Self-Compassion: Discovering Our Innate Beauty

In response to the suffering and trauma that is inherent in life, many of us create defense mechanisms that harden into deeply conditioned patterns of how we relate to ourselves, others, and the world around us. To return to our true nature of compassion, wisdom, and love, we must cultivate self-compassion through consciously deciding to soften our physical body, emotions, and mind. As we do so, our innate nature effortlessly arises. This is a 30-minute talk, followed by a 20-minute guided meditation.

Transcript

A lot of us have various levels and forms of suffering and trauma.

It's a natural part of being human.

And it's an innate part of how we grow as well.

And I think often it can be easy to demonize trauma and suffering,

Pain,

All of the discomfort that is inherent in living a human life.

And yet,

Those very same things are often the catalyst for some of the most amazing experiences we can have as embodied beings.

They're the catalyst for incredible amounts of growth,

Of learning about ourselves and about the world,

For a deeper understanding of the meaning of life and how to find and follow our purpose within life.

Unfortunately,

Unless we have the tools or the knowledge,

It can be easy for suffering to cause us to shut down,

To close our hearts,

To harden physically,

Emotionally,

Mentally,

To create greater separation within ourselves and between ourselves and the world around us.

And for me,

As I've worked with patients over the last 15 years,

It's become apparent that many of us are very hard on ourselves.

We live in challenging times,

Times that are filled with uncertainty,

Complexity,

Chaos.

And amidst such challenge,

It can be very easy to become even harder on ourselves,

To feel like we should be better than we are,

To feel like we should be different than we are in some way,

And also to feel that the world should be different than it is.

And all of that creates greater separation within ourselves and between ourselves and the world around us.

And it makes it more difficult to learn from the challenging moments of life and to use them as catalysts for growth.

And that's why,

For me,

One of my focuses now for myself,

With friends,

And with patients,

Is cultivating a greater degree of self-compassion.

Because as we cultivate self-compassion within ourselves,

It allows us to soften,

To release some of that tension on all levels,

Physically,

Emotionally,

Mentally.

And as we soften,

We begin to access our innate nature,

And we begin to access the ability to use the challenging moments of life,

The pain and the suffering and the difficulty,

As catalysts for growth and for growing more into who we are and who we are meant to be in this lifetime,

And for being able to be present with the world as it is.

And in this way,

We allow our natural and beauty to unfold and the beauty around us to become more apparent.

A lot of this is based on how we frame our perspective.

Perspective has so much influence in how we perceive reality and how we interpret our experiences,

Our feelings,

And what is occurring in the world around us.

Because I've studied various religious and medical traditions,

I've found that there's many similarities across different ones.

And for me,

My understanding is that both medicine and spiritual practice are intended to help us become more whole within ourselves.

Many of you probably know that the etymology of the word to heal is to become whole,

And that that means whole on all levels,

Integrated within self,

As well as connected to the world around us,

So that there's a smooth flow of chi within the physical body,

As well as between the individuated being and the rest of our environment.

And in that way,

We stay connected within ourself as an individuated being,

Having an experience of duality,

Of self and other,

While simultaneously remaining connected to the underlying unity.

And that's part of the beauty and the art of being human,

Is having both of those experiences simultaneously of duality and unity.

And that's often what we're searching for,

And what we crave is that experience of unity that transcends our limited sense of an individuated self.

And yet the only way we can have that experience is by being individuated beings immersed in an experience of duality,

Of self and other.

And so it's a bit of a paradox.

When we talk about perspective,

I often draw on Taoist and Buddhist perspectives and understandings of life,

Humanity,

And what we're here for,

As well as how to access that deep level of unity that we all crave while being immersed in a world of duality.

In Buddhism and Taoism,

As well as in yogic practice,

They'll often talk about our natural state or our true nature.

And what that refers to is this underlying potential that we all have within us that is always wanting to come forth.

