Try These 2 Simple Self-Compassion Practices Today

I want to share two practices with you that you can begin to implement immediately to show yourself more compassion. As we discussed in the last video, the three elements of self-compassion are self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness.

If you become aware that you’re suffering, rather than being critical or judgmental or thinking you shouldn’t be having this experience, instead you can send yourself some compassion.

Here are two specific ways that you can do that.

The first is affectionate touch. This may seem a bit silly at first, but it really is effective. This is the practice of offering ourselves a nurturing and comforting sense of touch. Play around with it and see what feels loving to you. It could be holding your face in a comforting way, wrapping your arms around yourself in an embrace, holding your own hand, massaging your neck or placing your hands on your heart and/or belly. 

The invitation is to play around with affectionate touch and see if there’s a particular gesture that you could make for yourself, toward yourself in those moments when life is hard.

The second is offering yourself the words that you most need to hear.  Sometimes we find ourselves wishing someone would say kind things to us. Words of motivation like I know this is tough, I’m proud of you or I love you. Well, we can also say them to ourselves.

I invite you to close your eyes for a moment, and ask your heart and soul, What is it that I most need to hear right now? Allow whatever words that come to you, to be the right words. Trust your inner voice. Say these words to yourself out loud and receive them. It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to work out. You’re fine. I love you.

Trust whatever shows up.

Try these two practical ways that you can begin to practice self-compassion: affectionate touch and offering yourself the words you need to hear. Do both with the three elements present. There’s kindness, not judgment; there’s common humanity, appreciating your humanness; and there’s a level of mindfulness that is aware of the experience but not identified with the experience.

I’d love to hear from you! What works, what doesn’t work, what did you notice? Anything that you want to share about your experience of practicing self-compassion, feel free to send it my way.