Dr. Martin Luther King said, "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"
My question for 2024 is, "What are you doing for yourself?"
As parents and teachers, we are called upon to have an enormous amount of compassion for others. We hear the term, "compassion" quite often, but what exactly does it mean?
We can think of compassion as the wish (and action we take) to remove the suffering of others. And we can define kindness as the wish for others to be happy. They are very similar!
We are continually acting upon these two wishes for our kids. From the moment our children come to us, we are wishing for them to be happy and we do everything we can to prevent them from suffering.
And yet, how compassionate are we with ourselves?
Dr. Kristin Neff is a self-compassion expert. She calls self-compassion “an essential life skill to help us deal with the difficult stuff.”
She has developed a test to measure how self-compassionate we are. I just took it and I scored 3. This means I am moderately self-compassionate. I have a ways to go! What is your level of self-compassion?
Thankfully, she offers some guided practices to help us grow our self-compassion. I found her less-than-5 minute Tender Self-compassion Break to be particularly helpful. Give it a try!
Basically, Kristin outlines 3 steps to practice self-compassion (all of which relate to what we call in Restitution ‘Stabilizing the identity’). And when do we need it? When we make a mistake, fail, have a relationship issue, feel overwhelmed, or just aren't feeling good about ourselves.
Making space for mindfulness.
This allows us the opportunity to be present with and willingly accept what happened without judgement; with kindness. We make space to accept and be with our feelings, "I feel really angry" or "This is so frustrating."
Remember our common humanity.
We are not alone. In that moment, it feels like everyone else is living a perfect life! But this is not the case. There is nothing wrong with you! You have strengths and weaknesses just like every other human being. Hundreds of millions of people have felt this way. “This is part of life” or “It’s not true that it’s just you!”
Bring in kindness.
This can be physical touch—placing our hands on our hearts, or holding our face tenderly in our hands. It might be words of support (what a friend might say to you), "I am here for you." We are embracing ourselves with feelings of warmth. Give yourself the message you need to hear. “This is really difficult.”
Self-compassion doesn’t mean we accept the behavior. We are accepting ourselves.
After accepting (think stabilizing) ourselves, we can begin to move toward taking action (or making some changes) to meet our unmet needs, solve the problem, repair the relationship, etc. in a way that honors the person we truly want to be.
Self-compassion is a small step, but as the popular quote says, "Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life."
Have a wonderful 2024!
Love, Meemie
P.S. Does self-compassion really matter?
Over 5,000 studies have been done on self-compassion and the research shows it’s good for both mental and physical health. Kristin Neff sums it up as follows: People who practice self-compassion regularly are less likely to have debilitating mind states like depression, fear, PTSD, anxiety, eating disorders, sleeplessness and insomnia. You sleep better. You have better health because your immune system functions better because you are not so agitated and upset all the time. Perhaps most importantly for parents and teachers, the more present and less overwhelmed you are, the more resources you have to give to others.
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