The year is 2015 and I am sitting on a back-jack chair at a retreat center in Big Sur, California.
The setting couldn’t be any more beautiful. The instructors Kristen Neff & Chris Germer were amazing.
And…. I was miserable.
My head would not stop bitching and moaning and complaining. The judgement would not end. I was judging feeling uncomfortable. I was judging the participants for asking too many questions. I was judging myself for falling asleep during the meditations. I was judging everyone and everything. It was a judgement nightmare. At once point I was standing outside talking to Chris Germer and he said to me, “If you can’t be happy here (meaning Big Sur), it’s you.” I wanted to scream.
Every day we would sit down and we would meditate. There was a lot of silence. We practiced loving kindness meditation. We started the journey of speaking to ourselves in a loving and compassionate way. How could I possibly be struggling with so much love around me? Then Chris said something that blew my mind. He said, “Love will reveal everything unlike itself.” There I was in the presence of love and kindness and compassion and beauty… and my mind was revealing everything unlike that beauty. I was beginning to develop a witness of my own mind. I named her Grumpy Cat. She’s cute but she’s grumpy.
And the learning did not stop there. Chris Germer would say other things that stuck with me… “On the flip side of shame is the longing to be loved.” “A moment of self-compassion can change your entire day. A string of such moments can change the course of your life.” What if I began to witness my negative thoughts as a longing to be loved? What if I stopped judging myself for judging? What would happen if I started to speak to myself the way I would a dear friend?
Although I slept through most of this five day workshop, something changed. The very first morning that I woke up in my own bed I heard the sound of waves crashing in my head and I heard the words “May you be happy… may you be free from suffering….”
I would begin to practice self-compassion breaks. I would meditate consistently. And slowly but steadily my self -talk began to change. I was nicer to myself. My boundaries improved. I began to practice loving kindness with others. I found it easier to say “no” to things which no longer served me because I was choosing being kind to myself.
If you want to learn more about self compassion please check out Kristen Neff and Chris Germer.
“We don’t’ practice self-compassion to end our suffering. We practice self- compassion because we are suffering”
