Self-Compassionate Living Newsletter, October 2025
“The world is a little bit smaller compared to one year ago. At the same time, it grew bigger by noticing more in the immediate surroundings, in my own experience, and by just paying attention.”
Florian Heidenreich
“We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make, which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.”
Marian Wright Edelman
“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So, go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”
L.R. Knost
Thank you for subscribing to the Self-Compassionate Living Newsletter! You can create and cultivate self-compassion by learning and practicing it. Engaging with a supportive community usually makes it easier. 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!
This month's newsletter focuses on intention… and awareness… and self-compassion. And, yes, I know I mention awareness repeatedly. I frequently discuss awareness because I have learned that dispassionate observation is usually the most effective way for me to navigate the relentless changes I face in life. Thus, each day, I set my intention to be the best version of myself that I can be. Then, I observe the variables that life creates. When I’m grounded, I watch my automatic reactions emerge in my brain, purposefully release their hold over me, and then proceed in a way that reflects my authenticity.
…And when I’m not as grounded as I want…
I spend the next few minutes, hours, or even days recentering myself in that place of dispassionate observation. That recentering generally takes a tremendous amount of energy and usually culminates in the realization that if I’d stayed grounded, it would have cost less energy overall. With that lesson learned once more, I begin the process again, until the next time I untether; I am, after all, an imperfect human.
Intention: the Beginning of Creating One’s Life
Intention is simply a plan, an aim, an ideal. I intend to navigate each day being the best version of myself. I suspect you share similar goals or want the same things. Like most humans, you also want to eliminate suffering or at least minimize the amount of suffering you endure while being the best version of yourself. Unfortunately, being the best version of ourselves often requires considerable energy, and suffering tends to increase in proportion to the energy expended. Thus, being the best version of ourselves frequently sets us up for suffering.
Authenticity is often challenging.
The challenge arises because our brain/body systems are designed to survive, not to be at peace. Joy, Peace, and Contentment (JPC) are pleasant mental/emotional states to inhabit; however, they are rare in the game of survival. We always expend energy for breathing, eating, drinking, and maintaining a safe temperature. Unfortunately, our brains tend to entangle energy expenditure beyond those survival needs with negative emotions (suffering). Thus, in some ways, survival sets us up to suffer.
That is where our intention begins to change the game.
Get a New Field: The Field of Intention
Many years ago, I attended a business conference where I listened to a speaker. The speaker was trying to convey the idea of intention, emphasizing the importance of being number one in your chosen field intentionally. He then made a simple analogy, which I’ll paraphrase. He said you need to be number one in your chosen field of competition, and if you are not, you should consider a new field. I’m going to stretch this analogy. The new field we want is JPC.
Life and survival want you to survive; that means fitting into the herd, not being authentic, because being authentic takes energy and usually gets you killed by predators. However, nowadays we rarely encounter predators that can kill us. Instead, we have mental/emotional “predators” that rob us of mental/emotional serenity. You want more than survival, though; you want to thrive. You want a life built on joy, peace, and contentment, even if that ideal takes a bit (or a lot) more energy. Unfortunately, survival hasn’t caught up with this “relatively” safe world we’ve created; it still equates energy expenditure even for thriving with suffering. Thus, one option is to change your relationship with energy expenditure. Instead of automatically seeing that expenditure as suffering, you notice it as simply part of the deal to live contentedly.
In other words, you dispassionately watch the engaged parts of your brain/body system. You see them expending energy. Maybe you even see them complaining about the work, and you allow them to express their opinions without taking those opinions personally.
Here’s one example of dispassionate observation (awareness):
Reality: We agreed to clean the kitchen, and Mrs. Snagletooth is complaining about the work. She is really moaning and groaning about the effort.
Your Survival Brain: It’s terrible that we have to do this! It’s so unfair! Everyone helped make the mess.
Your authenticity: I can see that parts of my brain agree with Mrs. Snagletooth. I can also watch those parts of my brain make this worse than it is. So, I’m going to watch the rest of my brain/body complain (along with Mrs. Snaggletooth), and I’ll do the work and be the best version of myself.
Life is what it is, dirty kitchens and all. The majority of the time, our brains complain about being alive because it ties the effort of modern life to suffering. Alternatively, we observe our brain/body exerting effort without resistance. In that case, we don’t make the energy expenditure worse by feeding the negative feelings our brain/body naturally feels from effort. The effort is there; it isn’t pleasant, and it also isn’t necessary to make it worse by adding to the negativity with more unhelpful negativity.
