What is Fierce Self-Compassion?

I wanted to let you know about my work on fierce self-compassion. I’ve expanded my model of self-compassion to include the ways it can not only help us tenderly accept ourselves, but also take fierce action to alleviate our suffering.

Specifically, fierce self-compassion can propel us to stand up for and protect ourselves, meet our own needs without continually subordinating them, and motivate change both in ourselves and the world around us.

Like yin and yang, tender and fierce self-compassion must be balanced and integrated for wholeness and wellbeing. However, traditional gender roles stand in the way of finding balance. Women are raised to be tender and self-sacrificing but not fierce.

That’s why I wrote my book Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive.

I’ve created a fierce self-compassion page on my website, and made a 5-minute video about fierce self-compassion which you can see here.

I’d also invite you to try out a 15-minute meditation called Fierce Friend, a guided visualization to create an ideally compassionate figure who embodies fierce and tender compassion.

I hope you all can join me in the movement to harness the power of kindness to free ourselves from oppressive stereotypes, realize our true selves, and change the world.