Prompt from

#reverb13 Day 19: Self-compassion

The Buddha said, “You, yourself, as much as anybody else in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”

In the past year, I have been on a mission to understand and practice self-compassion, which is sometimes defined as “extending compassion to one’s self in instances of perceived inadequacy, failure, or general suffering,” and what I have learned has made me realize that this practice is at the heart of everything. 

How will you practice self-compassion?

I Love this prompt and it immediately think of my friend, Dr. Cynthia Phelps who is the founder of

HEALTH eDesigns LLC.

She is currently working on an app that takes the work of Dr. Kristen Neff and creates a super cool app to help us practice self- compassion.  So I for one would love to use this app in 2014 to help me practice 🙂 when it comes out!  

I was privileged to attend her talk Are you stuck – time for a creative breakthrough! which was held in Nov and was all about self-compassion.

So some things I took away from the talk include ways I can practice self-compassion in instances of perceived inadequacy (parenting), failure (keeping the house clean) or general suffering (perfect storm of hormones, teenager, clutter, etc)?

 Well the first thing I can do is take a deep breath and be in the moment.  I can ask myself is this (whatever negative self talk is happening) true?  I can remind myself to talk to myself like I would a friend or one of my children who is in crisis – gently and kindly, affirming the positive and my self-worth.  I can also self-sooth with a hug or an arm rub since research proves that touch does make a difference.  Which is also a part of the Interplay warm up 🙂  So I will also be practicing self-compassion with my Interplay practice!

 I can also tell myself that it will be okay.  I am usually pretty good at this – being a glass 1/2 full girl – I know that things work out – maybe not like we intended but they generally work out.  Through my work in the world I have seen some pretty rough stuff and I know that I have made a difference.

So when I’m having a “should” party and being too rough on myself I remind myself of the good I have achieved and tell myself, “you’ve got this!”  I know it sounds cheesy but for me it works.

When it’s really bad I crawl in the bathtub and “soak it out.”  Yes, I’ve had 3 bath days before.  It’s amazing the comfort the water gives me and usually I have an escapism book in my hand too 🙂

 What I do know for sure is that self-compassion is essential and I am thankful to have starting working on it in 2013 and look forward to more practice in 2014 🙂

 Hugs,

 Christine