Popular culture has us believing that thinking positively will change our lives in a snap. So much so that when bad things arise, we feel like we're the idiots for even allowing it into our space. While it might be true that we are in control of certain things, it looks as if this kind of thinking has minimized the mere experience of difficulty, struggle, and pain. And sometimes it's not as easy as just "thinking positively", shifting, or rebooting our thoughts. Here's why:
Read MoreTwo years ago I joined a mindfulness program that has encouraged me to meditate every single morning, engage in morning exercise, and incorporate mantras into my day - all this with the intention to enhance my own sense of self-compassion. Wherein I have read books on the topic and even developed my own personal exercises for them, I realized that nothing could enhance my own self-compassion more than going out into the world all by myself. I always believed that learning happened best through actual experience. While we can sit down and do self-compassion exercises, going on solo flight to a place completely unknown taught me a few things about what it meant to be compassionate.
Read MoreSelf-compassion, as it turns out, demands that we go beyond our comfort zones. While compassion may seem like the complete opposite of courage, I soon learned that courage and self-compassion actually came hand-in-hand. Research shows that self-awareness plays a huge part in developing health behavior change, but if the awareness of ourselves is generally unpleasant, then we may look to food or other concrete aspects (like cigarettes, alcohol, etc) of life instead of long-term health goals (Adams & Leary, 2007). Through better understanding of the self, however, my research has shown that self-compassion can help us acknowledge visible flaws that we might be willing to act upon.
Read MoreWith health issues like depression and anxiety on the rise, we encounter people who question their existence and sometimes wish they weren’t alive. At what point did the people around them stop celebrating? And why? At what point did cultural norms ask them to set aside their child-like essence?
Here are a few self-compassion activities that may help you nourish your soul today:
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