Warming Our Experience

Let’s face it. Life can be hard. Not only are we imperfect and continually making mistakes or falling short of our own standards, the world around us is also challenging. Other people sometimes don’t act as we would like them too. Our jobs can be stressful and demanding.  We might be struggling to make ends meet. Society may seem dysfunctional and broken.

A common response to distress is to just grit our teeth and bare it. We sometimes shut down our emotions, numbing ourselves to the pain of life. Or else we may become cold and harsh toward ourselves or others as a way of trying to control things. This is natural and understandable, but unfortunately, it just makes us more stressed and unhappy.

Another way of dealing with the challenges and imperfections of life is to turn toward our experience with warmth and kindness. We can intentionally cultivate a stance of compassionate understanding toward our struggles, so that we feel moved to help in some way.

Even when things aren’t going as we would like them to, we can be accompanied by our own caring and goodwill. We can find solace in the warmth of our own hearts so that the sweetness of our love holds the bitterness of pain and makes it more bearable.

Think of how we might naturally try to make a frightened child or animal feel safe and cared for. We use a warm tone of voice, we smile, we offer words of support and encouragement. We can turn this same caring stance inward and it has the same effect.

Research overwhelmingly shows that self-compassion allows us to cope with distress while also making us more happy and satisfied with our lives.

One tried and true way to cultivate self-compassion is through meditation. We know that meditation changes our neural pathways and helps us to form new habits.

Many forms of meditation focus on the breath as a way to help calm and still the mind. This can be tailored so that the breath also becomes a vehicle for self-compassion.

I’m including one of the core meditations of the Mindful Self-Compassion course I developed with Chris Germer called Affectionate Breathing here.

This meditation explicitly brings in warmth and affection to the practice of breath mediation so that the breath becomes nourishing and soothing.  Try it every day for a week and see for yourself how it can support you as you go through your day.