If you’ve noticed you haven’t high self compassion lately, you are not alone.   Why is it so many women haven’t become yet become masterful at compassionate self care?

• Do these scenarios sound familiar?  Being hard on your self for forgetting to plan meals when your alone and then, when famished, end up eating whatever you can wrangle together?  Or skipping meals to make time for other things?  Putting too much on the active to-do list and ending up exhausted and lacking vitality at the end of the day? Carrying shame about your body?  Loosing part of your self to have-it-all – when you know in your heart there is enough? Feeling confused about the next right step – and thinking lack of smarts is the cause?

“Self compassion means no longer admonishing yourself for non-perfection.   No longer feeling in despair because of crisis, chaos or confusion“

Compassionate Self Care does mean increasing understanding of yourself, increasing your ability to:

1. Give yourself the best of your love.   Get your mind, body and spirit behind the idea of loving yourself.  Imagine aligning your thoughts and internal talk and declare love for yourself.  Imagine undertaking actions that show your body you love it  – like feeding it nutrient dense foods and making activities that show you love yourself a meaningful part of your day.

2. Give yourself an opportunity to feel (more).  In moments where your capacity to feel – seems on the shy-side. You might not always be able to stop in mid-activity to feel all the emotions of what is going on.  Yet, if you can’t do it in the moment – schedule a few moments at the end of your day to feel all that needs to be felt.

3. Embrace lightness as a way of being.   Living life in a lighter way – makes being self compassionate easier.  Being way-to-serious sometimes can have you taking a hard-line on yourself.   Lightness gives you nimble feet to be able to playfully step in to alternate perspectives.

5.  See the ‘already’ perfection in things.  All things. Especially see it in magnificent you.

6. See negative self talk for what it is.  A just way to try to keep things static (and safer) when you are stretching outside of your comfort zone. Quiet the self talk and continue to stretch.

7. Give yourself time to wait for clarity.   Sometimes awareness needs a little time to settle in.  Some days you may need to wait for an emotional wave to flow through when there is no clear answer in the now.

8. Maintain equanimity. Take a pause so you can respond appropriately to situations rather react in a way that is impulsive or over done.

9. Trust your intuition.  Trusting and then acting on your intuition is a demonstration of your understanding on the messages your body shares with you.

10. Live in the wonder of the moment.  Practicing personal presence is one of the best ways to gain a greater understanding of you – and sets you up well to enjoy the wonder of those things which are uncertain in life.

11. See yourself as whole and self sufficient.  When you let go of the need for validation from external sources and recognize you have the capacity to meet your needs life changes.  No more are you driven to meet others expectations and most importantly no more will you be concerned.

12. Go lightly on making comparisons.   Comparing is a form of judgement.  When you see perfection in things as they are – more awareness is a by-product.

13.  Try some daily self compassion practices .   Doing some active self-compassion – can be a wonderful practice.   So, often we have been habituated to work on our flaws – not very often do we get to practice praising our magnificence or potential.

14. Change your self talk.   Really listen to what your self talk is saying. (Sometimes we have a lot of self talk going on – yet we don’t give it attention.   Listen to it – and then reject the toxic thoughts -. Change your self talk to a more compassionate tone.

15. See yourself as part of everything.  See yourself as part of the ONE.  See your situation context of how it is connected to the larger human experience. We can be our most compassionate when we no longer feel separate.

16. Borrow a little compassion to get things started.  If you are finding it challenging to drum up a little compassion. Model your practise after someone who already does self compassion and self care well. Let others lead the way for you. Learning self-compassion can be a practice that is mastered over time as new information is allowed into your awareness. There is no need to feel isolated while you master the art of self compassion.

What happens when you are more self compassionate?    One thing is you can have a greater capacity to be more compassionate towards others.  Your sense of ease increases because you will be feeling more self-sufficient because of your holistic perspective. You may also find yourself having more energy and meaningful fulfillment as you are paying attention to what is important.

Do you have some new ideas for yourself or others on how to be more self compassionate?  Leave a comment below.