When we set an intention to be authentic, we also want to minimize the suffering of our survival-programmed brain/body. Thus, when we learn to watch, without resistance or craving, we allow ourselves the space to see life unfold without gluing ourselves to any outcome and the suffering that accompanies those attachments.
It requires us to be as aware (as possible) of the situations in which we are involved and, especially, watch without feeding our survival mind’s automatic reactions.
Awareness, Especially Mentally and Emotionally
It’s so easy to believe we are aware anytime we are conscious. Ironically, consciousness doesn’t mean consciously aware. Consciousness means not being physically asleep. However, we can be physically conscious and still not be mentally/emotionally awake or aware. As an example, when I asked Google about mental autopilot and driving, here is part of what came back: “A 2024 study suggests that nearly 80% of all crashes and 65% of near-crashes involve some form of driver inattention within three seconds of the incident.” In other words, mental autopilot appears to be rampant. Let’s face it, we’ve all driven somewhere and then been unable to remember the drive…
Mental autopilot happens anytime we repeat a task. Ironically, mental autopilot is a tool that helps us survive by saving energy that would otherwise be “wasted” on rational thinking. (Shameless commerce here. Please take my class called Creating Self-Compassion to learn more about this topic and how illogical it can be.) However, logic isn’t the goal of survival; the goal is to stay not dead, and that is the entire motivation of survival. I say not dead because we have all met people who are very much not dead while also being very much not alive. They are surviving; they are not thriving.
Awareness helps us recognize the thoughts and emotions our brain/body is experiencing, and it also enables us to observe our brain/body's reactions to those stimuli with minimal interference from our survival modes: fight, flight, freeze, grab & hold.
Paying Attention to Ourselves
As we observe our brain/body system experience life, if we are aware, we begin to notice the subtle agendas our survival brain uses to motivate us to take certain actions in reaction to specific triggers. Because we are observing these reactions dispassionately, we give ourselves the freedom to notice the agendas and begin asking ourselves, “Is this true to my authenticity?” If it is, we can continue the behavior unabated. If not, we can modify our behavior to align with our authenticity. Then we can begin training our brain to elicit thoughts in line with our authenticity and daily life intentions.
Thus, we set an intention to be self-compassionate, and we pay attention to our mental, emotional, and physical behaviors to identify areas where we are and are not meeting our intention. Lastly, we modify our behaviors and reprogram our minds to create the life we want to live.
In other words, self-compassion starts with awareness.
Awareness to be Self-Compassionate
In 2009, while I was suffering from depression, Fr. Tony D’Souza, a Jesuit priest from Mumbai, India, came to America to teach some classes on Awareness. He’s “Tony” to me because we had met 16 years earlier when he hired me to record several of his guided meditations (You can purchase the meditations as mp3 or CD here). As on every trip to Denver, I took him to lunch, and he listened to me emotionally vomit all over him about how depression had stolen my will to go on.
After I’d finished emotionally dumping on him, he told me, (I’m paraphrasing), Blair, it’s time to pay attention to your life. You are so caught up in what you think did happen or predicting what is going to happen that you lost sight of yourself and what is happening now.’
His words hit me like a freight train.
Upon specific triggers, my brain was generating thoughts that ran counter to my hopes, dreams, and life goals. In my life, some things that were outside of my control happened even though I didn’t want them. Instead of facing the reality of the situation, my survival brain generated tremendous negative emotions to counter or “fight” the negative thoughts and feelings my survival brain (yes, the same part of my brain…take my Creating Self-Compassion class to understand) was generating. Basically, my survival brain was feeding the negative feelings my body was experiencing with more negative thoughts and feelings. My survival brain was in a feedback loop, feeding itself.
Tony told me to begin paying attention to my thoughts, whether they felt good or not. He also suggested that I start meditating so I could discover my center and then recenter myself when I got caught up in my thoughts and the emotions those thoughts generated. Lastly, he said, “Meditation won’t fix anything; it’ll change everything!”
So I started meditating and paying attention to my thoughts, and I didn’t notice anything. Three weeks after I started, my kids, though, mentioned they noticed something was different. My daughter said, “Dad, you’re not less depressed or any happier, but something is different, is better.”
