Self-Compassionate Living Newsletter, January 2026
“The contemplative mind does not tell us what to see but teaches us how to see what we behold.”
Richard Rohr
“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”
Buddha
“Given all of life’s ambiguities and the reality of impermanence and suffering, our existence is remarkable, wondrous. It evokes awe and amazement. We need to pay attention. Really pay attention. Lest we become blind to the awe and wonder that fills our days.”
Marcus Borg
Happy New Year! May this year be all you want it to be.
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!
As we move into this new year, I will begin trying a new format. In the past few months, I have received several notes from readers saying they like it when I share my experiences and lessons, and maybe more importantly, my personal journey: areas where I struggle, fail, succeed, stay self-compassionate, and through that, grow. The most crucial point is that I am a human who endeavors to be present and consciously aware as much as possible; I also fail frequently, and I always try to learn from my experiences so I can grow to be more self-compassionate and a better human.
Let’s start with, probably, the most important lesson I have learned from all the spiritual teachers I’ve worked with, especially Fr. Tony D’Souza. To quote Fr. Tony, “Be mindful of the subtle little buggers!”
First: What are subtle little buggers?
Subtle little buggers reference the myriad layers of thought beneath our actions. (To my British readers, please forgive the repeated use of bugger. Fr. Tony was raised in India, and I’m guessing he learned that term in British-influenced schools.)
I first met Fr. D’Souza as a business client in 1996, when I recorded him reciting 12 guided meditations on awareness. At that time, he introduced himself as Tony and asked me to refer to him that way, even though he is a Catholic Priest. Tony was born in India and lives in Mumbai, where he runs a counseling center and school. In his book Discovering Awareness and in his in-person workshops and talks, Tony’s main point is paying attention—awareness—especially to the seemingly hidden thoughts or motivations behind our actions and other lines of thought. Tony called those layers subtle little buggers. To paraphrase him, he’d say, ‘Pay attention to the subtle little buggers, because they will tie your life up in knots when you are not aware of them.’
Subtle little buggers creep into everything we think and experience; they are incredibly persistent. They are not bad; they are trying to protect us from negativity, whether it be physical pain or emotional suffering. They are subtle because they are remarkably difficult to recognize; they seem so normal, even part of the “background noise” in our brains.
A good analogy is the groove noise in a record or LP. While the music is playing, the groove noise is unnoticeable; however, when the song begins to fade out, the noise seems to rise out of nowhere. In our brains, the songs are our dominant thoughts, and the hidden agendas—the subtle little buggers— are the groove noise. When we stop feeding our brains new dominant thoughts, they fade, and we can notice the layers of thought hidden by the dominant ones, emerging from seemingly nowhere.
Generally, these hidden layers are not pleasant. Frequently, they are a recognition of the loneliness so many of us feel, the emptiness that much of life entails, or the persistence of judgments planted in us as children and then fed by the previously mentioned loneliness and emptiness. No matter what, the layers usually don’t feel good, and our survival mind, which tries to protect us from threats such as loneliness, emptiness, and judgment, compels us to stay too busy, say yes to everything, or use other coping mechanisms to hide from the discomfort. Amid this overwhelming noise, we often miss the information that enables us to live more abundantly.
Interestingly, when an LP is playing, groove noise is always present, whether we notice it or not; it's just underneath all the music in the song. Similarly, subtle little buggers are always present, whether we pay attention to them or not; the noise of dominant thoughts hides them. The secret to self-compassion and living abundantly is sifting through the noise to the truths hidden inside of us.
I use a formula I developed to remind me about the power of my thoughts (especially the subtle, hidden ones).
My thoughts generate my feelings.
My feelings compel my actions.
My actions create my life.
Thus, everything begins with a thought. Thoughts are awesomely powerful in our lives!
Interestingly, I’ve found that for my clients (and me sometimes), being honest with ourselves about those subtle little buggers is often the most difficult of those subtle thoughts to recognize.
Being honest with ourselves.
We’ve all done this, we say something deprecating about ourselves, and then we say, “but it’s okay”. Except… It’s not okay because our survival brain is trying to cover up the negative feelings (no matter how minor) our brain/body experiences when we deprecate ourselves and, more importantly, think negatively about ourselves. These “minor” negative thoughts and feelings are subtle little buggers. Our brains and bodies experience some negativity, and then our brains try to cancel it or cover it up with the word “but”. In my university communication classes, many professors would say, “Everything before the but is bull,” and they were mostly correct. The “but” isn’t self-compassionate. It’s the beginning form of fight, flight, freeze, against our own thoughts, and thus, it robs us of thriving. In contrast, when we are self-compassionate, we prioritize thriving.
How do I prioritize thriving while surviving?
This is a vital question when practicing self-compassion. If we are not dead—and, assumingly, if you are reading this newsletter, you are among the not-dead people on this earth—then survival, especially mental/emotional survival, is the primary goal of your survival brain. Yet that part of our brain has no capacity for logical thinking and often, unintentionally, sacrifices our long-term emotional well-being for a short-term positive feeling; this means our survival brain hurts us in the long term for a short-term gain; that’s why it isn’t self-compassionate.
