Don't 'Should' All Over Yourself: Practicing Self-Compassion

So often, it seems much easier for us to offer our care, compassion, and even forgiveness to others than to ourselves. We tend to beat ourselves up, or give ourselves an unnecessarily hard time for our "perfectly human" emotions and imperfections. This talk explores how we can use our meditation practice to offer more of our love, care, and forgiveness to the person we spend the most time with - ourselves. It includes a 10-minute meditation at the end.

Transcript

Down to 15.

Mention 18-12.

So before I offer this talk on one of my favorite topics,

Which is self-compassion,

I wanted to share some news,

Especially for those of you who may listen to these talks from quite a distance,

Which is that one of my managers has finally convinced me to start offering online streaming for my in-person retreats and to be able to share that with others.

And I'm so excited about this and I really hope that it will help more people to participate and benefit from attending retreat.

If you're interested,

We'll be offering this starting with a day-long retreat,

June 11th from 930 to 5 p.

M.

Eastern Standard Time,

Where we'll be exploring how to free ourselves from fear and worry.

And if you happen to live within driving distance of Berryville,

Virginia,

There are still some spots left as of this recording if you'd like to join us in person.

In the meantime,

I chose the theme of self-compassion for this month's talk for many different reasons.

And the first is that I think that it is something that we absolutely all could really use right now.

And the second is that it's also something I've been personally leaning into these days,

Again,

For many different varied reasons.

I also very firmly believe that self-compassion is something we actually always need to remind ourselves of and practice really on a daily basis,

Especially for those of us actually who live in the West.

Because this doesn't seem like something that comes naturally for us,

Self-compassion.

In fact,

Studies have shown that we seem to do exactly the opposite,

Which is to give ourselves an unnecessarily hard time or beat ourselves up somehow,

Maybe especially during those times when our own compassion is what is most needed.

About 30 years ago now,

During one of the very first international Buddhist teacher meetings where the Dalai Lama was the main speaker,

A group of Western teachers asked him how they might help their students work with feelings of unworthiness,

Self-criticism,

Shame,

And self-hatred.

And apparently the Dalai Lama was just totally confused by this.

He could not comprehend the word self-hatred.

He was so baffled,

In fact,

That he spent a full 10 minutes,

10 minutes conferring with his translator,

Just trying to understand.

And when he thought he had finally understood,

He asked these same Western teachers if they experienced these feelings themselves personally.

And each one of them nodded.

And the Dalai Lama said,

But that's a mistake.

Every being is precious.

Every being is precious.

And as the Dalai Lama would go on to explain,

Not only is every being precious,

But each one of us also deserves our own compassion.

Because according to the Buddha's first noble truth,

We all experience suffering,

Each one of us.

Many years ago,

I recall one of my teachers saying something that really stuck with me,

Which is that you could probably walk up to any person on the planet and place your hand in theirs and say something like,

I just wanted to let you know.

A friend told me what you've been going through lately,

And I'm so sorry.

That sounds really hard.

And almost everyone would just nod and say thank you.

Thank you.

So often when we're experiencing difficulty in our own personal lives,

Our tendency is to think that we're in some way alone.

But of course,

This just isn't true.

We all,

Again,

We all experience suffering.

And in fact,

It is truly what connects us.

As my favorite Buddhist nun,

Padmasodran,

Tells us,

Sorrow has the exact same taste for all of us.

We all feel grief and anger and envy and shame and joy.

Yet if we're honest,

Whenever we think about offering our compassion out for the suffering,

We might admit that our tendency is to be a bit selective and limited about who we offer this out to.

So what happens is that we often tend to forget this truth of our interconnection,

And we tend to judge people either as worthy or unworthy of our compassion.

So just for instance,

It might be really easy for us to offer compassion to our beloveds,

Our friends and family and people we somehow find easy to love.

It might also feel easy to offer compassion to those who are in obvious pain or maybe those who are suffering in ways that seem extreme.

But it is often so much more difficult to offer compassion to those who seem to be enjoying what appears to be good conditions in their life.

It'd be very good conditions in our eyes.

And it's especially difficult for us to offer compassion to those who we feel are somehow engaging in harmful actions really hard.

And yet,

As we all maybe know,

The person that we tend to find it the most difficult to offer our compassion to is often ourselves.

And in fact,

Many of us tend to judge ourselves more harshly than we do almost anyone else on the planet.

