Meditation and self-compassion

Dear friends,

To meditate or not to meditate, that is the question. The empirical answer may surprise some of you: It’s not necessary to meditate to learn self-compassion. My research shows that the more you practice self-compassion the more self-compassionate you become over time, but it doesn’t matter whether you do that with formal practice – by sitting down to meditate each day – or with informal practice – for instance by putting your hand over your heart and saying supportive things to yourself in a difficult life moment.

Having said that, regular meditation can change our brain patterns so that it’s more habitual to be self-compassionate in the moments we need it most. So meditation is helpful and worth exploring as a means of strengthening self-compassion.

A classic way to meditate is by directing our attention to our breath – over and over again. When our mind wanders off into thought, we gently bring our attention back to the felt sense of breathing. This sort of focused attention helps our thoughts and body settle and become less agitated. But if meditation feels like a boring chore and we force ourselves to do it because it’s good for us, we might inadvertently reinforce the belief that we aren’t enough as we are.

We can transform classic breath meditation into self-compassion meditation by intentionally bringing warmth to our experience and savoring the process. We do this in one of the meditations from the Mindful Self-Compassion program called Affectionate Breathing.

Instead of using our attention to focus on the breath in an effortful way, we allow ourselves to enjoy the soothing, internal rocking motion of the breath. We consciously infuse our experience with kindness and affection, so that meditating feels more like slipping into a warm bath than climbing up a steep mountain.

When meditation is enjoyable because it nourishes and comforts us, it becomes a way of meeting our needs and reinforces a sense of sufficiency and wholeness. In other words, it builds the muscle of self-compassion.

You might try doing the Affectionate Breathing meditation daily for one or two weeks as an experiment. You can also informally practice by taking a slow, affectionate breath or two whenever you feel distressed during your day.

The bottom line is that there’s no right or wrong way to practice self-compassion. If you enjoy meditation that’s wonderful but if it isn’t for you, that’s okay too. The most effective way to practice is to do whatever works best for you personally.