How to Help Promote Self-Care and Self-Compassion
~About a 10-minute read~
- Care and Compassion Start with Giving to Yourself.
- What is Self-Care and Compassion?
- No One Taught Me About This Important Act
- Taken Down by Unhealthy Default Behaviors; One Way to Cope
- Emotions Move Through Us
- Releasing Emotions and Habits and Creating Healthy Default Behaviors
1. Attentive self-care and self-compassion are critical to thrive and flourish.
It starts by giving to yourself. Caring and compassion for ourselves, for others, and for the planet go hand in hand. We are all connected, so caring for ourselves, and others is like one hand holding the other. You cannot do one without the other. Caring for others brings us into a community connection. Caring for ourselves brings us into a personal connection. One strengthens the other and brings us to a place where we notice and observe all life. It supports growth, clarity of mind, and restoring our true capabilities. It allows us to meet life where we are at with wisdom, power, resilience, and possibility. It allows us to heal together. Care and compassion are for everyone and can change the world. Starting with yourself is a great place to begin the practice.
2. What are self-care and self-compassion? Everyone has as their birthright the calling to care and compassion.
Care and compassion are acts. They are actions we take to show how we see and know, understand and care, and how we are here to help because we get it. It does not need to be lavish, expensive, time-consuming. It is a privilege and a birthright of all beings. It is a number one healthcare preventative and curative.
According to Dr. Kristin Neff, a researcher in the field of self-compassion (https://self-compassion.org/about-kristin-neff/#) the three components of self-compassion are: self-kindness vs. self-judgment, common humanity vs. isolation, mindfulness vs. over-identification. Do you give these qualities to yourself? Do you give them to friends, family, loved ones, or strangers?
Self-care and compassion is a practice, and they will look different for everyone. There are many ways to do it, and everyone will find individual meaning in what it involves. To me, it is being in the present. Here and now. Being patient. Giving love and care to myself as I would to give that to someone else. Doing something special and important for myself. Sharing joy and discovery with others. Self-care and compassion bring ease, peace, and trust. It is a loving touch. A gentle recognition and offering. The act of self-compassion and self-care builds positive energy around yourself. This spreads across time and space like air, bringing positivity to the world. You are more powerful than your wildest dreams, and what you think, feel, and do impacts much more than your life. It impacts the world.
3. We are not taught or encouraged to enter into acts of self-care and self-compassion.
There is little support for doing it. That is why many people find self-care and self-compassion a challenge. Why are we shown, told, or taught otherwise? This question highlights the injustices, untruths, and manipulation within our societies. It gets me fired up.
Self-worth and our cultural narrative have all to do with why so many do not know how to give ourselves care and compassion. Our cultural narrative does not support taking time to pause and notice. Our social, economic, religious, educational, and medical systems do not define, teach, or display self-care and self-compassion as key part of physical, mental, and emotional health. Lack of promotion and education on the value of self-care and compassion supports deep systemic and institutional flaws leading to oppression. Health disparities amongst millions of marginalized people are an outstanding problem today.
Persuasion based on greed has stolen our birthright to vibrant, meaningful life. We are running on the hamster wheel, not noticing. It is time to stop that familiar narrative! Time to take back your power to have care and compassion toward yourself. Toward others. To hold space for yourself and others. This is going to be the new familiar.
Learned in childhood, self-worth becomes part of our beliefs. We froze into place by the harmful Channel of False Beliefs. This channel dominates the inner landscape with false beliefs such as: “I am not enough,” “I am not worthy,” “I lack in capacity,” “I don’t belong,” “I am not lovable,” “I am overwhelmed,” “I will never get better,” “I am a loser,” “I am doomed,” “I could never have that…{ love, promotion, money, success, peace, time, attention} “this makes me sick,” “All I’ll ever do is … “I am useless”). The channel plays loud in the background and entrenches us to unwittingly abandon our beautiful Self. Often we did not incarnate with these beliefs. As little babies, or toddlers, or young children, we adopted them by necessity and circumstance beyond the young Self’s control.
4. Default behaviors are a way to cope with life challenges.
Life is challenging enough on its own. Looking back over history, that is starkly clear. Living is not for the faint of heart. Why not give your life and those around you a daily dose of care and compassion? Without having self-compassion, and self care, our disconnect from life grows wider. Pain, discomfort, and fear grow deeper. Relationships get damaged and messy. Family life suffers, and job life turns sour. Personal problems get sore. We experience various difficult feelings like overwhelm, depression, loneliness, or uncertainty. Then develop the default behaviors. Those mechanisms protect us from the despair that tries to sabotage the day.
Unhealthy default behaviors give us some pleasure and thus a dopamine hit. We all have these behaviors which quickly become ruts. Do any of these sound familiar to you? procrastination, snacking, overeating, scrolling, getting distracted, numbing out, over-committing, staying up too late, working too much, bottling up feelings, repressing emotions, over-exercising, posting on social media, blaming others, binging on Netflix, angry ranting, playing video games, over-doing for others, addictive or harmful behaviors, negative self-talk, continuing at a job you hate. To name a few.