And our natural state is one of compassion and wisdom and love,

Of connection between self and other,

Of having a free flow of chi and energy within us and between us and the world around us,

So that we maintain that continual simultaneity of duality and unity.

What I love about the perspective of the natural state is that we already have it.

There's nothing we have to do.

There's nowhere we have to go.

It's not something we have to achieve or seek after.

It's always already right here,

Right now.

And all we have to do is get out of our own ways so that we can experience it and allow it to be expressed through us.

So then,

Of course,

The question is,

How do we do that?

In Buddhism,

They'll often use the metaphor of clouds obscuring the sun,

That our true nature is like the sun.

It's always there.

It's always shining.

But sometimes there are clouds preventing us from seeing it,

Experiencing it.

But that doesn't mean that it's not there.

And we know that the sun is always there,

Even when we don't see it,

Even in the middle of the night,

We know that it's there.

And so the clouds are often likened to the activity of the mind,

The conceptual abstractions that keep us in a state of duality and keep us from experiencing that underlying unity that is always already present.

And in some traditions,

They might talk about getting rid of the mind or the ego.

And I used to work towards that as well.

But now I come from a perspective that I believe the mind has a very important function,

And it's necessary for us to have the experiences that we're looking for and to function as beings in this level.

But the mind should be subordinate to that natural state within us,

Because the mind itself is here as a filter to bridge the gap between our underlying state of unity and the state of duality in which we are immersed and in which we act.

Unfortunately,

Or fortunately for our journey,

Depending on how you want to look at it,

The mind likes to be in control.

It likes to be in charge.

It likes to think that it can control our experiences and what is happening in the world around us.

And the mind tends to act from a place of attachment and aversion,

That it gets attached to wanting the pleasant experiences of life,

The comfort,

The good food,

The pleasures.

And it wants to avoid the pain,

The suffering,

The heartbreak.

The issue is that our capacity or our faculty of experiencing cannot be selectively turned on and off.

And so when we try to shut out the difficulty,

The pain of life,

We close out more of the joy and the pleasure as well.

And that's how we harden,

When we try to avoid and not experience something.

It creates this tension and blocking within us physically and psychologically that ends up over time,

If we're not careful,

Shutting us down more and more,

Closing us off from the beauty that is here in life and from the deep connection to others that we crave.

And so this is why self-compassion is so important.

Because we have to use our minds,

The faculty that wants to direct us,

To choose to soften,

To choose to be gentle with ourselves,

To be compassionate with ourselves,

With our experiences,

With our hopes,

With our fears,

With our difficulties.

And as we use our mind and consciousness to choose to soften and direct that compassion towards ourselves and all that we experience,

That begins to slowly melt all of that tension that we've accrued over years or decades of our lifetime.

And our hearts begin to open and we begin to experience life more fully in all of the pain and all of the pleasure.

And as we allow ourselves to be gentle with all of those experiences and to not get attached and to not push away,

We continue deepening and surrendering into that space within us where our natural state resides and where we can merge into that place of unity while existing as individuated beings at the realm of duality.

This is not necessarily easy.

The mind can be very conditioned to staying in control.

And it can be challenging to ask the mind to surrender.

To move towards self-compassion,

We have to embrace vulnerability.

We have to embrace being open to the unknown,

The uncertainty that is inherent in life,

Which is why right now is an amazing opportunity to practice because the uncertainty is so obvious.

We are in a liminal space.

We don't know what things are going to look like in our lives or in the world in the weeks and months to come.

And so we are facing the uncertainty.

And yet the truth is that life is always uncertain.

It's just that at other times we have a greater degree of the illusion of certainty.

And so when we have moments like this in life where we can't hide from the fact that there is uncertainty,

It's an amazing opportunity to practice,

To practice opening to vulnerability,

To being gentle with ourselves when we have fears arise or the desire to change or block something in our experience,

To be gentle.

Another aspect of developing self-compassion is letting go of judgments of good and bad.

