“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”
Jack Kornfield
A few days ago, a potential client asked me if I was a compassion coach. I thought the question was funny.
I had never put things in those terms or used that language to describe what I do.
The immediate answer was ‘no’.
But the truth is, compassion has been the glue in my work with my clients.
The need to develop more compassion towards others, but above all towards ourselves, appears disguised in a series of challenges in our lives.
See if you identify with any of these:
☑️ Being extremely self-critical with ourselves;
☑️ We feel the need to be perfect or do everything perfectly;
☑️ We hesitate to try new things (it could even be a new car route), because we are afraid of failing;
☑️ Feeling guilty about our emotions (for example, now in this context of war: “who am I to be suffering from this when people in Ukraine are the ones in a war scenario?”);
☑️ Feeling ashamed or that we are not good enough when we receive criticism or are unable to achieve something (for example, a job);
☑️ We have difficulty establishing and, above all, communicating our limits;
☑️ Hiding who we are and what we truly think, to get into the good graces of others.
I identify or have identified myself, at some point in my life, with each of these situations.
Check, check, check, check, check, check, check!
The curious thing is that compassion is an extremely beneficial strategy to better manage each of these challenges.
Am I a compassion coach?
No. At least, for now. I can’t make predictions about the future… 🤣
Am I a compassion activist?
Everyday.
And, as Jack Kornfield says, the practice of compassion will never be complete until it includes us.
And that’s why I’ve decided to provide 5 openings for compassion sessions over the next week, aimed at courageous human beings who identify with one of these situations, or similar ones, and want to discover how to apply more self-compassion to help them better manage their situation. perfectionism, self-criticism, self-judgment, or better establishing limits and giving themselves permission to be who they are.
In this compassion session, via videoconference and lasting 60 minutes (maybe a little longer, if necessary), with no associated costs, we will:
. Find at least one area of your life (may be more) where you feel you need to develop more self-compassion and turn down the volume on self-criticism;
. Discover the 2-3 self-compassion-based strategies that best apply to the particular situation;
. Draw up an action/response plan for those situations in which the critical inner voice insists on knocking on the door.