‘Tis the season of love. Friday’s full moon in Leo left us longing for (self)love and Valentine’s Day is approaching. The perfect time to take a look at how we can show ourselves some love.
So why do we need self-compassion? What can this do for you?
Self-compassion allows us to build up our emotional resilience through bringing in compassion, kindness and non-judgment to our feelings and emotions. It’s a way of soothing ourselves, and giving ourselves the comfort and sympathy we need when we are suffering, for whatever reason that might be: an angry email from a boss, the loss of a loved one, feelings of sadness or loneliness,…
The first step of practising self-compassion is self-kindness: being warm and loving to ourselves, not matter what difficulty we are facing. You want to comfort yourself and help yourself to do whatever you can to make yourself feel better in that moment.
How do you talk to yourself, and about yourself? How do you see yourself? Do you constantly judge yourself for mistakes or being imperfect, or are you kind to yourself?
We often don’t realise this, but we tend to be way harder on ourselves than a loved one. We tend to judge ourselves, and see everything that is *wrong*, in our eyes.
So instead of beating yourself up and judging yourself, and becoming more stressed, sad and frustrated about it – try to bring in sympathy and compassion for yourself. After all, life is full of imperfections, failures and suffering – instead of making it worse, try making it lighter by accepting what is happening right now and being kind to yourself, however you feel and in whatever state you are in.
2. Mindfulness (vs over-identification)
In order to give yourself compassion, you first have to notice it, and that’s where mindfulness comes in.
Mindfulness is about observing your thoughts, feelings and emotions as they are, without judging them and identifying with them.
But mindfulness is also about sitting with your feelings and emotions and being with them.
Step away from that inner self-critic and observe your thoughts, feelings and emotions just as they are.
Instead of rushing through and looking for a solution, we acknowledge the situation first and check in with yourselves. What is happening? What do we really need right now?
3. Common Humanity (vs isolation)
Coming back to the suffering – in the moment, we often think: why does this happen to me? Why am I the one feeling like this right no? What have I done wrong to deserve any of this? Why is my boss not being more kind to me?
When things go wrong, we feel really cut off from others. While in fact, this is what makes us human. In fact, being human means being imperfect. Life goes wrong sometimes.
This is part of being human. You are not the only one who has these feelings, and you will never be the only one. Recognising that everyone has bad days, we can shift back to a state of compassion and knowing you are human and this is all part of the ride.
Connecting with other people is a very important aspect of our human experience – knowing you are not alone,
Serene Minds 