Two minutes to receive some compassion. (Your own)
When I asked someone on our team how they were doing last week, she said, “January has been a long year.”
It resonated.
I’ve been struggling recently. Dealing with threats both real and imagined to people I care about. I feel myself bracing and moving into a defensive crouch.
For many of us, things feel under attack. Some of the leaders we support are not just in an urgent / reactive mode, but carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. And in that state, the temptation may be to gloss over our own feelings and focus on what we need to do - and who we need to be - for the people we lead or care about.
But we ARE one of the people that we need to care about.
Dr. Kristen Neff is a psychologist who has made a career out of researching self-compassion - and why it is often a critical ingredient for not just mental but even physical health. Self-compassion is our FIRST resource for resilience and coping, can immediately reduce anxiety and stress, and increases motivation. It allows us to navigate life’s challenges with greater grace and acceptance of our own humanity.
And in my experience it’s the very first thing we often skip over, in favor of harsher self-talk. “I shouldn’t feel so ____________, it’s not rational.” Or “Who am I to feel ___________ when other people have it so much worse?” “I need to get over it and get into action.”
But dehumanizing ourselves doesn’t increase our ability to deal with difficult things. It makes it harder.
Dr. Neff outlines three simple steps to exercising self-compassion:
Notice your own suffering.
Respond with kindness and care.
Remember that imperfection is part of being human.
So my two minute invitation / questions for you this week are:
What is a way that you have struggled or are suffering?
Try simply to notice that suffering with a soft eye of acknowledgement. This s*^# is hard. You don’t have to justify, earn or “defend” whatever it is that you are feeling. Thich Nhat Hanh invites us to hold our suffering the way we would cradle a crying baby – bring it closer with a desire to comfort and understand.
Remind yourself that struggling and stumbling is a part of the human condition. And that doesn’t make it easier, it just makes it understandable and normal.
This process doesn’t take much time. And when you’re done, the weight of the world may not magically dissipate, but at least you’re no longer carrying the additional weight of not being kind to yourself. It helps to have one more caring person in our corner, even / especially when that person is us.