But as the Buddha so wisely taught us,

Searching all directions with one's awareness,

One finds no one dearer than oneself.

What this means is that whenever we ourselves are in pain,

We are as much in need of our compassion as anyone else.

We are equally deserving of it.

And of course,

Others also deserve our compassion,

But they are not more deserving.

They are not more deserving of it.

This is a really important distinction.

And the problem is,

Whenever we're experiencing pain or disappointment,

For whatever reason,

Instead of offering ourselves our compassion,

There's a strong tendency within us to make it,

The suffering,

And therefore ourselves,

In some way wrong.

In other words,

We tend to experience what I affectionately like to call a case of the shoulds,

Where we're shoulding all over ourselves in some way.

And so often,

In times of suffering,

If we could just stop and take a closer look at the content of our minds,

We might actually notice whole sentences or phrases or words like,

I shouldn't,

Or I should,

Or he shouldn't,

Or should,

Or she shouldn't,

Or they shouldn't,

Or it shouldn't be,

Or it should be,

Etc.

You might even just take a moment right now and recall whatever you're struggling with in your life right now and ask yourself if there are any shoulds lurking about.

Just take a moment to think about that.

Are there any I should,

He should,

She should,

They should,

It should,

Etc.

It's actually a really good practice to be on the lookout for the shoulds,

Because as you might imagine,

They are almost always toxic.

And they are especially toxic when they are directed at ourselves.

Since when we're judging ourselves in this way,

We tend to believe that we are somehow undeserving of our own understanding and compassion.

At the same time,

Whenever we're experiencing difficulty,

Instead of offering ourselves compassion,

What we tend to do instead is to overwork our thinking mind and try to talk or think ourselves out of whatever we're experiencing in some way.

So for instance,

Instead of just feeling whatever we're feeling,

We tend to employ a whole host of avoidance strategies,

Most of which are learned and habitual.

For example,

This might include running around like crazy trying to fix something so that we won't actually need to confront our uncomfortable feelings.

Or we might find ourselves habitually trying to fix ourselves and we launch into a kind of harsh,

Hypercritical self-improvement project.

Or maybe our strategy is to try to pretend that whatever we're feeling really isn't there.

We try to deny its existence.

Or if we do acknowledge that the feeling is there,

We might then tell ourselves in some way that we,

Quote,

Shouldn't be feeling whatever we're feeling.

And so we might do everything we can to hide it,

Put it away,

Stuff it down.

Or maybe we try to cover it over by indulging in an unhealthy habit or two or three.

Maybe eating,

Drinking too much,

Watching hours and hours of TV.

Or some of us tend to resort to blame and start pointing our fingers at ourselves,

Others,

Again,

All in an attempt to avoid our feelings.

So essentially,

All of these strategies are just different habitual ways that we use to reject or push away our own suffering,

Which again,

We somehow either consciously or unconsciously believe is wrong.

It shouldn't be.

So instead of paying attention to whatever we're feeling,

We're in some way saying to ourselves,

I am unwilling to be with this because again,

It shouldn't be.

Which often leads to a sense of I'm wrong when we identify with whatever we're feeling.

And of course,

This type of aversion is the very opposite of compassion.

It's actually a great line that I love from one of Renee Brown's books that I keep near me that helps to remind me how not to practice compassion,

Which is simply what we don't need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human.

I'll repeat that because I love it so much.

It's so simple.

What we don't need in the midst of our struggle is shame for being human.

And so instead of shooing on ourselves in this way and making our suffering somehow wrong,

The teachings are asking us to really flip this around and courageously open our hearts to our own pain unconditionally,

Which means without any conditions.

The Buddhist texts describe compassion or karuna in Pali as the quivering of the heart in response to the recognition of suffering.

And so compassion is in fact a verb.

It's a verb.

It involves a movement of the heart,

A doing.

It involves asking our hearts,

What is the most compassionate thing to do here?

What's the most compassionate thing I can do here?

So you might think of it as the impulse within us to jump directly into the river whenever we see that someone's drowning.

Right.

We don't need to personally know who that person is or judge whether they're worthy of saving or question their motive for being in the water in the first place.

We just jump.

And we jump because we recognize that they're suffering.

There's no thought in it,

Only in our heart responding directly,

Wanting the suffering to stop.

So again,

We're being asked to do the same for ourselves,

To jump into the water unconditionally without first needing to question our worth or our motives.