Because the dualistic judgments of good and bad that we tend to apply to all that we experience are based in duality and separation and the mind's desire to control.

Because if we believe that we know what is good and what is bad,

Then we can try to make the good happen and avoid the bad and prevent it from happening.

But in the end,

That's still the mind grasping and it's preventing us from being present with things as they are and ourselves as we are in each moment.

And so to let go of judgments of good and bad allows us to be more compassionate with ourselves because in truth,

When we have these conceptions of good and bad about everything that we experience,

We're also applying them to ourselves and we're constantly judging ourselves for this or that and trying to make ourselves be different than we are,

Trying to change ourselves,

Which means that we are not accepting ourselves as we are.

And the ironic thing is,

The more we try to actively change ourselves,

The more we create stagnation and stasis and we actually concretize those very patterns that we're trying to change.

You know,

I think it was the psychologist Carl Rogers who said that the curious paradox is that it is only as soon as I accept myself as I am that then I change.

And there's a lot of deep wisdom in this.

We don't have to try to change.

As we allow ourselves to be as we are in each moment,

We will naturally change and grow because we are all impermanent.

We are all multidimensional,

Dynamic beings that are continually unfolding and growing.

And the more we can make space for ourselves to be as we are in each moment,

The easier that development will unfold.

And before we know it,

We will become exactly who we are meant to be in each moment without having tried to do anything at all.

Another aspect that ties into this is complexity.

To cultivate self-compassion,

We have to open to complexity,

Which is another thing that the mind does not like because the mind likes things to be clear-cut,

Yes and no,

Black and white.

But the truth of reality and the truth of our nature is not unidimensional.

As I said,

We are multidimensional beings.

We have so many different facets to our lived experience of the physical,

The emotional,

The mental,

The spiritual,

The relational,

The professional,

The environmental aspects of our being.

And all of these different aspects that we have are not always in alignment with each other.

Sometimes they can be in direct conflict with each other.

And so it takes a tolerance for complexity to allow seemingly oppositional aspects of self to exist simultaneously within the finite space of us.

As we do so,

And as we cultivate this self-compassion and gentleness with our experience and with the paradox of being individuated beings having an experience of duality and unity simultaneously,

We begin to make space for understanding that we are all perfection in process,

That it's a continual unfolding,

That there's no end point that we're supposed to get to,

No certain abstract conceptual way of being that is right for us or right for everybody all the time,

And that that's part of the beauty of being human is the multiplicity that exists,

That creates contrasts and differences,

As well as the complexity and multiplicity that we carry within ourselves.

In this sense,

It can be likened to a sunrise or a sunset.

You know,

When you watch a sunrise or a sunset,

Every one of them is different based on where the sun is rising or setting on the horizon,

Based on whether it's over water or mountains or field,

Depending on whether there's clouds in the sky or if it's a clear day.

And part of the beauty of a sunrise or sunset is that it's continually changing every single moment.

The colors are shifting.

It's not static.

And that's where the beauty comes from,

Is the complexity of so many things happening simultaneously and the changes that are occurring every second.

And so as we cultivate self-compassion,

We can move towards seeing ourselves and our experiences as we do a sunrise or a sunset,

As this continually unfolding,

Complex,

Ever-changing,

Impermanent process.

And the more we allow ourselves to see ourselves and our experiences from that perspective,

The more we make space for the complexity of us,

The more we allow space for others to be just as they are and for the world to be just as it is,

As perfection in process,

Continually changing,

Growing,

Unfolding,

And revealing to us the beauty that lies therein.

And I know that for some of you,

The mind might be saying,

But there's so many things wrong in the world right now.

And that's the mind.

And yet,

If we reflect back on our own experiences and even the history of the world,

Some of the greatest beauty has come out of the worst tragedies.

And we have to have both,

Being in a dualistic world,

Because contrast is how we make sense of our experience.

And the truth is that none of us know the ultimate outcome of any given experience in our life or in the world,

Even though we might say it's good or bad or we might want it to be different.