The alternative is to be honest with yourself, even when it doesn’t feel good, and in the beginning, it often feels very uncomfortable. This discomfort is usually tough for our survival brain to navigate. So to protect itself, it introduces all kinds of excuses, justifications, explanations, and rationalizations into our thinking and language to lessen the negative feelings that arise from telling ourselves the truth. Yet when we allow ourselves to see the truth of our thoughts, we recognize the pain our subtle little buggers have quietly been causing us, and we can begin to address the root issues rather than the papier-mâché our survival brain created to try to protect us from feeling negative.
In that truth, we can begin to truly live instead of wasting energy protecting the crumbling walls of the paper fortress our survival brain takes so much comfort in. Self-honesty isn’t easy, nor is it fun. However, it is usually necessary to be fully self-compassionate. Please be gentle with yourself, though. We don’t have to face all the pain and discomfort at once. Honesty with oneself is self-compassionately served, gently, as our survival brain adjusts to living in truth rather than its lies.
If it helps you feel more comfortable with this process, please get professional help to walk with you as you peel away the protective darkness and reveal the beautiful, fulfilling light that you are.
Stillness: Facing the Discomfort and Protective Dishonesty
As I say in virtually every newsletter, stillness is often one of the best tools for building our lives on personal abundance. For many, stillness safely allows us to see our crazy survival brain formulating crazy stories to create temporary pools of pleasantness in the messy reality of authentic living, even though those pools cost us more than they offer. In stillness, we can watch our brain engage in remarkable gyrations to avoid negative thoughts triggered by a stimulus. We see it dance like a crazy ballerina elephant, doing everything it can to fight, flight, or freeze the negative thoughts it is experiencing. Ironically, those gyrations are harming us over the long term because they take so much energy to enact. In a regular stillness practice, we notice all this happening in our brains, and eventually we realize that none of these mental gymnastics are real outside our skulls; they are all happening in our brains!
That recognition is a moment of authentic power!
It is authentic power because, when we recognize it as a mental game, we can learn to detach from the thoughts and view mental reactions as one choice among many. That is real power because we are no longer beholden to our thoughts; we recognize they are simply activity in our brain. With that understanding, we can move them into the advisor's chair and our authentic self into the commander's chair.
That realignment of our relationship with our thoughts is real power!
My personal experience.
In my life, I try to live what I am talking about in these newsletters. Frequently, my brain and I have this discussion, usually many times a week.
The discussion starts with, “Just because you’ve had this thought, doesn’t mean the thought is correct, nor is it the most self-compassionate”, I say to my brain.
My brain says, “It is too! I’m right! I know my thoughts are absolutely correct!”
I say, “And lying to myself to make myself feel better is the right way to handle this unfortunate confusion?”
“YES!”, my brain yells.
I calmly reply, “Fortunately, I am the boss, not you. Therefore, we will think these thoughts and take this action even though it doesn’t feel the best right now.”
“But it will hurt!”
“Yes, maybe, only for a moment. Then we will feel better because we did what represents our genuine self, not just our short-term emotional self.”
Yes, being honest with myself, especially with the subtle little bugger thoughts that are trying to avoid discomfort, allows me to live more authentically, and yes, it occasionally feels very uncomfortable. Yet, in that discomfort, I am being my authentic self, even if my body isn’t comfortable with it in that moment.
I could easily write a whole newsletter or book on this topic. Maybe in the future. For now, please take any helpful insights you can from this brief mental script.
Next Month
In next month’s newsletter, I’ll probably continue to discuss becoming aware of our subtle little buggers only because that’s been a considerable focus of my personal mental examination lately.
If you have a particular topic you’d like to see discussed, please reply and suggest it to me.
On a Personal Note
My goal to create a video series called “An Introduction to Practicing Self-Compassion" is still progressing slowly. I mentioned last month the difficulty I was experiencing with the AI image creation. For now, I have decided not to use AI-generated images in the video series. I think I am going back to my original plan of using three or four camera angles of me talking about the points of practicing self-compassion. Thank you for being patient with this creation.
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 each other. Thank you for being so helpful!
Self-Compassion Discussion & Inspiration Group
The Self-Compassion Discussion & Inspiration Group has been enormously inspiring for me and, according to participants, for them as well. Please join us for the next one this coming Saturday.
The next two Self-Compassion Discussion & Inspiration Group meetings are scheduled for Saturday, January 10th, and Saturday, January 24th, from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM MDT. I would like you to join us. Please click this link or visit the Self-CompassionateLiving.com website to register.
If you would like to be reminded of the biweekly Self-Compassion Discussion & Inspiration Group meetings, please reply to this newsletter, and I’ll add your name to the notification list. This list does not sign you up to attend; it only signs you up to be notified of the next biweekly meeting.
In each meeting, after a brief introduction, we observe 10 minutes of silence, followed by a discussion of any self-compassion-related topics raised by participants. I may also spend about 10-15 minutes unpacking the themes that emerge in the discussion.
I request a $10- $15 donation per session; however, all are welcome. I will not turn anyone away for financial reasons. I have some scholarship money available.
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
*I have made a glossary for many of the words I use in these newsletters, my classes, and coaching. You can find the glossary here: https://blairashby.com/glossary.html.
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