These are the 2 kinds of self-compassion you need

Dear Friend,

If you are doing anything of significance in the world, chances are at some point you will experience rejection, judgment or failure. Remember, it is part of your Hero’s Journey!

What can we do in those moments so we don’t stay down for long, but instead build the resilience to get back up and keep going?

What we need in those moments is a healthy dose of self-compassion.

What is self-compassion? Self-compassion is showing yourself the same love and care that you would show to a good friend who is suffering. It’s simply keeping your best interests at heart.

Of course, most of us do the exact opposite – at the slightest mistake, we beat ourselves up for hours on end, saying things like,

“Gosh, how could I have been so stupid.”
“Why did I say that? Why did I do that?
“What a fool I am.”

The kind of things we would never think about saying to somebody else.

Many of us don’t resort to self-compassion because we are afraid if we are soft on ourselves, we will somehow not do as well; we will become lazy or self-indulgent.

This is where it helps to distinguish the two different kinds of self-compassion – as Dr. Kristin Neff highlights in her book Fierce Self-Compassion.

Just like the Chinese philosophy of Yin and Yang, which talks about striking a balance between light and dark, positive and negative, or active energy and receptive energy, we need to strike a balance between fierce self-compassion and tender self-compassion.

Fierce self-compassion is what guides us to take action in the world. And if things don’t go our way, and that action results in judgment or failure, tender self-compassion is what we offer to ourselves to soften the blow.

Fierce self-compassion is what we use to share our voice and our ideas with the world, because we know they matter. Tender self-compassion is what we offer to ourselves if and when those ideas are not received as well as we would have hoped.

Fierce self-compassion is what we use to get ourselves to exercise in the morning because we know it is good for us. Tender self-compassion is what we show to ourselves on those days when we simply don’t have the energy to exercise, and just need to rest.

Notice how both fierce and tender self-compassion support you in becoming the person you wish to become, and neither of them involve any kind of self-criticism or shame.

If there is one thing I have learned in my journey of building courage, it is that courage and compassion are two sides of the same coin – and the more I have learned to practice compassion, the more courage I also then experience to take action in the world.

There is great power in knowing that no matter what happens…

Whether I fail or succeed
Whether people judge me or not
Whether I get the door slammed in my face or not

I will NOT judge myself
I will NOT stop trying
I will NOT stop believing

Because I am on my side.
I have my back
I will, always, have my back.

That’s self-compassion, my friend. And, I promise you it has the power to transform your life.

“One moment of courage can change your entire day. A string of such moments can change the course of your life.”
 – Christopher Germer

As an act of compassion, please forward this to a friend or a colleague who can also benefit from this.

Warmly,
Bhavna Toor
Chief Mindfulness Officer
Shenomics