There's a parable that I really like that illustrates this from the Sufi tradition.

It said that there was a farmer,

An old farmer,

And his son that lived outside of this small village.

And they were poor,

And all they had was one mangy horse that they used to plow their fields and made enough to barely get by.

And one day,

The gate was left open to the crowd and the horse escaped.

And the people came out from the town and they said,

Oh,

This is so bad.

This is horrible.

You're poor and your only horse has escaped.

This is so bad.

What are you going to do?

And the farmer said,

How do you know that this is bad?

And they kind of grumbled and made noise and then went on their way.

And a few days later,

The horse returned and it had three gorgeous stallions following it.

And they followed it right into the corral and the sun closed the gate.

And now they had four horses.

All the people came out from the town and said,

Oh,

This is amazing.

This is great.

This is so good.

Your horse came back with three more.

You are now wealthy.

This is so great.

And the old farmer said,

How do you know that this is good?

And they said,

You're crazy old man,

Whatever.

And they went back to the town.

A few days later,

The sun was trying to break in one of the horses and it bucked him off and he fell and broke his leg.

And with his leg broken,

He wasn't gonna be able to work the fields.

And so all the people came out and said,

Oh,

This is so bad.

Your son,

He broke his leg and how are you going to survive now if he can't work the fields?

And the old man just calmly looked at them and said,

How do you know this is bad?

And they went back to the village consternated and judging the old man for being ignorant.

And a couple weeks later,

A vast war broke out and the army came through and conscripted all able-bodied young men for the war.

And it was a very bloody war and most of those young men never returned.

And yet the farmer's son couldn't go because he had a broken leg.

Good?

Bad?

While the mind likes to place labels of good and bad on everything that occurs and create these opinions,

The truth is that we never really know the full outcome of any given experience or occurrence.

And it's only with great presence and patience,

Self-compassion and compassion with the world around us that slowly over time we might get little glimpses of how all these different pieces of things that might seem good or bad in the moment all fit together to create the tapestry of life.

As I said,

This is not necessarily easy and it takes practice to allow the mind to surrender a little bit of its grasp,

To soften into the vulnerability of being present with our experience and with ourselves as we are,

With all of our spots and quirks and idiosyncrasies and complexities.

But as we do,

We begin to unveil that innate nature,

The natural state that we all carry within us,

That is always there and always waiting to shine forth.

And as we surrender to it more and more,

We begin to grow and learn more from our experiences.

Paradoxically,

It takes acknowledging that we do not know,

Letting the mind let go of believing that it knows and embracing the unknown to then really begin to learn deeply about ourselves and the world.

As we surrender to ourselves,

As we soften into our experience,

We naturally become who we are and who we are meant to be in each moment as a continually unfolding process.

And it doesn't stop there.

It's a continual practice because we are continually growing and changing.

I'm grateful to my mentor Will Morris for many things,

But one thing that I learned from him that I truly value and often reflect on is the difference between homeostasis and homeodynamic balance because many of us think that there's this fixed place that is the right place to be.

And in medicine,

It's often termed homeostasis,

That we get thrown off balance or we experience a trauma and then we want to come back to where we were and that that is healing.

But the fact is that every experience and every trauma fundamentally changes us in certain ways and that we can never get back to where we were.

And the more we hold on to this fixed conception of how we think we should be,

The more separation we have in ourselves.

And so instead of homeostasis,

I prefer the term homeodynamic balance.

This idea that it's a point of equilibrium that is continually shifting and changing as we grow,

As we experience joy and pain,

As we have the difficult and the comfortable moments of life.

That point of equilibrium isn't a fixed point that we come back to.

It's continually moving and shifting as we grow and as we unfold.

As I said,

To cultivate self-compassion is a conscious choice.

It's a choice of the mind.

You know,

I was on China Books' Facebook page the other day because they very kindly were promoting this and they've very generously promoted me and bringing me out to Australia to teach on a number of occasions.

