Often when we are called to do our inner work, there’s a subtle but stubborn belief that we are “improving ourselves”: that we’re going to get rid of that old, tired, dingy self and come out with a brand new version. In fact a popular phrase is: “becoming the best version of oneself.” Honestly? I have no idea what that phrase actually means but it evokes exhaustion in me whenever I hear it.

Many of us have tried various self improvement techniques and continue to suffer because the starting assumption is not correct: if I’m unhappy, uncomfortable, dismayed, freaked out or despairing, there must be something wrong with me! The definition of a “normal” life is so narrow that anything on either side of that tightrope is terrifying. We’ve somehow gotten far away from accepting that these various states are part of being human.

To open toward our humanity rather than push away what we think are flaws, is gently learning to embrace what ails us and to discover that what ails us is the gateway to restoring our sanity. This is the practice of wabi sabi–seeing the perfection in the imperfection. We’re not seeking the “best version of ourselves”–we are opening to the possibility that the best version of ourselves is already here.

“Faith is a small movement, slow but steady & sure, holding all our experience in a clear circle of compassionate light.” ~K. Patel

It’s fair to say that most of our lives have been upended by the past 2 years of living with a pandemic. And that’s only what’s gone on collectively. There’s the personal challenges that have happened for each of us as well.

Why Self Compassion?

There’s confusion about the need for self compassion. It seems it’s the place we go to as a last resort–after we’ve exhausted ourselves trying to figure out why we feel the way we do. In our habits of over analyzing everything we only deepen our confusion. It’s important to have compassion for that part of ourselves that keeps us in our heads! Self compassion is an expression of the heart and our heart is the seat of wisdom.

That question was put to me by my spiritual director a few months back and I’ll ask you now: Where do you take refuge? It’s easy to feel we have no respite from the upheaval all around us. And it’s easy to feel our emotional life runs amok. Yet our embodied emotional life is meant as a resource for growing our wisdom.