What is compassion?

Compassion unfolds in response to distress, pain or suffering.

It begins with recognition of suffering, which gives rise to feelings of concern and empathy. This, in turn, motivates the willingness to take action to relieve that suffering. At different times, and in different situations, different parts of this process(awareness, feelings, empathy, action) may be most available and/or most skillful. – this explanation is courtesy of Compassion Cultivation Training

We are much kinder to the people around us who we offer compassion to in their time of suffering than we are to ourselves. With self-compassion, we give ourselves the same kindness and care we’d give to a good friend. I am learning about compassion and this week in particular about self-compassion. Self-compassion is no different from the compassion that you show to others. Having compassion for yourself means that you honor and accept your humanness. You know and accept that life does not always give you roses without thorns. Frustrations will come your way. You will experience loss. You will make mistakes. You will fall short of how you feel you should have behaved. Things will not always go the way you want them to. This is something that happens to everyone – and you and I are no different. The secret to being able to feel more compassion for yourself and for others is essentially opening your heart to the fact that this is the way of life – this is how life works and instead of fighting against it you will find, that opening your heart to this reality will enable you to feel compassion for yourself. It is ok to acknowledge that things are difficult at the moment and that you are finding it hard.

Now the above was very easy to write. My fingers fly across my keyboard and the words flow effortlessly. I find it much more difficult to stop the critical self-talk and critical self-judgment that happens in my mind when I’ve just messed something up – be it ever so minor. The talk begins – why can’t you ever do anything right? You always mess up. You are so clumsy. – Anyone else recognise that voice? We are human – “human” means that one is mortal, vulnerable and imperfect. So we are hard wired to make mistakes. Instead of beating ourselves up, we need to learn to be gentle with ourselves. Speak kindly to ourselves. We need to practice self-compassion.

We need to observe and recognise that those negative thoughts are just that, thoughts. We must learn to be aware of the thought or the feeling just as they appear – observe them non-judgmentally and not ignore them or try to suppress or deny them. In other words as Kristin Neff writes we must hold them in mindful awareness. In my meditations I am practicing to do this. Some days I nail it and can hold the negative self-talk in observation and I can objectively just see it. Some days I dive right in and get lost in the critic that lives in my head. The meditation practice is teaching me to be brave in being vulnerable. Accepting my own vulnerability is teaching me to be kind and loving to myself. I believe that when I am loving to myself, I have a greater capacity to be compassionate toward others. We need more of that.

Do I do everything wrong? No. Do I occasionally make mistakes? Um, yeah. Do those occasional missteps define who I am? No! Do the missteps hit a nerve in me so that I think “Oh damn. That wasn’t the right thing to say or I should have worn oven mitts to avoid dropping the dish”( You get the picture.) Yes it hits a nerve, as it should. Learning from the mistake is powerful and seeing it for what it is – the glitch in the thinking process that results in us doing somehing wrong – is the loving thing to do. Say to yourself what you would say to others who just dropped a hot potato – “that was hot! are you ok?” Be kind to yourself. This is what I’m learning to be.

Watching Brené Brown’s “Call to courage” the other day, reminded me that “Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.” She writes on brenebrown.com, “Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.“

I want to show up in my own life! I am going to do it! I am going to set up to the plate and I am going to be brave! I know that I will get my ass kicked. I will make mistakes and I will do good things. I am human. I am enough and I am worthy! And I’m learning to love myself for it.