Because the truth is,

If we're expecting ourselves to be perfect and flawless before we can ever offer ourselves our own compassion,

This is just honestly never,

Ever going to happen because not a single one of us can meet this impossible criteria of perfection.

It's simply the truth of our existence that to be human means to be imperfect,

Which is also exactly what makes our life so rich.

So helpful to remember.

There's actually a lovely line from a poem by one of my favorite poets,

Donna Faulds,

That I love that helps to remind me of this.

It's so simple and it's so true.

She writes,

Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain.

Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain.

So helpful to remember.

Again,

What the practice is trying to offer us is a way to learn how to do this without first needing to receive compassion from others and without first needing permission from outside of ourselves.

This is one of the most profound things that I've learned from the Buddhist teachings over the years,

The truth that all I really need can be found right here in my own heart.

I've also learned the truth that what is endlessly painful is trying to search for and discover the same thing outside of myself,

Because that's completely unreliable.

It's unreliable.

Lao Tzu,

The famed author of the Tao Te Ching,

Describes it so beautifully.

Always we hope someone else has the answer.

Some other place will be better.

Some other time.

It will all turn out.

This is it.

No one else has the answer.

No place will be better.

And it is already turned out.

At the center of your being,

You have the answer.

You know who you are and you know what you want.

There is no need to run outside for better seeing,

Nor to peer from a window.

Rather abide at the center of your being,

For the more you leave it,

The less you learn.

The more you leave it,

The less you learn.

And so how do we begin to do this?

Offer ourselves our own hearts.

To start,

We first need to become aware that we are suffering in the first place.

As we all know,

This part isn't always easy.

Besides all of our habitual strategies to avoid feeling this,

Many of us have also been conditioned culturally to care more about the suffering of others than for ourselves.

So sometimes we just don't even realize our need for our own compassion.

And so this is where our practice can really come in,

When we can learn to slow down long enough to courageously and honestly look into the nature of our minds and discover what we have been saying to ourselves.

What we've been saying to ourselves.

We can also learn to recognize in our bodies,

Which are our homes,

That something feels painful.

Something needs to be heard and paid attention to.

Something in our heart and body maybe needs to be held.

And once we can recognize this,

We can then stop and really listen.

Again,

Without making any of it wrong or trying to fix anything.

This is the kind of deep listening that simply recognizes and acknowledges what we're experiencing in the moment.

So just for a moment,

You might even consider this question.

Whenever you're feeling sad or angry or disappointed,

Who do you really want to be with you?

Who would you really want to be with you?

Is it the frustrated person who maybe blames you in some way?

Is it maybe someone who yells at you?

Or maybe someone who tells you that you should stop being sad,

Angry or upset?

Or maybe worse,

Tells you you shouldn't be feeling whatever you're feeling?

Is it the anxious person who showers you with solutions?

Or maybe unsolicited advice that we also love?

What about the person who simply leans forward and gives you a warm,

Kind smile?

And just listens and nods.

Maybe even rests their hand in yours or sets their hand on your shoulder while you cry.

Maybe that person hands you a tissue as the snot is running down your nose and laughs with you.

Or maybe just simply holds you.

So with this type of offering,

There's no fixing involved and definitely no judging.

It's just a kind of pure,

Gentle,

Kind presence and a warm heart that is simply with you,

Completely allowing your pain,

Again,

Without judgment.

This person is empathizing with your pain,

Not from a place of being above,

But from a place of,

I can see and sense how painful this is for you.

And I so wish you weren't going through this.

I really care about the suffering and I wish for it to end for you.

Just this year,

I overheard one of my dear managers,

Ann DeChamp,

Offer this kind of compassion so sweetly and simply to one of our students who was really upset about being lost on the drive to a retreat.

After Ann had led her there over the phone,

The student had arrived safely.

She hugged Ann and thanked her for her patience.

And I heard Ann reply,

No worries.

I could hear me in your voice.

No worries.

I could hear me in your voice.

I just love that because this is exactly what we want to learn to do for ourselves.

It is the essence of self-compassion.

Over the years,

I've learned some very simple affirmations from the teachings that can help us to connect to this kind of unconditional kindness and compassion.

And I'd like to offer some of these to you.

These are some phrases that you might even put on a sticky note if one jumps out at you and really resonates,

They're helpful to remind you to be kind to yourself.

The first one is so simple.

It's five words from the teacher Sylvia Borstein.

But I personally think it is the most powerful one.

It's simply,

Sweetie,

You are in pain.

