Why Self Compassion?

There’s confusion about the need for self compassion. It seems it’s the place we go to as a last resort–after we’ve exhausted ourselves trying to figure out why we feel the way we do. In our habits of over analyzing everything we only deepen our confusion. It’s important to have compassion for that part of ourselves that keeps us in our heads! Self compassion is an expression of the heart and our heart is the seat of wisdom.

Return to Our True Nature

The north star that guides my work is that each of us at our core is whole, wise, compassionate, and clear. That includes even the most deluded person. These qualities are ever present and can be covered over by the wear and tear of this life, in short, we forget who we are, we forget our true nature. There is no one way to back to our hearts but the movement toward “returning to our true nature” rather than a “self improvement project” is an act of compassion in itself. In the self forgetting we develop strategies for getting through life and with time, these same strategies can become barriers to the contentment we seek.

This practice is a way of tending those barriers

What is it to tend to our inner critic, or an angry part of ourselves, or our disappointments while holding to what is whole and true and undamaged?

To “live close to the way we are made” as poet David Whyte puts it, requires knowing ourselves. It requires not putting ourselves out of our own hearts. When we make room for who we are we make room for others. If you’d like guided support here’s an audio (10 minutes 37 seconds).

In the Sufi tradition, there are many layers to the human heart, the innermost being the holiest of places where our true nature dwells, untouched by the troubles of this life. In the subtle body teachings of Tibetan Medicine, sperm meets egg at the heart chakra and new life unfolds from there. The heart is considered the seat of consciousness. We can think of the Sacred Heart in the Christian mystical tradition as well.

However we approach it “tending the vital heart” is essential work.

To tend the vital heart is to do our inner work. That means befriending what gets in the way of remembering this jewel that dwells at the center of ourselves.

It can be covered over, forgotten, even denied, but our true nature never changes. For our essence to be seen and reflected back to us is an extraordinary experience. It’s what we hunger for and it’s the work of a life time.

Usually we come to our inner work due to a crisis in our lives but over time, we come to realize that we deserve more than just enough to keep us on the sunny side of not feeling bad.

Life is so much more than needing to justify our inner work. To find meaning in life is to recognize that tending the vital heart is the most important work we’ll ever do. It’s from that place of a well tended heart that we are of the greatest service to others.

“The clarity we need to meet the world as it is, arises out of self compassion: here is the intersection of inner and outer work.”

From the point of view of depth psychology and the wisdom traditions, we each have a center point, the ground of being that is untouched, unfazed, unharmed by anything. Different traditions call it different things: the Self with a capital “S”, Awakened Heart, Atman. I refer to it sometimes as our “bright and shiny being”. It has no one name but it belongs to all of us and is not corruptible. We can become quite confused and lose track of it but it doesn’t mean it has ever lost track of us.

From the point of view of our incorruptible-ness, we are offered a different relationship to ourselves and the option to move from an inner world that includes all of who we are.

To embrace all parts of ourselves is key to our inner work; it is the work of cultivating self compassion. Self compassion is essential in order to offer compassion to those who’ve been marginalized in our outer world.

By “compassion” I don’t mean the watered down version of what that word has come to mean. By compassion, I mean we recognize the suffering of ourselves and other beings and we are not complicit in perpetuating harm to ourselves or others.

The impact of our service to the world is equal to the compassion for ourselves.

In this time of deep social, economic, and political change, to engage from a place of self compassion prevents burn out.

The clarity we need to meet the world as it is, arises out of self compassion: here is the intersection of inner and outer work.

To embrace our humanity is to embrace all beings. To live and move from the place of deep interconnectedness acknowledges that what each of us does, matters. Each time one of us awakens, heals, and embraces our marginalized parts, the world is healed.

Offering healing to the world is not often the initial reason most of us seek support during hard passages in our lives but we may have the insight that embracing our beloved inner community uplifts all beings.

This is the reason I get out of bed in the morning.

As some of you know, I made time for a 3 week retreat last month: a much needed protected solitude. I’ve discovered that times of deep quiet are essential hygiene for me.

Throughout the retreat this quote from Rumi played through me: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find the barriers that you have built against it and embrace them.”

To become aware of what gets in the way of experiencing our good hearts is a different approach to life than pushing away what’s unpleasant. Pushing away what’s unpleasant about ourselves is much of what’s at the heart of “self improvement”. If we can come up for air from our ever demanding self improvement projects we can stop chasing some ideal that doesn’t exist.

To find those barriers that you have built against love—and embrace them–that IS the practice of self awareness and self compassion. I believe that’s what most of us want when we grab at the “self improvement” model. To learn to kindly meet the limitations we’ve built against accepting ourselves would reveal that we are love itself always seeking us–what’s to improve?

“Heartbreak is a gateway to compassionate action. Such action arises when we trust our body sensations and the emotions they reveal. We can act with integrity and we do not have to second guess ourselves. It is key to know how to transform our confusion into wise action: our world depends upon it.”

Our 16 year old grandson lived with us recently. It lasted a week before he “borrowed” our car (he’s an underage driver, not allowed to drive without an adult or at night) and picked up a forbidden lover. They had their Romeo & Juliet moment in our guest bedroom and then he drove her home where they were greeted by her father in the driveway. And yes all this while a pandemic tears across the globe!

My partner & I were awakened a few hours later by ringing cell phones, outraged mothers & fathers, threats of restraining orders, etc. It was all quite dramatic. Point being? He broke my heart. After extracting all the details from him, it was determined he’d go live with his father in another state. It was the breaking point after lies, deceptions, and disappearances both on our watch and his mother’s.

I didn’t recognize what I felt as “heartache” at first. I felt sluggish and disoriented. When I gave keen attention to those sensations, a clarifying anger showed itself, just beneath the heartache.

I fired off an email to say he was not welcome to return to our home until amends were made to all involved, including us. This was not new behavior for him but if he assumed this grandmother who adores him was not going to wield her sword, he was wrong.

There’s nothing compassionate about enabling someone’s bad behavior. Turning toward that heart sinking feeling released vitality, allowed me to set healthy boundaries, and let go of outcomes. He has all the time he needs to come to his senses: my heart and mind are open, my home is not.

Heartbreak is a gateway to compassionate action. Such action arises when we trust our body sensations and the emotions they reveal. We can act with integrity and we do not have to second guess ourselves. It is key to know how to transform our confusion into wise action: our world depends upon it.