Practice Issues

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.

Self-compassion can help you both prevent and recover from burnout. For this reason I recently teamed up with my dear colleague Chris Germer to write a book about it and the book launches September 9th!

One of the quickest, most effective, and powerful ways to give ourselves compassion when we’re struggling is through physical touch. Just as we might instinctually reach out to a friend and give them a hug or hold their hand when they’re upset, we can comfort ourselves in a similar way.

Some people feel they can’t give themselves compassion, that they’re too hurt, or they’re unworthy. But if we reframe self-compassion as tapping into something that’s much greater than our small self, allowing our inner thoughts, feelings and perceptions to be held by the loving awareness of Self, then who is

The term “self-compassion” suggests that we give compassion to a “self” that is a single entity. In fact, the term should probably be “selves-compassion” (if Webster’s dictionary would allow it), because we have different parts of ourselves that suffer in unique ways.

The research overwhelmingly supports the fact that self-compassion enhances mental and physical health, improves relationships, provides strength and resilience, and increases motivation and performance. But in order to reap the benefits of self-compassion, we need to actually practice it in daily life.

Much of our suffering comes from our sense of self becoming entangled in the thoughts, emotions, and sensations that arise in our awareness. We often believe our thoughts and feelings as true without question, and get lost in a negative storyline about ourselves or our lives.

When we experience difficult emotions like sadness, fear, shame, confusion, or disappointment, we often become overwhelmed. We can spiral into reactivity or shut down as we try to cope. One of the most powerful aspects of tender self-compassion is the ability to hold our difficult emotions with spaciousness and warmth,

When we give ourselves love, sometimes we remember all the conditions under which we were unloved. When we open to our pain, feelings we’ve repressed for a lifetime may rise up and overwhelm us.