Sweetie,

You are in pain.

I so love that one because right off the bat,

It's just immediately kind.

You can use another word besides sweetie,

But some kind word.

Sweetie,

You are in pain.

And it's also a deep recognition right off the bat again of our suffering without any judgment.

It's just a statement of fact.

In our teaching,

Sylvia takes this phrase even further and adds these words,

Which are relax,

Take a breath.

Let's pay attention to what's happening.

Then we'll figure out what to do.

In other words,

Then we can decide what's most needed,

The most compassionate response,

Which is exactly how we're being asked to practice.

First,

Pay attention to what's happening and allow it.

I also often use a wonderful phrase from the teacher and writer Kristin Neff,

Which is,

This is a moment of suffering.

Suffering is a part of life.

It's what connects us.

May I be kind to myself.

May I give myself the compassion that I need.

I'll say that again.

This is a moment of suffering.

Suffering is a part of life.

It's what connects us.

May I be kind to myself.

May I give myself the compassion that I need.

I like that one.

Another one of my teachers,

Tara Brock,

Often uses the phrase,

I care about this suffering.

You'll notice the word this.

So it's not my suffering.

It's the suffering.

Recalling that other people are also going through the exact same thing.

So for this one,

When we can really access it and remember it,

It can help us to feel not so alone,

Which as we all know,

Is so painful.

Another very traditional way that we can work with the recognition of suffering is by actually bringing a sense of gratitude to it,

To bow to the difficulty,

Whatever it is.

Because the hard truth is if we can really stay with it and not run away from it,

There's an opportunity to help us to learn and transform in some way.

It can be.

And finally,

A third affirmation we can use is may the suffering serve awakening.

May the suffering serve awakening.

And honestly,

This is the one I usually resort to when I'm still really wanting to battle with it in some way.

So that's the first step to simply recognize that we are in pain,

To acknowledge it and to remember that we are not alone.

After we've recognized that we're hurting,

The second step is to courageously allow.

Allow ourselves to feel whatever we're experiencing and to really get to know what we're feeling.

And of course,

This allowing part is the most difficult part.

And so it takes a lot of practice and patience and courage.

And this is because it's asking us to go against our instincts and not run away,

To be fully present and in touch with our own pain,

As well as the thoughts and the beliefs and behaviors that are fueling it.

In the words of author and Buddhist scholar,

Joanna Macy,

We're learning to,

Quote,

Sustain the gaze,

Sustain the gaze,

Or as Rumi urges us,

Don't turn away.

Keep your gaze on the bandaged place.

That is where the light enters you.

That is where the light enters you.

As a writer,

I like to remember that the letter A in allow has a really sharp point and that we all want to avoid getting poked or stabbed by it,

Which is why we tend to try to jump over it.

We jump over it,

Which sadly really never ever works.

And so whenever we can recognize that we're struggling or suffering,

We can start to allow by consciously dropping out of the thinking mind and kindly,

Courageously be with our feelings,

The actual physical sensations in the body and the heart.

This is how we do it.

So for instance,

We might begin to notice and allow maybe a gripping and tightening squeeze in the heart or the throat or a feeling like maybe someone is literally pinching us in the throat or the heart or putting pressure there.

Maybe we sense a heaviness that feels almost like rocks through our body.

Or maybe we have a sense of deep tiredness or achiness or sense of hollowness.

Maybe a kind of sensitivity or an anxiousness.

We're just noticing these physical sensations in the body and the heart.

And as we learn to stay with these sensations,

We might even think of this allowing as a kind of holding,

As the way we might hold a child who is crying and afraid and who maybe believes there's a monster under the bed.

So the idea is we don't berate the child for crying or for being afraid or tell them that they're wrong or crazy.

We simply hold them and tell them,

It's okay.

I know you're afraid.

I'm right here.

So we're patient and we're kind and we wait as the storm blows through,

If you will.

That's how we allow with compassion.

And again,

Here you might recall Sylvia Borschning's suggestion of how we practice this allow part.

Just relax.

Take a breath.

Let's pay attention to what's happening.

Then we will figure out what to do.

Then we'll figure out what to do.

When we can practice in this way,

This compassionate allowing might even invite a kind of deep letting go.

So for instance,

Maybe finally,

Finally,

We might allow ourselves to cry.

Or maybe we finally allow ourselves to feel our anger.

Or maybe our grief.

Or whatever it is,

We allow ourselves to feel it.