Default actions are a large percentage of our behavior, and they do not serve us! In our attempt to stay free of pain and avoid uncomfortable feelings, we abandon ourselves. Instead of learning to pause and consider how we are doing, and how we are experiencing a situation, we choose to run away. Alternatively, we could step into self-care and self-compassion. From this vantage point, we have a new relationship with emotion. Emotion is the conduit for the range of feelings we experience. With compassionate, caring attention, and inner focus we come to know our feelings/emotions/reactions/behaviors. That is a new and better default behavior!
5. Emotions move through us. Emotions are brought up by the events occurring around and within us.
They allow us to empathize with other humans, to share in joy or in pain. An emotion you feel on a given morning generally shapes how you feel throughout your entire day. Our emotions profoundly affect our whole health and wellness; how we recognize, respond, and contain our emotions can determine our outlook on life.
On their own, the energy of emotions is neutral. It is our feeling sensation, or physiological reaction to a specific emotion, that makes it positive or negative.
We label our feelings, interpret or think about the emotion, and then give it meaning. This powerful ability shows how operational we are as agents of change. Whether it is toward the positive or the negative, we are receivers and creators.
With this agency, we can work with our inner knowing, the subconscious, and the higher self. We work to understand and reevaluate why and how we respond to the sensation. What physiological reaction we have formed from an emotion? That understanding is the start of freedom.
6. Releasing emotions is a healthy default behavior.
They are here to see, feel, and release. Suppression and repression create imbalances and eventually can lead to physical illness. Years of scientific study show that our thoughts create an emotional response that causes physical changes to the body. Unprocessed emotions are one-way illnesses develop in our body. Disease remains in our tissues.
Our emotions form our thoughts, our thoughts form our beliefs, and then our beliefs form us. Through interruption of those beliefs, we can stop the cycles that keep us stuck in the muddy depths of rinse and repeat. A great place to start is by noticing and observing your emotions. Yes, this is where things might get tricky because you might have to put yourself first. Might need to gather some support. You might need to reconsider your values as you put yourself forward as number 1 for the first time. Gather all your resources (people, time, tools, space, money, commitment, drive, curiosity, and desire) and get the support you need. Reframe your viewpoints. Align with your true self.
It is a game changer to get a handle on that habit or belief running your life. Find something or someone who can help support you. Noticing and changing the way we respond to our emotions is so important. Finding the root cause of an issue is liberating. Discover you have a choice and agency. Unleash your ability to interface with situations and circumstances in many ways. Start giving yourself the deep self-care and self-compassion you know you deserve. Why not?
You do not have to be owned by your habits, beliefs, and neural pathways. Your brain has incredible neuroplasticity to change its wiring so you can live a much more authentic and fulfilling life, free of pain and anxiety, and fear. Self-care and compassion are a path toward a more fulfilling and peaceful life for everyone.
As Carl Jung said: “Through pride, we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience, a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.” Now is the time to change things, take back our right to self-care and compassion, to use that muscle, and begin to set yourself free. Through the powerful and effective approach of Hypnosis and Bach (pronounced /batch/) Flower Remedies, and Reiki you can get the individualized, caring, attentive help and support you need to care for you and achieve what you want.
RTT Hypnosis facilitates this by accessing the most intelligent information inside of you; within your mind is the vault of your subconscious mind where all your valuable material sits. It is available to you. It is all your experience and knowledge. Hypnosis creates a deep pause allowing access to this place. It awakens you to startling truths and insights that shake you up. Once this wakeful state arises and is activated, things begin to shift and change! You can abandon the status quo and let fade away what is no longer relevant. RTT Hypnosis is a catalyst for opening up the inner knowledge and higher knowing that we carry inside of us.
Flower Remedies can address many issues at one time. Our emotions and feelings have a powerful influence over everything we do. Emotions are our perception of things, and we have the power to change our perceptions. Flower Remedies give direct and powerful support with that. Our lives are complex, and we manage diverse responsibilities, have many stresses and concerns, and are very pressed for time these days. This causes us to have a range of reactions and emotions about various things. At some point, they pile up, intersect and get complex.
Flower Remedies are vibrational elixirs that align with a specific emotion to help us regain balance. They help us move, shift, and respond to situations and events in a much more positive way aligned with our true nature. Flower Remedies support us with situations on the job, in the home, with a friend, or in our intimate relationships, during transitions, grief, loss, travel, and all life challenges. They are perfect for all stages and ages of life.
Reiki can directly calm the nervous system creating an ideal environment for reception and ease, renewing the cells with life force energy. It raises the vibrations within the body and invites the capacity to be in an active healing state. It is a modality that supports conscious and unconscious healing.
I am in solidarity with you for taking the time to read this reflective piece on the power and importance of self-care and compassion for yourself and all beings. All actions toward learning this critical skill and passing it along to others are how we create real change and enlightenment for everyone.