Self-compassion
A guided journey of how to offer yourself compassion in a moment of suffering.
Welcome to our first guided journey together at the members space of Being in Motherhood. If you are a paid member, you have access to this whole post. If you are a free subscriber, you have access to this voice note and the theme of the month before you reach the paywall. I invite you to listen to the voice note below and take your time as you move through this post.
As we move towards the end of Summer, I felt called to focus on heart opening. The theme for this month’s journey came to me on a random afternoon, it presented itself as compassion but as I sat with it more, I saw clearly how the journey is through self-compassion.
I find motherhood to be an extraordinary place for self-compassion to flow in. Never have I been harder on myself and in need of my own compassion after I yelled at my toddler or handled him too roughly.
Defining Self-compassion
In his book The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion, Christopher K. Germer, PhD, defines self-compassion as…“acceptance of ourselves while we are in pain.”
Compassion itself comes from latin roots…‘com’ (meaning with) and ‘pati’ (meaning suffering). Compassion is means to suffer with. Self-compassion is embracing yourself as you are suffering, uncomfortable, frustrated, insert any difficult emotion for you (this can include more positive ones, joy can a weird one).
One of the best ways I have heard self-compassion described is being a friend to yourself. If your friend was being mean to themselves or treating themselves with disrespect, you would not jump in with agreement and tell them how horrible they are. You would slow down, tell them they are being hard on themselves, and probably offer your insight into how wonderful you know them to be.
This is what we are aiming to give ourselves here. Another way to think of self-compassion is as the kindest, warmest, nurturing love of a mother. Maybe this is your own mother, maybe this is another female figure, maybe you take notes from how your friend mother’s their children, or notice how you offer your child compassion is different than yourself.
As we wrap our heads around this topic, when you are hurting, think…what would someone who loves you say? What would you say to your child if they were hurting? Often we offer compassion to others because we find more ease in being with someone else’s discomfort than our own.
When we can offer ourselves compassion, we enter into the truth of our experience. We are facing our discomfort or suffering and holding ourselves in it. We are approaching what is uncomfortable with softness and kindness. As Elena Brower often says, “how human of me to feel…” and insert what is present for you.
And when we offer ourselves self-compassion, we remove the struggle. We are not going into story mode about the pain, we are not trying to defend ourselves, instead we are being with the pain and tending to it. This requires radical patience, care, and a whole lot of kindness.
Awareness of sensations
To practice self-compassion, we need to be aware we are in emotional discomfort. It is impossible to offer ourselves compassion when we do not know when we need compassion. We need to establish a connection to our discomfort to offer compassion. We need to know when we are suffering. Let’s dive into this with a practice.
If you are not a paid member, I invite you to join us. You will receive full access to each monthly guided journey full of prompts, practices, and insights to deepen your relationship with yourself and the present moment.