And this kind of letting go very often involves letting go of our strong sense of defensiveness,

Our tight grip or our tight holding on.

The great teacher Ajahn Chah,

Who was the teacher of my teachers,

Once so wisely told us,

If you haven't wept deeply,

You haven't begun to meditate.

If you haven't wept deeply,

You haven't begun to meditate.

So true.

So after our defenses have fallen away and we finally allowed ourselves to feel whatever we're feeling,

Then we can start questioning what we're believing.

And again,

This mostly means questioning our shoulds.

Questioning our shoulds.

So to go back to that child who is maybe frightened by the monster.

Once the child has calmed down a bit,

We might start asking some gentle questions like maybe,

What are you so afraid of?

Or why do you believe there is a monster under that bed,

Etc.

And when we're offering ourselves this kind of compassion,

We want to ask our feelings these questions.

Because remember,

This is not an intellectual process.

We are not going to the thinking mind.

This is not going to your therapist's office to try to figure this out.

We actually want to drop out of our analytical judgmental mind and go directly to the feelings themselves to our wise hearts.

So,

For instance,

We might ask our hearts,

Feeling,

What are you believing?

Feeling,

What do you need?

Or anger,

What are you believing?

Or sadness,

What do you need,

Etc.

And as we do this,

We might start to recognize that the beliefs that are fueling our suffering aren't necessarily true,

Even though the feelings themselves are very true.

The phrase Tara Brach often uses is real,

But not true,

Which means the feelings are absolutely real,

But the beliefs really may not be,

Usually aren't.

So,

For instance,

We might be terrified of the monster under the bed,

And that feeling of being terrified is real,

But our whole monster story might not be true at all.

And at this point,

After we spent some time listening to our bodies and our minds and our hearts,

And have offered ourselves our compassion,

Then we can begin to access our wisdom.

And in the teachings,

Wisdom and compassion are often considered the two wings of practice,

Like two wings of a bird,

Which means we really truly cannot access our wisdom without compassion because the two balance one another out.

So once we have our wings,

Then we can decide for ourselves if our beliefs are true or not.

And here we can also decide what is most needed.

What is the best response here?

What is the wisest,

Most compassionate response to the suffering or to the situation?

Again,

The trick is not to ask the thinking mind for the answer,

But to stay intimately connected to the heart,

Which actually contains a much deeper wisdom.

Many years ago,

During a longer retreat I was on,

I was really struggling with finding compassion for myself after the sudden death.

A very good friend of mine,

An old retreat manager actually.

And looking back on it,

I think the grief was just so incredibly overwhelming that I just couldn't seem to allow myself my own grief.

And I was completely caught up in a big case of the shoulds.

It shouldn't have happened.

I shouldn't have done this or that.

I shouldn't have said that.

I shouldn't have allowed myself to enjoy the peace of this walk or the retreat itself because my friend couldn't enjoy it with me.

She wasn't there.

I had such a big case of the shoulds.

And in one of my darker moments during a longer meditation,

I had a vision suddenly of this gigantic woman.

She was as big as the sky,

Just huge.

And then as I continued meditating and visualizing this,

I became that woman.

And as this was happening,

I imagined and even felt like this small mouse-like thing trying to crawl up my shoulder in my mind.

And I just kept pushing it away again and again.

I didn't like that.

And after a while of this,

I finally just let go and let this mouse in my mind crawl up on top.

And when it did,

I almost actually felt it crawling up onto the top of my head and just curling up there.

And what I realized was that it just needed to curl up and feel held.

And then I suddenly realized that this is what I had been needing to.

And my defenses broke.

And I was finally,

Finally able to let go and just cry.

Just cry.

And very soon after that sit,

I actually needed to walk down to the meditation hall and listen to a talk by one of the teachers.

And right next to the doorway,

Right in front of it,

I saw a big gold statue of Kuan Yin,

Who is the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

And in all my many years of meditating at this particular retreat center,

Having walked past that statue maybe hundreds of times,

I was amazed that I had never ever noticed that at the very top of Kuan Yin's hair,

Kind of nested there,

Was the Buddha.

And at that moment,

What I realized was that compassion is what holds our wisdom.

It holds all the teachings actually.

It's actually the bigger thing.

Compassion is the bigger thing.

So I think I will end here.

And I'd like to offer a brief meditation on self-compassion if it's available for you.

So whenever you're ready,

I'd like to invite you to find a comfortable posture if you're sitting.

