From Adversity To Opportunity Pt4: Radical Self Compassion

Welcome back to From Adversity to Opportunity. This is CK Lin. Last time, we talked about the importance of having rituals and how that impacts our sense of certainty in this uncertain time. Today, I want to talk about having radical compassion for yourself. Especially during this time, it's very human to go through an emotional roller coaster ride at this uncertain time.

Transcript

Welcome back to From Diversity to Opportunity.

This is CK Lin.

Yesterday we talked about the importance of having rituals and how that impacts our sense of certainty in this uncertain time.

Today I wanna talk about having radical compassion for yourself,

Especially during this time.

It's very human to go through a emotional rollercoaster,

Right,

At this uncertain time.

And at the highest point,

You may feel overjoyed,

You may feel joyous,

You may feel excited,

You may feel hopeful,

You may feel liberated.

At the lowest point,

You may feel panic,

Fear,

Anxiety,

Overwhelm.

During this rollercoaster ride,

You may also notice your internal critic gets louder as you move through the ups and downs of this rollercoaster ride.

I'm not doing enough,

I'm doing too much,

I'm not helping enough,

I'm helping too much,

I'm not showing up as a leader,

I'm showing up too much as a leader.

It's very easy at this time to make ourselves wrong for having the one,

The emotional experience also to judge ourself for what we do or don't do during this time.

It's very easy to do that.

As you go through all of these emotions,

It's very easy to pass judgment on the emotions you have,

On the words and actions that you take on,

What you do or what you don't do right now.

It's very easy to do that.

A very quick way to check yourself as your self-critic is getting louder and louder in your head.

You're too emotional,

You're not emotional enough,

You're leading too much,

You're not leading enough,

You are helping too much,

You're not helping enough.

All of these are judgment,

Assessment,

Evaluation of your own performance.

And most overachievers that I know tend to think that self-flagellation,

Beating yourself up,

Is what gets you to push more,

Is what gets you to raise your standards,

Especially when there's a fire and you need to push for performance.

And what I've noticed is that short term,

You will get the outcome that you're looking for.

But if you rely on this as a long term strategy,

There is no free lunch at the end of the day.

You will just suppress,

Ignore,

Deny your own emotions and that will come out of yourself as a psychosomatic disease at some point.

So what I'm inviting you to do is not to do that,

Not to basically let your future self pay for that.

What I'm inviting you to imagine,

How would your older self treat your younger self?

Use that mental model,

That way you don't do what you normally would do,

Which is beat yourself up,

Be impatient with yourself,

Or have negative self-talk about yourself.

Give yourself as much grace,

Patience,

Wisdom that your older self will give to your present self.

Imagine the younger version of you show up at your doorstep with the same problem,

With the same emotional pain,

With the same psychology,

With all of the things,

Right,

That you are most proud of,

Also not so proud of,

Everything that you were when you were younger.

How would you treat your younger self today?

With the same amount of wisdom,

Warmth,

Heart,

Compassion,

That the current you will treat the younger you,

I want you to try on,

You are now the older version of you,

Who is 70 years old,

Who have seen it all,

Who have lived through 2020 with full health,

More energy,

More cognitive energy,

More happiness,

More purposefulness,

More mission,

More aliveness.

How would that person who have gone through 2020 come back from the future and treat your current self today?

Chances are,

With more patience,

With more grace,

With more generosity,

With more compassion,

Right?

And that's the way of being I want you to try on.

Whenever you notice that your critical voice in your mind is getting louder and louder.

So whatever you're experiencing right now,

All that is all a part of you.

Your desire to make the biggest difference in the world,

As well as your most basic instinct for survival.

All of it are an aspect of who you are,

They're a part of you.

Just like the airlines advise how we put on our own oxygen mask on first before we put on others.

Same thing here,

Before you go out and take care of other people,

Take care of yourself.

Give yourself the grace,

The patience,

The empathy,

The compassion.

That way,

When you do go out and make a difference with others,

It comes from a place of completeness.

It comes from a place of fullness rather than a place of not having enough.

If you don't come from a place of fullness and completeness,

Whenever you do make a difference with others,

They will feel that,

The lack of fullness and completeness.

I was speaking to an entrepreneur a little bit earlier,

And he was telling me how the circumstances are impacting his entire sales team.

No one's making any sales right now,

Because all of the meetings have been canceled.

And effectively,

He was complaining to me how his sales team wasn't working hard enough.

That may be the case.

However,

What I'm asserting here is that he is not dealing with the uncertainties of this event himself.

He's not coming from a place of fullness.

He's in a place of panic.

He does have a million dollar a month of payroll to make.

So I understand where the anxiety is coming from at the same time.

When he doesn't take care of himself,

When he doesn't actually come to peace,

What he's doing is projecting his own anxiety onto his sales team,

Onto his entire company.

The whole thing perpetuates to his entire organization.

When he doesn't actually handle his internal anxiety,

His internal overwhelm.

In short,

If you don't actually have compassion for yourself and deal with all the emotion that you have with grace and patience and compassion,

Then you'll project any unresolved emotions to your workforce.

And that's not a good thing,

Especially when your people are looking to you for stability,

For certainty,

For direction,

For leadership.

So on the practical level,

You may need to deal with emergencies.

You may need to deal with pivots.

You may need to scale back your workforce.

All of these things will happen very,

Very quickly.

So I'm not saying to just close yourself in a room for hours and hours and meditate.

Let's get tactical on how you can practice doing this.

So in the beginner level,

Set out a part of the day that you can fully process all of the emotions,

All of the negativity,

Everything that comes through you,

All of the panic,

All of the overwhelm,

All of the joy,

All of the excitement in that setting.

So that's what I would advise you to do.

If you're a little bit more advanced,

You can process the highest highs and the lowest lows in real time.

Fill it fully.

Just allow it to wash over you like waves of the ocean.

Now even more advanced to that is how you transmute the energy that these emotions bring up to fuel your mission,

To fuel your resolve.

Just like how surfers ride the waves.

Similarly,

How can you ride the waves of the emotions?

Emotions ultimately is energy in motion.

The most advanced level,

You can actually channel these emotions as a way to help guide you,

Move towards your mission,

Your milestone even faster.

From my point of view,

After years of exploring different paths,

This is the most organic,

Most effortless way that I've come through to really fuel the purpose that I have in my life.

From a place of fullness,

From a place of a completeness,

This is how we can best serve the people who depend on us.

Let me recap everything that I just talked about.

With the coronavirus,

It's very easy to judge ourselves for the emotions that we have.

It's very easy to judge ourselves for the actions or words that we use.

What I'm inviting you to do is to give yourself more compassion because then from a place of fullness,

From a place of compassion,

From a place of completeness,

You can go out and help other people.

The specific method I'm recommending is allow the emotions runs over you like waves of the ocean,

Energy in motion.

Be as aware and cognizant as possible.

Treat yourself like how your 70 year old self would treat your present self,

How the older,

Wiser,

Smarter version of you would treat your present self.

All right my friends,

That was a lot.

I want you to take a deep breath and let everything go.

The overall intention of this series is to empower you to make better decisions as a leader,

As an entrepreneur for everyone that depend on you.

Try this on and let me know how this is helpful to you or not.

So until next time,

Take care of yourself.

Know that you're doing the best you can,

So treat yourself with more compassion,

More love,

More patience,

Give yourself more space.

Reviews

Very helpful even now in 2023 👍🙏