“You, yourself, as anybody else in this world is worthy of your love and affection.”

Did you know that you can be your own worst enemy or your best ally? Self-compassion is a way of relating to yourself as a best ally, with forgiveness for your mistakes and encouragement for your potential. You will feel safe to be who you are.

We grow up thinking that we need to be special, above average in order to be worthy. With the advent of social media and consumer culture we compare ourselves all the time with others who always seem to be somehow doing or being better. We lose faith in ourselves and the dangerous feeling of not being good enough starts creeping in, making us ashamed, powerless and self-critical. Our lives start being ruled by the fearful and permanently dissatisfied inner critic that greatly reduces our potential and joy. Self-compassion frees us from the tyranny of the inner critic allowing ourselves to be who we are.

How do we develop self-compassion? First step is to become aware of your suffering, whether that is stress, loneliness, or inner criticism and not punishing yourself for it. Second step is to let go of ideals of perfection and avoid labelingyourself and other people in a judgmental way.

I will share two exercises for developing self-compassion developed by psychologist Kristin Neff.

1. Changing your inner critical self-talk

Notice when you are being self-critical and write down the words you tell yourself in those moments. Reframe the judgments by imagining what a person who really loves you may say in that situation. Acknowledge the feelings you have and use softening words for soothing them.

2. Dealing with difficult emotions in your body.

Take 10 minutes to sit comfortably and notice how an emotion feels in your body. Allow it to be by returning to the emotion whenever your thought turns to analyze the situation that caused the emotion. Soften the sensation by touching that part of the body and using soothing words such as “May I be kind to myself.” “May I be free of pain.” You can find a self-compassion meditation at the link below.

http://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/meditations/LKM.self-compassion.MP3