Dear one, on your transformational journey to a happier and more fulfilling life, you are surely practicing compassion to bestow more benevolence onto our world…
Compassion permits harmonious co-existence in extreme diversity; by being non-judgemental and wishing peace and wellness to everyone, we create a safe and sacred space for all, and we bring more peace to the world.
Compassion is part of all spiritual practices and religions
It is an essential ingredient of our human evolution to higher emotional ground.
Most of us on this growing and expanding path of mindful living are aware of this.
Yet, we often forget ourselves in this luminous practice!
And truly, self-compassion is as necessary to our expansion and spiritual evolution as being compassionate to others…
Without it, we can’t even completely feel and experience what true compassion is!
We can effort toward it, but if we are still directing harsh judgement, criticism, shame and blame, toward one person (yes, “I” is a person), that mental attitude will stay very much alive in us, dwarfing all our efforts in the universal realm.
When I keep on making myself guilty, insufficient, or wrong, when I judge myself, on any level, I deny myself an essential component to my ability to thrive, to love and to bloom: I deny myself the pure joy and ecstatic feeling of being accepted and loved as I am.
We are so used to our critical self-talk and self-condemning thoughts that we seldom realize how much they are part of our daily living; who doesn’t ever say: “oh! I’m so dumb! I should have known better!” or “That will teach me!” or simply feels stupid or mean, at times?
Sadly enough what became this harsh voice of ours was coming from people who were close to us when we grew up, we suffered from it, and never the less, we integrated it as our own!
Practicing self-compassion starts with becoming more aware of this and how much automatic it became… so we can learn to change that hurtful mental pattern. One at a time, we can attenuate, then replace the judgemental thoughts with a gentle mental pat on the back or hug to oneself, a kind acceptance of being human, of being forgivable, of being on a journey of becoming.
Telling oneself “it’s OK, I did my best, I’m learning” or “I love and approve of myself” (thank you Louise Hay for this precious mantra!) is the best thing you’ll ever do for yourself… and by proxy, for the world!
Do not under-estimate the power of self-talk and practice using it deliberately.
Let’s turn down the volume on self-criticism.
Let’s include ourselves in all blessings.
Let’s comfort ourselves with a blanket of absolute acceptance for the ever evolving beings that we are…
This is the fastest path to inner peace and inner peace is ushering world peace. Always.
In this holiday season, where many emotional buttons are pushed and knee jerk reactions are triggered, throwing us into high emotional gear and the destructive loop of blame and guilt, let’s commit to give ourselves the gift of kindness and self directed compassion…
To help you practice it, Dr Kristin Neff author of the book “Self Compassion” offers wonderful free exercises on line http://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/
This is the most beautiful gift you can give yourself, dear one, and it will keep giving, more and more, to you and to the world.
May peace be in your mind and joy in your heart… Please be gentle on yourself!
Much love
Emmeline