I didn’t feel any changes for many months. Then, slowly, I began to recognize a new clarity in my thinking. Nothing in my life had changed; my marriage was still disintegrating, and my business was still heading toward bankruptcy. Yet, my mind also wasn’t turning these tragedies into life-devastating events either. I was starting to see them a bit more dispassionately.
Dispassion Doesn’t Mean Disinterested or Uncaring
After several months of meditation, I was more able to see the end of my marriage and the bankruptcy of my business as events happening to me and my family. I could try to alter events, and I could be okay when my efforts failed. I asked for marriage counseling, and I sought financial assistance. However, I only had limited control. During that time, a friend of mine said, “It takes two to get married, and it only takes one to get divorced.” As to my business, one bank worked with me valiantly, and one bank said, “I was worth more as a TARP write-off, so bankruptcy was forced upon my business (This was only true to that specific time-period event. In the fifteen years prior, I had made many poor unaware decisions that set the stage for bankruptcy; that is a story for another time though).
It comes down to this: we can be dispassionate and still work for results; we just don’t tie our mental goodwill to the outcome. Our efforts succeed or fail; they are not a reflection on our personhood or value.
Mental stillness or meditation is the brain gym where we practice the skills of self-compassion.
Next Month
In next month’s newsletter, I’ll discuss mental stillness and probably attachments. Attachments are directly related to passionate and dispassionate awareness, and mental stillness is extremely helpful for learning to see our thoughts dispassionately. If you have a particular topic you’d like to see discussed, please reply and suggest it to me.
On a Personal Note
I am 98% complete with work on Video 1 in the video series "An Introduction to Practicing Self-Compassion." This is the series I promised you back in March, earlier this year. My current goal is to complete the series by the end of the year, although I suspect I may need to bump the date to early next year.
I feel 98% happy with the first video. I say 98% because I don’t know what I’ll learn from doing the following seven videos that may affect the first video. I suspect I’ll learn a lot over the next three months. Overall, the first video turned out much better than I had hoped.
One reason I’m creating this video series is to gain a deeper understanding of myself and my philosophy on self-compassion. In my mind, as I think about the future, I hope to create a video series based on my 'Creating Self-Compassion' class. Yet, I also recognize how long it’s taking me to make an 8-video series. So, I am learning about my personal boundaries and fulfilling an enormous task, such as an e-course. I committed myself to making this 8-video series to learn about me and what I really, Really, REALLY want. I’ll keep working and paying attention to my subtle agendas in my effort to keep living my authenticity as I finish the video series.
Your replies of encouragement, support, and love mean a tremendous amount to me; thank you! I thank God for this community. Each of you has been an inspiration to me. Thank you! As Ram Dass said, "We are all just walking each other home.” We are stronger when we help one another. Thank you for being so helpful!
Self-Compassion Discussion & Inspiration Group
The Self-Compassion Discussion & Inspiration Group is fantastic! We’ve had between three and nine people at every meeting. We’ve also had some insightful and impactful conversations. Please consider joining us for one soon.
Please join us for the next Self-Compassion Discussion & Inspiration Group meetings on Saturday, September 20th and on October 18th, from 10 AM to 11:30 AM MDT. If you would like to join us, please click this link or visit our website and register here.
If you want to be reminded of the next biweekly Self-Compassion Discussion & Inspiration Group meetings, please email me here, and I’ll add your name to that list.
In each meeting, after a brief introduction, we’ll do 10 minutes of stillness, and then we’ll discuss whatever comes up from the participants. The last discussion in the group has been remarkable!
I ask for a $10 to $15 donation per session; however, I will not turn anyone away for financial reasons. I have some scholarship money available.
Additionally, Contemplative Outreach is hosting me teaching Creating Self-Compassion Through Centering Prayer beginning October 9th. You can read about it and enroll here: Creating Self-Compassion Through Centering Prayer.
In conclusion
By this point, you've probably realized that self-compassionate living is about building a new relationship with your brain, specifically with managing your mind to create your life instead of just reacting to life. Self-compassion begins with mind management, allowing you to live with greater joy, peace, and contentment (JPC) and experience fewer negative emotions. I have learned the information I share in these newsletters from spiritual teachers, philosophers, and psychologists during the last thirty-three years. I share it with you, hoping it will help you practice self-compassion. Please utilize the material that resonates with you and explore and learn about your mind. 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.
Blair
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