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Self-Compassionate Living - A community focused on loving and treating yourself well.
Self-Compassionate Living - A community focused on loving and treating yourself well.

Self-compassion

Self-Compassionate Living Newsletter,
October 2024

Most of us do not see things as they are; we see things as we are.
Richard Rohr

I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life... to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Henry David Thoreau
Dear Friend,

Thank you for subscribing to the first Self-Compassionate Living Newsletter! You want to grow your self-compassion by learning, practicing, and having a community to aid you. You signed up to receive this monthly newsletter as part of that effort. I will endeavor to inform and inspire you, and we will explore ways to treat ourselves better together. Thank you for inviting me to join you on your journey!

What is Self-Compassion?

What is self-compassion? Here are several answers.
Self-compassion is treating yourself well, even when you don’t feel like it.
Concern for the well-being of your mental, emotional, and physical self.
Loving yourself the way you genuinely want to be loved, treating yourself the way you genuinely want to be treated, and caring for yourself in the way you wish to experience care.
Allowing your core values to guide your life.
Unconditional acceptance of yourself. (This is my favorite; it’s from Pema Chodron; thank you, Pema.)
Self-compassion is being present in reality and using emotions as keys to unlock areas of reality distorted by your mind for survival or a sense of survival reasons.
(HYPERLINK "https://blairashby.com/glossary.html"All these definitions are from my glossary for self-compassion; click here to open it in a separate window.)

Okay, that was helpful, wasn’t it? Well, …not really, because it’s one thing to know the definition of self-compassion and another to be self-compassionate. Treating ourselves well is hard because so many of us don’t even know how we want to be treated; we just know we want to treat ourselves better than we do. 

How do you know you could treat yourself better, though? Ironically, feeling emotionally negative is the giveaway. Unless it’s a chronic condition, when we are feeling negative emotionally, feelings like anger, sadness, depression, or shame, that means some part of our brain isn’t getting what it wants, so discerning those distortions is paramount for being self-compassionate.

What do you really, Really, REALLY want?

Wayne Dyer said we unconsciously react or consciously respond. So, with each thought ask yourself, “How do I want to treat myself?”  I suspect that most of us really, Really, REALLY want to treat ourselves well and lessen our emotional burden …even when we don’t always feel that compassionate toward ourselves. At those times when you don’t feel kind or act kindly to yourself, ask yourself a critical question: “What do I really, Really, REALLY want in this experience?”  Now, be warned: that question leads to another question, and it’s a toughy: “Am I willing to enact the transformations needed to be kind to myself?”

Both of these questions are about being consciously self-compassionate. If you want to treat yourself self-compassionately, you’ll probably have to learn some new skills; self-compassion doesn’t generally happen automatically.   Fortunately, there are gentle ways you can learn self-compassion skills.

Awareness

The first step is to begin paying attention. Yes, I know I may sound like your third-grade teacher; stick with me here. Life slams us with atrocious amounts of information daily, and it’s easy to miss our true selves in all our thoughts and reactions, especially if we feel negative; it’s easy to ignore negative feelings when busy with life. Thus, if we pay attention to our thoughts and reactions, we start noticing areas where our automatic, unconscious reactions leave us feeling negative.  

As unpleasant as it sounds, unconscious reactions have ultimate power over you until you recognize them, usually through the feelings they generate in your body. Once you see these negative feelings and reactions, you can begin practicing conscious responses that will benefit you in similar situations in the future.

I understand I’m not asking of you an easy task.

Survival wired our brains to automatically react first and then, maybe, to consider the long-term consequences later. However, one thing that philosophers and spiritual teachers have discovered is that the roots of transient negative feelings are in the mind, so it is within your mind that you must look to be more self-compassionate, especially when those automatic thoughts torture you with negative feelings. Thus, please pay attention to your mind and its reactions to situations. By watching how your brain thinks, you will learn about your thought patterns and where you can care for yourself better.

On a future note:

You have been brave enough to subscribe to my Self-Compassionate Living newsletter. You honor me, and I feel extraordinarily grateful for you. To help say thank you, I am working on a video series called An Introduction to Self-Compassion. I’ll send you access to it as soon as I have it finished. It will be free for you. The series will consist of eight videos, each six to ten minutes long. In it, I will provide an excellent introduction to three primary skills for living self-compassionately: awareness, acceptance, and letting go. So, thank you for subscribing; I look forward to what we will learn together.

In conclusion

You can learn the skills of self-compassion! Start here; during the next month, notice how your brain and body react to situations or thoughts you encounter. There is power in understanding how survival has wired your brain with automatic reactions. As you see your brain’s automatic mental reactions, you’ll discover some you like and some you dislike. With that knowledge, you can begin mentally exploring new ways to navigate life and its situations so you suffer less and enjoy life more. You’ll consciously build new responses if you’re intentional about your goal of being self-compassionate and suffering less. Please begin paying attention to your thoughts …for you!

Next month, I’ll explore the next skill to practice: acceptance or acknowledgment.
I look forward to sharing that time with you.

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!
Blair