Compassion Through Self-Acceptance

This month the Teaching Balance theme is Self-Acceptance. As this track illustrates, I have been inviting listeners to embrace self-acceptance, as well as self-compassion, self-love, and self-kindness for years.
Please enjoy this short talk on self-acceptance followed by a 10 minute meditation from 2018.

Transcript

Hey there everybody, This is Kristen from Teaching Balance and I am here with you for this week's mindfulness meditation practice. And we are currently focusing on the idea of self-compassion right now. And there's a lot of different forms that that can take, But what I thought would be helpful is instead of doing an actual compassion practice per se, I thought I would actually just chat a little bit with you beforehand just about the idea of self-compassion. Sometimes we hear that word, But you know, Sometimes it's not clear exactly what we mean by that. So as succinctly as possible, The way I think about self-compassion is it's a combination between self-acceptance and self-kindness. And so I want to talk actually about that first part, This idea of self-acceptance. And that's really just what my focus will be today before we do our practice. But this idea of self-acceptance, I know that we've all heard things like, You know, You have to love yourself first before you love someone else and you know, All of those kinds of things. But just accepting yourself as who you are is a pretty radical act because if you think about it, There's the whole self-development, You know, Worlds, The whole self-help to use the other expression, Um, Books and classes and courses and you know, All of those kinds of things, Which of course you could certainly qualify this as, As well as all the many things that I've read myself. And this idea of, Of self-development and self-help stuff in and of itself, You could say actually suggests the idea that we are, That there is a problem, That we are problematic in some way and that we need to be fixed or whatever it might be. And I understand that sometimes we do need to actually explore who we are and how we can develop and improve and let go of maybe some habits that aren't serving us or some thought patterns that aren't serving us and that sort of thing. But I want to debunk this idea that, That, That there's really anything that needs to be fixed in any way. So again, That whole piece, The big picture of self-compassion, A very, Very key component is self-acceptance. So as we're practicing today, I'm going to try to just weave that in pretty subtly, But the idea is that you are fine the way you are. And once we stop putting so much pressure on ourselves to be some sort of idealized version, You know, Like you 2. 0 or something like that, The easier things get and there's just a little bit less pressure or a little bit less feeling of unworthiness and all of that kind of stuff, Which if you've been down this road, You really kind of know is not really a helpful place to go. So really we're focusing on self-acceptance, Accepting of the circumstances they are, Not feeling like we have to fix anything, Including ourselves. And so let's go ahead and get started. I'm going to have you take your seat if you haven't already. Set my timer for 10 minutes. Sitting in a way that's upright, But not rigid. Just open, Perhaps rolling the shoulders down and back and with your eyes either lowered or if you prefer, Closed. And starting by taking those three or maybe even four or five very deep belly breaths and allowing yourself to really just drop into your body and settle in, Feeling what it feels like to be in your body in this seat, In this moment. And remembering that throughout the entire practice, No matter how it goes, You don't need to worry about fixing things or changing them. We're going to do some deep acceptance today instead. Acceptance of wherever this particular practice takes us and just allowing things to be as they are. So knowing you can rest your awareness on your breath, Watching that rising and falling of your chest or abdomen or noticing the sensations associated with the air around the nose or mouth. And also rest your awareness on sounds inside the room or outside the room. Some will have a quality of being constant while others will come and go. And you're resisting any temptation to tell yourself a story about the sound, What's making that noise and perhaps also resisting any temptation to judge it. This is a pleasant sound, But oh no, That's an unpleasant sound. And once again, To use the word acceptance, Just accepting what the sounds are as they come to you. And your third option is to rest your awareness on your body and physical sensations and just checking in with what does your body feel like right now? Do you have a quality of energy and excitement? Perhaps there's a quality of lethargy and tiredness. What does excitement feel like? Where do you feel it in your body? What does sleepiness feel like? Where do you feel it in your body? And you may not have any of those types of qualities or states at the moment. So you're just noticing whatever is noticeable about your physical sensations in the moment. And if at any point you have any discomfort, Knowing that you don't need to change that in any way either. You can just accept that twinge in your knee or your back or your neck or wherever it might be and exploring the boundaries of it, Accepting it as it is and observing where does the pain cease to be and that neutrality begins. Is the discomfort sharp or dull, Hot or cold? If you were taking notes like a scientist, Observing how things are, What are the various notes that you would take down about what your body is feeling right now? So if you're feeling restless and that your mind is all over the place, We're just accepting that that's where it is. Not beating ourself up for being that way, Just noticing and accepting. And then of course, Because we are putting forth some effort in this time to keep bringing our attention back to the present and to our anchor, Once you've noticed, Just acknowledge it. You might even want to say thinking or planning and then bring your attention back to the present. And even though there is this effort of trying to maintain your awareness and keep it tethered to your anchor, Remembering that it's also deeply restful to not have to try to evaluate something or assess it, To tweak it and fix it. Right now for these few moments together, We just accept who we are, Where we're coming from, How we're showing up and how it is. And when we notice that the mind has wandered, We accept that as well and then just bring our attention back once again. Noticing where the mind is, Accepting and then allowing yourself to come back to the present moment. Coming back again and again to the present moment, Accepting wherever we were and now accepting being in this moment and here and doing what we can just to rest in the present moment and doing what we can to stay here for the final few moments before we hear the bell. All right, So acceptance being the theme of the day. I hope that you felt that that was of value and helpful to you. And one thing I would encourage you to do is all week, Just see how much you can notice that you are maybe resisting or judging about yourself in some capacity and trying to just loosen that a little bit. Allow yourself to just accept things as they are, Assuming they're not dangerous or anything like that, But just surrendering, Accepting, Allowing. Really important first step when it comes to self compassion and just knowing that you are perfectly imperfect, As you've probably heard me say before, And you're just like all the rest of us in the human race who are perfectly imperfect. And that if we can ease up and accept that, It really does help take some of that pressure off and give us a little bit more ease in our day to day lives. So thank you so much for taking this time to practice and thank you for allowing me to accompany you on this journey. And I look forward to practicing with you next time. Take care. Bye bye.