Self-Compassion Step 1: Acknowledging Our Suffering

Join Britta Eskey this week and in the next few weeks for a quick self-love boost in self-compassion. This week she will guide you through four steps, one each day, on self-compassion and the last video will combine all the steps in one practice. Self-compassion has been shown to lead to positive emotions. These audios can be used at the beginning of your meditation to usher yourself lovingly into your silent practice and/or afterward to help you take the fruit of your meditation into your life.
This track contains ambient sounds in the background

Transcript

Hi,

We will talk about self-compassion for today in the next four days.

I'm going to break this process down into four steps and then we're going to do a whole holistic process with all four steps integrated.

So self-compassion is a big part of self-love and the first step to self-compassion is recognizing that we need compassion,

Recognizing that we are suffering,

That there's some sort of distress.

So this could be minor,

Like for me right now I'm tired,

I didn't sleep good last night.

That's a small amount of suffering and yet I feel it in my body and so that would be a moment where I would use this.

Or it could be a huge thing that you're going through like you've lost somebody you love and you're grieving and you're going through waves and that could be a moment where you use this meditation.

So anything from something minor to something really major is when you would use this and you would first of all just acknowledge I am in distress.

And you see I put my hands here already intuitively to my heart.

So let's close our eyes and find a posture that feels comfortable and alert and then just seeing if you were compassionate with yourself in this moment where would you put your hands.

So to me in this very moment it feels good to put one on my heart and one on my hand and just see what it's like for you.

Where does it feel like you're soothing yourself,

You're comforting yourself,

You're being compassionate with yourself.

And then just sensing your breath and bringing to mind this situation that is causing you some kind of distress.

It could be a physical pain or illness,

An emotional distress,

A disappointment,

Something that's hurting,

That's difficult.

And just sensing your hands and the comfort of your hands as you're breathing and just internally acknowledging to yourself this is a moment of suffering.

This is a moment of distress.

This hurts.

Just giving yourself this acknowledgement and sensing what this feels like to acknowledge this.

We very often are so focused externally we can see when other people are suffering but we don't recognize our own.

Just breathing into this acknowledgement to letting yourself know this is painful.

This is difficult.

This is a moment of suffering.

And I deserve compassion just like any other human being would.

And then you can just gently lay down your hands wherever they feel comfortable just resting them on your legs or on the armchair and just sitting with this moment of self-compassion,

This moment of acknowledgement and letting that soften your heart towards yourself and open you to grace and soften your entry into your silent meditation if that's what you choose to do in which case you can pause me now and turn me back on when you're ready.

And staying with the softness,

This care for yourself,

This compassion for yourself,

Sensing if anything has changed in you,

It might have gotten more intense,

Less intense or stayed the same,

Whatever it is,

Just staying with the sense of self-compassion as you're now gently opening your eyes.

Getting in what's with you here,

What's with you in this room,

Wherever you're sitting and making a commitment to take the sense of compassion for yourself with you as you're going out into your day,

Into your evening,

Whatever time it is for you right now to stay with that and to acknowledge that there are moments of suffering or distress or discomfort or disappointment in anyone's life including yours and that it's really beautiful to acknowledge that.

Reviews

So happy to have discovered you, especially at this time. Like the saying goes, "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear". In other words it's serendipity. I'm currently reading a book on self compassion I received in the mail last week from my sister-in- law, who is also a spiritual mentor. How cool is that? Many women in the local recovery community could really use help with this as well. There is so much self condemnation for how our addiction hurt our loved ones. Thank you! I will share freely. But and hope we can truly accept and learn to love ourselves. Namaste.🙏🏼💗

Lovely meditation. Thank you.

Lovely 💜 Thank you