As a lifelong insomniac I love my herbal teas. In particular I love Yogi teas with their daily nuggets of spiritual wisdom. (No I am not on the pay roll).
Sometimes the little cards on the end of the teabag make little sense. Other times they hit the nail on the head and are exactly what I need to hear!
Todays teabag told me that “Compassion is your strength” and made me smile because it resonated on a number of levels.
Firstly as a counsellor I would like to think that compassion is indeed one of my strengths (that and singing “Fame” at karaoke).
However, it is strength we all have the capacity for and when we are compassionate to ourselves and others it does strengthen our lives in many ways. Studies are increasingly showing that a lack of self compassion is linked to poor wellbeing as well as more severe mental health problems like chronic depression, anxiety and eating disorders etc.
But what really is self compassion and how do we develop it?
As a phrase its one we hear often yet many people struggle to know exactly how to offer it to themselves. The therapuetic definition is different to the common conception which might be similar to self care i.e. having a bubble bath or watching netflix and forgetting about our troubles.
In fact, self compasssion is no soft option and involves having the strength to turn towards our difficulties. So the teabag was almost right in that “Compassion is Strength”.
Therefore the first element of self compassion is in fact courage (or strength). Rather than turning away from problems, we face them to help ourselves deal with them better. This might be by sitting with difficult feelings in the body or turning up to something we have been dreading for ages.
The second element is wisdom. Instead of beating ourselves up for feeling a certain way, from a deeper and wiser place we acknowledge that everyone struggles and suffers from time to time and we cannot help feeling like this.
Finally, we are caring and helpful to ourselves in that moment by asking what we need to hear (or do). As this does not come naturally to many, we may have to imagine what someone else might say. For example, if we have made a mistake, rather than being overly harsh on ourselves we may ask what we would say to a friend in that moment or what a compassionate companion would say to us.
Self compassion takes practice. Even though we all have the capacity, it is very under used part of the mind and often goes against what we think will help us. We can start off doing compassionate meditations or seeing what it is like to respond to ourselves in the way that a friend would.
If you would like to find out about my mindfulness and/or self compassion services (1-1 or groups) please contact me for more information.