Self-Compassionate Living Newsletter, March 2025
“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.”
Madeleine L'Engle
“You must have a place to which you can go in your heart, your mind, or your house, almost every day, where you do not owe anyone and where no one owes you—a place that simply allows for the blossoming of something new and promising.”
Joseph Campbell
“I’ve been searching for ways to heal myself, and I’ve found that kindness is the best way.”
Lady Gaga
You can read all the previous newsletters by clicking here.
Dear Friend,
Thank you for subscribing to the Self-Compassionate Living Newsletter! You want to grow your self-compassion by learning, practicing, and having a community as a companion. You signed up to receive this monthly newsletter as part of that effort. I will endeavor to inform and inspire you, and together, we will explore ways to treat ourselves better. Thank you for inviting me to join you on your journey!
Last month, I shared a few ways to create self-compassion by committing time every day to watching how your mind reacts to disruptions while doing something you enjoy, and when you find a negative reaction to a disruption, cultivate a new response that shows kindness to yourself. Self-compassion frequently starts with being present, being present to your thoughts and their consequences.
First, What is Being Present?
Being present means you are watching your mind think; you are an observer watching all the thoughts your brain is having. An analogy is a city and its traffic. Imagine trying to make an informed decision about traffic in a busy city. If you are on a busy downtown corner, you only see the traffic directly in front of you; that traffic is your entire experience. Now imagine you fly straight up, and you can see the whole city. At that higher altitude, your perspective is broader, and you can make better-informed decisions about the city’s traffic. In this analogy, your brain is the entire city, and each thought is a vehicle. When you are the observer watching your thoughts pass through your brain, you have a more complete perspective on all your brain's thoughts; with that bigger view, you can generally make better decisions about your thoughts and their consequences.
“My thoughts have self-compassion consequences?”
Yes. Remember, self-compassion is concern for how you treat yourself, especially mentally and emotionally. The story that I told in the December 2024 newsletter (click here to read the story) is an example. The leaves in my yard were not from my trees (I only have one evergreen); they were all from my neighbor's trees, yet if I wanted a leaf-free yard, I would have to clean them up. Notice life has set up an opportunity to torture myself or be self-compassionate. I could have mentally and verbally yelled, hollered, and screamed at the unfairness of cleaning up my “neighbor’s” leaves, and, truthfully, a small part of me wanted to. However, the majority of my brain realized that yelling, hollering, and screaming felt negative and would have fueled the small, anger-generating thoughts that were already smoldering. Pouring fuel on the minor negative feelings my body was experiencing would have ignited them to potentially explosive suffering. I didn’t want that major suffering. I chose not to fuel the sparks.
Ironically, in that situation, the more self-compassionate activity was to notice (or be present to) a small part of my body feeling anger, accept that anger was happening in my brain/body, and release the anger-fueled desire to yell, holler, and scream. I had a choice: I was experiencing some mild anger, and I could let it go and only suffer a little, or I could pour fuel on it and then suffer a lot while working through the explosive anger. I chose to be self-compassionate and notice, accept, and let go.
It was not easy, nor was it fun; however, it did make a challenging mental/emotional situation easier to navigate, so I suffered less.
Self-compassion Doesn't Always Feel Good
A difficult concept to absorb is that self-compassion doesn’t always feel good; sometimes it feels yucky! This has to do with the different parts of our brain and how those different parts process thoughts. Please take my Creating Self-Compassion class to better understand. It comes down to the way our brain is built; the emotional parts of our brain are unable to see situations rationally; they can only draw upon previous perceptions implanted in them; memories, in other words. All this means is that it can feel challenging to take care of ourselves well, especially mentally.
In the story above, I felt like expressing my anger; yet that expression would have exacerbated the negative feelings. I was already experiencing some minor negative feelings, so I was already suffering. Had I poured more anger into my mind by expressing my anger in uncompassionate ways, I would have been causing myself more suffering. So, please notice my body was suffering either way. Yes, releasing the instant anger would have felt good to parts of my brain/body immediately, while it would have also increased my brain's negative feeling thoughts considerably as I ruminated over them. Therein lies the counterintuitive part of self-compassion. Instant gratification isn’t always self-compassionate. Sometimes, allowing one's body to experience some mild discomfort for one's overall benefit is the more self-compassionate path to choose.
A Side Note
You may have noticed I have been separating myself from my thoughts, feelings, and actions; this is intentional. I say, "I felt angry," instead of "I was angry." In the earlier example, I am separating myself from the experiences of my brain/body. This separation allows me to more easily stay present to what the different parts of my body are experiencing.
If I say I am angry at you, my brain/body is feeling threatened and my survival modes—fight, flight, freeze, grab & hold—kick in, and my mindset becomes very focused and inflexible. I identify with the thoughts and feelings my brain/body is experiencing, so I must protect myself from the threatening negative thoughts and feelings.
Alternatively, when I identify with the part of my brain that can watch its own thoughts, I am able to more easily separate myself from the thoughts and feelings, and I can see the experiences more rationally; I can see a bigger picture. That rationality empowers me to navigate situations without feeling so personally involved. I can see a bigger perspective and offer win-win solutions instead of win-lose solutions.
Being present helps me suffer less and offers me possibilities to be more helpful to others, so hopefully they also suffer less.
Separating myself from how my body feels has been exceptionally powerful in helping me be more self-compassionate.
Next Month
In next month's newsletter, I’ll talk about separating who you are from how you feel, and I’ll tell a story about how Fr. Tony D’Souza taught it to me.
My next Creating Self-Compassion class begins Saturday, April 5, from 10:00 to 11:30 AM MST, until May 10. Creating Self-Compassion is a six-week class where I teach participants a model to understand how their brains process data, and then I offer several tools one can use to create and cultivate self-compassion. You can read more about the class here.
On a Personal Note
I have been working on the free video series that I promised to all who have signed up to receive this monthly newsletter. I've got the scripts written, the cameras and teleprompters set up. My goal is to record the first video this week and get it edited and uploaded to my website and YouTube by the end of next week. I'm using this free series called "An Introduction to Self-Compassion" as a learning tool because I think I want to create a video series based on my class, Creating Self-Compassion. I am also considering starting a self-compassion discussion group twice a month on Thursday mornings. Please feel free to write me back and let me know your thoughts about my offering: Creating Self-Compassion as an extended video series and about a self-compassion discussion group every two weeks on Thursday mornings. I appreciate your input.
In conclusion
By this point, you’ve probably realized that self-compassionate living is about building a new relationship with your brain. Self-compassion starts with mind management so you can live with more Joy, Peace, & Contentment (JPC) and experience fewer negative feelings. Above are some exercises to help you practice self-compassion. Please try them or others that you discover and learn about your mind so you can create the life that you want to live.
See you next month, and may the rest of this month be peaceful.
Thank you for inviting me to walk with you.
I believe in you!
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