A practice in meeting your own difficulty the way you would meet a friend’s, with kindness rather than criticism.
Listen to the Meditation
About This Practice
Compassion is the second step for a reason. Awareness on its own just gives the inner critic better material. Once we start paying attention to what we actually think and feel, we find things we would rather not have found, and without kindness that discovery turns into an attack.
Self-compassion is not indulgence and it is not letting yourself off the hook. It is the intention to be helpful rather than harsh, which is what makes it possible to look at something honestly instead of flinching away from it.
A large part of the practice is recognizing common humanity. Whatever you are struggling with, you are not the only one, and you are not uniquely broken for struggling with it. That recognition removes the extra layer of shame we tend to pile on top of a difficulty, and the difficulty gets noticeably lighter without it.
From there something opens. You can accept where you actually are, and accepting where you are is what makes it possible to move. Self-compassion is also where resilience comes from, because you cannot recover from a setback while you are still busy prosecuting yourself for it.
This one supports Compassion, and everything after it depends on this being in place.
Micro Practice: Three Breaths
When you catch yourself being harsh with yourself, take three breaths.
- Breathe to settle your attention on the breath.
- Breathe and remember that many people face this. You are not alone in it.
- Breathe and come back to the present, trusting that you can handle what is here.