And they had a post recently,

A quote from Marcus Aurelius,

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

And it's very true.

And it's very applicable to our discussion today.

We have to choose to shift the patterns of the mind to understand that after decades and after all the traumas and difficulties we've experienced in living a human life,

The mind will be very conditioned to perceive the negative in the world and to focus on good and bad.

But we always have the ability to shift that because our neural pathways are very malleable.

There is neural plasticity.

So every time we choose to soften,

To open to the unknown,

To let go of the mind's desire to control,

Each time we make that choice,

We shift more and more towards the path of self-compassion and towards opening to our true nature.

And this is also part of the purpose of meditative practice,

Is that we set aside a time each day or a couple times a day or a couple times a week to consciously decide to stop,

To focus on calming the mind and centering within ourselves,

To cultivating a degree of peace,

Self-compassion,

To opening to that true nature that is always within us and simply waiting to unfold.

So we will now move into a meditative practice.

It will be about a 20-minute meditation.

You are welcome to sit,

Or if you have difficulty in sitting,

You're welcome to lie down.

The most important thing is that you have a posture that is stable and relaxed,

That you don't have any unnecessary pain in your body,

Especially any sharp pains or sensations that might indicate that you're actually constricting circulation or creating damage within the body.

Once you have your posture,

Check in to make sure that your base is stable so that you can release any unnecessary tension from the body.

You can gently close your eyes and begin to tune into the flow of the breath.

Simply observing the flow of the breath as it moves in and out,

Whether it's long or short,

Choppy or smooth,

There's no right or wrong.

Continue observing the movement of the breath as it is.

As you continue to follow the natural flow of the breath,

Begin to gently scan your body,

Starting at the top of the head,

Checking with the scalp,

The forehead,

And any areas that have tension,

Hardness,

Guarding,

Try to gently soften into them,

Knowing that you are safe in this moment,

That it is okay to let go,

Checking in with the eyes,

Allowing them to relax in their sockets,

Releasing any tension from the jaw,

Relaxing the back of the head,

The neck,

Front,

Back,

And sides,

Softening into the shoulders,

The upper arms,

The elbows,

The forearms,

The wrists,

The hands,

And the fingers.

Softening into the chest and upper back,

The upper abdomen and the mid-back,

The lower abdomen and the lower back,

Softening into the sides of the body,

Into the front of the hips and the glutes,

Softening the thighs and the hamstrings,

The knees.

The lower legs,

The ankles,

The feet,

The toes,

And the very bottom side.

The arms of the feet,

Feeling stability beneath you,

Supporting you,

And holding you up.

So that you can surrender and let go of any unnecessary tension.

Bringing awareness back to the breath and noticing if the breath has changed its own accord.

This is theAMOD Hello,

Everyone.

No.

Become aware of this faculty of awareness that you've directed throughout your body.

And notice the mind itself.

Gently soften any tension in the mind and the thoughts.

And work so hard all day.

Just for now.

Allow the mind to soften.

Rest.

And surrender.

Rest.

Now direct your awareness to the heart center.

Place in the center of the chest,

Halfway between the sternum and the spine.

Simply observe any sensations in this area of your body.

Observe if there's any tension regarding or warmth,

Fullness or an emptiness,

Or nothing at all.

And whatever you may or may not observe,

Simply allow it to be as it is.

Allow your awareness to be as it is.

Allow your awareness to surrender into the space of the heart center.

Now begin to notice the stillness that is present beneath all sensation in the heart center.

Observe some interest in the stillness.

Using it even more closely.

And go deeper into your Eventually.

As you surrender your awareness into this stillness in the heart center,

You need to visualize a pinprick of bright light embedded in the center of the stillness.

Focus on that light.

Experiencing it expand.

Filling the heart center.

And as it fills the heart center,

Begins to expand beyond through the chest and upper back.

Expanding up into the neck and down through the torso.

