr, 'Life is hard! Here are some tools to make it a little bit easier.'
May you find some benefit in this website and these tools.
