When you see that you’re not your thoughts, then you can watch them in this kind of impersonal, more observing way with kindness and self-compassion.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Thoughts of all kinds simply come and go. If we do not attach to them, push them away, fiddle, or meddle with our thoughts and sensations, they’ll simply arise and dissipate.
Heather Sanche
Ignoring nothing, avoiding nothing, resisting nothing.
Karen Maezen Miller
Dear Friend,
Happy New Year!
Thank you for subscribing to the Self-Compassionate Living Newsletter! You want to grow your self-compassion by learning, practicing, and having a community to aid you. You signed up to receive this monthly newsletter as part of that effort. I will endeavor to inform and inspire you, and together, we will explore ways to treat ourselves better. Thank you for inviting me to join you on your journey!
A new year usually feels like an opportunity to reset one’s life and begin afresh living how you intend. You intend to treat yourself better, to be kind (to yourself and others) when anger arises, and to be compassionate when depressive thoughts intrude your brain. Then, a constant trigger happens a day or two later, and the usual negative thoughts and feelings take over your brain and body. It’s like the negative thoughts and feelings are habitual.
Here's an example.
The Car Crash That Wasn’t
For some unknown reason, I was driving too fast and speeding toward a red light with several stopped cars in both lanes in front of me. It seemed I had no way to avoid smashing into them. At the last instant, I swerved left and managed to stop with minimal space between me and the last car. I looked at the car’s driver and sheepishly scrunched my shoulders and face while mouthing: “I’m sorry” to the stunned-looking other driver.
“Whew! That was close!” I thought as I calmed down. Eventually, the red light turned green, the car in front of me pulled ahead, and I smashed my foot hard on the accelerator, raced ahead, and slammed into the back of it!
Then I woke up.
It Felt Real!
Dreams frequently aren’t logical; interestingly, neither are emotions. Yet they feel logical! “I’m mad because I slammed into the car!” except I didn’t; it wasn’t real; it was all in my head; it just felt real. And therein lies the problem (and, ironically, the solution). Most of the time, our brains don’t react to what is real and do react to what it thinks is real.
Self-compassion can be practiced better when we deal with what is real, reality as it is, in other words.
Unfortunately, survival thinking—the brain’s built-in expertise to identify everything as a benefit or a threat—makes reality hard for us humans to recognize and accept, much less live in. So, to be self-compassionate, most of us have to enact some disciplines to override the survival programming we gained from surviving past events.
Life’s A Mind Game
One challenging part of the self-compassionate journey is accepting the power and control we habitually give to the reactions we mentally experience—what we think, our thoughts. Ironically, reactions are not bad or wrong; they are the mechanism that survival created to keep us from death, physically or mentally. Unfortunately, reactions also don’t come from the logical, rational part of our brain. Reactions come from memories we gathered physically and mentally surviving previous experiences. Then, when situations happen that have some type of similarity to past events, our brain grabs those memories and reactions first before it turns on or accesses the logical thinking parts of our brain. Our survival programming is to react first and maybe think about it later. As unlogical as it sounds, it must work; billions of us wander the earth, trying to live meaningful lives every day.
Meaningful lives are the purpose of living self-compassionately. Unfortunately, meaningful lives rarely happen by accident. Usually, they take intention and effort to accomplish, and survival doesn’t like to put effort into anything that doesn’t directly aid in survival. A meaningful life or thriving is not vital for surviving.
Fortunately, deep thinkers throughout the ages have realized this fact and have discovered and developed ways to create the mindset to achieve the meaningful life we want to live. The tools are based on some form of managing our minds.
It comes down to this fact: life’s a mind game, so the place to create the life we want must begin in the mind.
The Discipline of Managing Your Mind
Living self-compassionately first means identifying areas in your life where you want to treat yourself better; this skill is called awareness. HYPERLINK "https://self-compassionateliving.com/newsletter-oct-2024.html"I introduced Awareness in the October 2024 newsletter; click this blue link to read it.
Managing your mind means mentally practicing self-compassion—how you want to think and act toward yourself (and hopefully others)—before you are in situations requiring the self-compassion skills you practiced. We humans are unlikely to treat ourselves well instantly if it’s not our habit to think that way initially; thus, we practice.
To learn more about this brain process, please join one of my Creating Self-Compassion series of classes to learn more tools and be surrounded by a supportive community. The next class begins Feb 10th; you can read about it and join the next class HYPERLINK "https://self-compassionateliving.com/newsletter-oct-2024.html"here.
Next Month
Knowing that self-compassion is a mental discipline is nice; however, the knowledge doesn’t help us unless we make the cognitive effort to practice. So next month, we’ll delve into some daily habits we can implement to constantly hone the skills of caring for ourselves. Wonderfully, these habits are built on things that bring joy into your life!
On a Personal Note
Knowing that self-compassion is a mental discipline is nice; however, the knowledge doesn’t help us unless we make the cognitive effort to practice. So next month, we’ll delve into some daily habits we can implement to constantly hone the skills of caring for ourselves. Wonderfully, these habits are built on things that bring joy into your life!
On a Personal Note
Last month, I announced that www.Self-CompassionateLiving.com is live. I have been slowly adding to and improving it; the previous newsletters and this newsletter will all be there. The next website addition will be the information and registration page for my Creating Self-Compassion classes; my goal is to have it functioning by January 15th.
Additionally, thank you for your suggestions for the website; please keep them coming.
I have two Creating Self-Compassion classes coming up.
The first is starting on Jan 23rd from 10:30 AM to noon MST; this class will be called Creating Self-Compassion Through Centering Prayer (Contemplative Outreach of Colorado, which is focused on Centering Prayer, hosts this class). The class is centered on Centering Prayer as a tool to create self-compassion; please visit HYPERLINK "https://www.centeringprayer.net/CreatingSelfCompassion"CenteringPrayer.net to register.
The next class I'm hosting begins on Monday. February 10th from 2:00 to 3 PM MST. This class is aimed at anyone in any belief system. I will send out an email specifically for it, so please watch for that email in late January. Again, the registration page is located HYPERLINK "https://self-compassionateliving.com/creating-self-compassion.html"here.
In Conclusion
By this point, you’ve probably realized that self-compassionate living is about building a new relationship with your brain. Self-compassion starts with mind management so you can live with more Joy, Peace, & Contentment (JPC) and experience fewer negative feelings. We’ll keep exploring this discipline together.
See you next month, and may the rest of this month be peaceful.
Thank you for inviting me to walk with you.
I believe in you!
Blair
Blair@Self-CompassionateLiving.com
Self-CompassionateLiving.com
PS: If you have any thoughts, comments, or questions, please reply to this email. Additionally, please share this email with those you care about. If you were forwarded this email and you want to receive it directly, please subscribe here: Subscribe to the Self-Compassionate Living Newsletter
