Tackling old stuff, essentially the self-beliefs and neuronal habits picked up as a response to things that occurred in childhood, made more solid by subsequent experience can feel overwhelming and many choose to numb or turn away from it. If we have the courage to turn towards the most difficult or painful parts of ourselves our inner state transforms in a wonderful way.
I have been sharing the techniques below with some of my coaching clients and all of us have found it helpful to learn more about how our brains work and apply self-compassion in this type of way...
Common Humanity: Reminding ourselves that many people struggle with this or things like this. We did not create our body's, emotions, mind, or the environments that we find ourselves in, we all just arrived in the world and are doing the best we can within our circumstances.
Mindfulness: Spending time each day (even if it’s only 2 - 20 minutes per day) sitting with a loosely straight back, listening to sounds that occur naturally around us whatever they are, (some people prefer to just notice their breathing, we can count breaths or just notice something like the chest rising and falling). Each time we notice our mind runs away with thoughts, without judgement (remembering this is just how minds are) just bringing our minds back to what we are doing, listening to the sounds (or noticing breath). Start with short 2 minutes and you might want to expand that after a while or do it more frequently. I find this really helps me to be more mindful of my real-life situations, less prone to exaggeration and reduces the urges to turn away from my suffering and things I don’t like, helping me instead to turn towards it with a helpful inner state.
Kindness: Whenever we notice ourselves being critical to ourselves about any aspect of our thoughts, behavior or being, reminding ourselves about our intention of including ourselves in our circle of compassion, thanking our inner critic / limbic system in the brain for trying to help us by bringing possible threats to our awareness, and consciously let it go. (some people like to include a physical action that symbolizes this (ie putting your hand on your heart or blowing outward onto your palm, shaking it of etc, or carry a small object that symbolizes this intention that you could hold or touch in these moments)
For the science behind how this works, visit Dr Kristen Neff’s website.
Kristin Neff, Ph.D. is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on self-compassion, being the first one to operationally define and measure the construct almost twenty years ago pioneering scientific research into self-compassion.
For more about the mindfulness technique check out Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche on Youtube
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