What is Self-Compassion

What is Self-Compassion

I discovered self-compassion in 2018 when I was living in Pierre, SD and working at the SD Women's Prison as a Chaplain. In all my years of trauma care services and living as a follower of Jesus, I had never heard of self-compassion. In fact, I was anything but compassionate to myself and was full of self-judgement that kept me in a cycle of self-hate when I failed and judgement of others when I felt they failed and I did not. What I found was that self-compassion not only freed me but others in my mind when they did not meet my expectations. Self-compassion is a hard thing to cultivate when it is not natural to you but so worth it. I believe for most people it is not natural because we all live in some sort of system of judgement that measures our worth on the basis of performance. What is Self-Compassion? A great resource is Kristin Neff's book, "The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself," Self-Compassion. She states in her book that self-compassion is made up of three parts, first, "it requires self-kindness, that we be gentle and understanding with ourselves rather than harshly critical and judgemental. Second, it requires recognition of our common humanity, feeling connected with others in the experience of life rather than feeling isolated and alienated by our suffering. Third, it requires mindfulness-that we hold our experience in the balance awareness, rather than ignoring our pain or exaggerating it. We must achieve and combine these three essential elements in order to be truly self-compassionate.

Do you want to have a taste of self-compassion this month? We will be doing a few short meditations that brings toward that kindness, common humanity and mindfulness.

Join me at Caribou on Minnesota Ave in Sioux Falls for an hour of self-compassion break from 6-7pm, every Thursday for a small fee of 10$. You can register/pay on the website at https://www.solutioncompassion.com/contact or email me at solutioncompassion@gmail.com.