“A moment of self-compassion can change your entire day. A string of such moments can change the course of your life.” -Christopher K. Germer

Today’s blog post is all about self-compassion. Quite simply, this is about treating ourselves with kindness and care, just as we would treat a good friend. Most women have no trouble being kind to friends and even strangers, but we often judge ourselves harshly.

This past weekend I was really run down. My back was sore and I came down with a terrible cold that had me under the covers with little appetite for anything other than soup. Feeling so run down left me little energy for writing and the thought of working out made cringe. Plus, helping out around the cabin seemed like an impossible feat. My husband and kids had to do so much of “my work” like get themselves breakfast, clean up, get the firewood etc….

This really threw a wrench in my holiday plans. Usually, when I go to Denman Island, I spend lots of time creative writing and doing my own workouts (as opposed to just teaching). I also love to get creative in the kitchen and cook up some amazing new recipes… I realized that none of this was going to happen then proceeded to have a mini freak out!

I had to use the healthy mindset tools I have been developing to remind myself that it is ok to just be sick. I reminded myself, what’s the worst thing that would happen if I just didn’t move off the couch for the entire weekend? If a client said to me, “I was to sick to cook a healthy meal or get my workouts in this past weekend” I wouldn’t give her shit for it. (could you imagine???lol) So why is it ok for me to be so hard on myself??

There’s a lot of pressure (probably from myself) to be strong and stable––to handle my biz, so to speak. If you have known me for a while, you know that I’m completely comfortable with vulnerability and that I strive to live authentically, but the truth is that I struggle when it comes to asking for help. It’s still a challenge to risk being seen as “weak,” both on the home front and at work.

So I just gave myself a quick pep-talk and showed myself some self-compassion. This is a practice that I am still fairly new at. Clearly my body just needed me to slow down and take my foot of the gas for a few days.

This practice gives me permission to be just where I am, and love myself as is – sick on the couch in this case:) And I think all the unconditional love I gave myself really helped me through the weekend. I truly did have a wonderful weekend filled with love and family.

You have permission to just be. You don’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to do it all. You have permission to fail, to try something just for fun. You have permission to take a day off, to not get out of your pjs all day.

 

 

 

(So much green soup!)

START PRACTICING SELF-COMPASSION TODAY

Showing yourself self-compassion can help you make better decisions and take better care of yourself. Here are the three elements of self-compassion (summarized from www.self-compassion.org) that you can start practicing today:

BE KIND TO YOURSELF. Accept that failure is an inevitable part of the learning curve. Instead of thinking of yourself as a failure, be kind and accept the reality that we need to experience failure in order to grow and learn.

EMBRACE YOUR COMMON HUMANITY. All humans suffer. You are not alone and you are certainly not the first person to come up against adversity. Self-compassion involves recognizing that failure is part of being human. We are ALL imperfect.

BE MINDFUL. Self-compassion also requires a balanced approach to negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. Observe your thoughts and emotions with openness and clarity rather than just labeling yourself as bad. Don’t shame yourself. Eating the entire box of cookies does not make you a bad person, so be mindful and less reactive and perhaps you will get to the reason WHY you ate the whole box of cookies. Maybe you were just hangry☺

If you would like to dive deeper and measure your level of self-compassion I highly recommend Dr. Neff’s Self-Compassion scale test. Now is the time as you are more aware and will be more inclined to answer honestly:) We kid ourselves sometimes with how much we value our own health and well-being!

http://self-compassion.org/test-how-self-compassionate-you-are/

 

This video perfectly describes how we can practice self-compassion and show ourselves some love. Know that you are so worth it! You are deserving of so much love:)

xoxo

Rebecca