Feeling this light expanding throughout your entire body.

Experiencing the great sense of safety and security in this light.

Knowing how it holds and supports you so that you can completely let go of any tension or guarding.

Simply dissolving into the light.

Now direct your awareness.

To focus in the lower dantian,

The energetic center in the center of the lower abdomen.

Delivering into that space.

Grounded.

Stable.

Secure.

Become aware of the felt sense of the body as a whole.

And aware of the breath as it flows in and out.

Feel the stability beneath you,

Supporting you and holding you up.

Feel the air around you in which you are immersed like a fish in water,

Never separate.

And when you are ready,

Maintain a connection to this stillness within as you gently and slowly begin to open your eyes and take in the world around you.

All of the colors,

All of the beauty,

Allowing it to flow through you.

As we cultivate self-compassion and gentleness with ourselves,

We naturally move towards accepting ourselves as we are.

We move towards a state of wholeness,

Connected within self and connected with the world around us.

The natural state.

As we soften,

Our fears naturally begin to subside.

As we stop resisting,

We heal.

As we respect ourselves and the beauty of our own nature,

We have greater respect for others and the world around us in all of its beauty and diversity.

Being human is complex,

Paradoxical,

And nonlinear.

If we want peace in the world around us,

We must start by cultivating peace within ourselves.

And as we do,

It will naturally begin to ripple out from us,

Affecting those in our environment,

Allowing them to become more peaceful within themselves.

And just like that,

It can begin to change the entire world without us having tried to change anything at all.

Thank you all for joining me today.

Reviews

Absolutely what I needed to heear!! One of the best☆◇♡ so appreciate this◇

Thankyou Thomas, l love all your talks and meditations. I listen almost everyday, and feel grateful to have your words to comfort me. Was that rain in the background? I have seen rain for 6 months now and am so looking forward to its arrival. I am in Australia on the west coast and heard you mention a group that supports you down here. I would love to come to a teaching of yours. Can you tell me their name please l missed it. Thankyou again, until tomorrow. 🙏

Oh my goodness- this is a session I will return to often. So beautifully conveyed and taught and explained. I love the concept of using my mind to choose self compassion and surrender still realizing the duality and complexity of life. Thank you 🙏🏼 Thomas for this incredible class!

Thank you Thomas.
🙏🏻🕊️☯️✝️🕯️🐢

Softening. Letting go of resistance. True self healing into an already wholeness found within.

“Pulling out the chair beneath your mind and watching you fall upon God What else is there for Hafiz to do that is any fun in this world!” – Hafez

Perfect as always, thank you Thomas! ✨🙏🙂

Wonderful talk and meditation. A go-to favorite when I need to adjust my state. Thank you!

Thank you 🙏 Beautiful and gentle meditation..,

Appear as you are
Be as you appear ~ Rumi

Another beautiful and timely message, dear Thomas. So very grateful.🙏

Morning Thomas I’m returning to this talk & meditation often, it’s so comforting & supporting to me inviting the gentleness as I’ve mentioned before & yearned for since a child. I can give it myself when perhaps the child I was missed out. ✨💛✨
Hope all is well where you are

Another gem Thomas
The Quote from Marcus A especially uplifting.
‘Softening’ is a joyful & gentle expression towards self compassion.
Blessings Pixie
✨💛✨

Another wonderful and insightful talk and meditation Thomas. 🙏🏻 I felt my heart center powerfully expand out.
I love that when I feel in this space of expansion how interactions with both my patients and strangers on the street become so much more connected. The wonders of the free flow of Qi.
Hope all is well for you and Heather in Florida. 😊✨

Wow. Rich and full. Engaged and enlarged my perspective. Perfection in process. 😁🙏🏼

Thomas this was truly amazing. So healing and so positive during these times we are in. So grateful and thankful for all your talks, they have really made a big difference in how I’m facing things currently. Have a beautiful day, blessings. ✨🙏🏼