Close the eyes.

If you're out walking,

You might get in touch with the very bottom of your feet on the earth and notice yourself walking.

Become more embodied.

You can sense the breath,

The movement of the body.

If you're sitting,

You might connect with the breath right away.

If you're driving,

Same thing.

Maybe feel your hands on the wheel,

Your feet,

Your breath,

Keeping your eyes open,

Obviously.

If it's available,

You might even take one hand or both and place it on the heart or one hand on the heart and one on the belly,

Breathing into the fingers,

Connecting with the body and the heart,

Dropping out of the thinking mind as much as possible,

Going right into the body,

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

Aware of the body breathing.

You might even add a very slight smile to the corner of the eyes and the lips.

Never,

Ever as a way to cover over anything.

It's simply as a way to invite friendliness,

Compassion,

Kindness here to your practice as if you're sitting with a friend.

On each exhale,

You might consciously let go a little more of any tension in the body,

Dropping down.

You might sense your sit bones and the weight of the body being held by the earth,

Feel supported and held by the earth.

You might drop the shoulders,

Let go.

You might even notice the whole face area,

Let go here a bit,

Softening the eyes,

Forehead,

All the little muscles in the face.

Allow the tummy to be soft,

Undefended,

Naturally breathing.

I'm going to invite you as you're ready to see if you can imagine breathing directly into the heart area.

Maybe even visualize the heart,

The heart space.

You might imagine letting some of the defensiveness start to loosen.

What might that look or feel like?

You can imagine that,

Letting the heart expand a bit more,

Be a little more vulnerable,

Less closed and tight,

Constricted.

Still breathing,

Aware of the body.

Maybe even bringing again a sense of kindness,

Care,

Compassion to the heart.

As you're ready,

I'd like to invite you to think about whatever you're struggling with in your life right now.

Just pick one thing.

Maybe just allow whatever you're feeling to be here with you.

Can you allow it to be here and really just feel it with kindness and compassion?

As these feelings begin to show themselves more and more,

You might try on some of these phrases that I offered.

So what happens when you use Sylvia Borstein's phrasing of,

Sweetie,

You are in pain.

Sweetie,

You are in pain.

You are in pain.

As you continue now,

You might try on the phrasing from Kristin Neff.

This is a moment of suffering.

Suffering is a part of life.

It's what connects us.

May I be kind to myself.

May I give myself the compassion that I need.

This is a moment of suffering.

Suffering is a part of life.

It's what connects us.

May I be kind to myself.

May I give myself the compassion that I need.

As you continue now,

You might try on this phrasing from Tara Brach.

Which is,

I care about this suffering.

I care about this suffering.

May this suffering serve awakening.

We care about this suffering.

May this suffering in some way serve awakening.

And staying with that.

May I be kind to myself.

And finally,

With the eyes still closed,

I'd like to invite you to listen to some encouragement from Kristin Neff,

Who wrote a book on self-compassion.

And she wrote,

I once heard a meditation teacher say,

The goal of practice is simply to become a compassionate mess.

Think about that.

If your goal is just to be supportive,

Helpful,

And compassionate towards yourself,

Whatever occurs,

Your goal is always achievable.

You learn to embrace the mess as the full expression of experiencing human life.

It's not like you reach a state of balance and then stay that way.

We constantly fall out of balance over and over.

And it is compassion for stumbling that restores equilibrium.

It is compassion for stumbling that restores equilibrium.

Namaste and blessings.

I hope you enjoyed this talk.

These talks are always offered freely so that no one is ever denied access to these teachings and your support really makes a difference.

Dhanah is an ancient Pali word meaning spontaneous generosity of heart.

If you feel inspired to offer Dhanah,

You can do so by visiting my website at www.

Mindfulvalley.

Com.

Thank you so much.

Reviews

✨🙏 Thank you so much, Shell, for sharing this talk and meditation. It was a real eye, mind and heart opener to me.
Thank you 🙏✨
Namaste 🌹

As always, wonderfully perceptive and helpful. Thank you 🌟

Beautiful practice. Thank you so much and Blessings 🪷🕊

Just amazing. My heart is full of compassion for myself as I stumble in my practice and find equilibrium again.

Very helpful thoughts on self compassion. Thanks 🙏🏽

One of the best talks on self compassion that I've heard. The meditation at the end was also wonderful and really tied everything together. Very helpful. Just beautiful...Thank you 🙏🦋