Self Compassion

Compassion by G.T. Dumas

The gift I denied  myself this year is Compassion.   I feel plenty sorry for myself for having such a tough 2016 but that is not the same as compassion.  Compassion is a heart felt awareness of what a person is experiencing.  To see if I could activate compassion, I did a 10 minute self compassion mediation.  First, I thought of something that was bothering me.   I reviewed what had happened and what was continuing to happen.  Did I have anything I regretted? Would I have done anything different?  I looked at it from all sides.  Then I imagined being enveloped in compassion.  Amazingly it put the event in perspective and it respected the difficulty I had faced and still face.  I felt understood.

Since it is so easy to fall back into blame and shame, I am determined to work each day this month on self compassion.