Self-Care

Part of our spiritual life is to work towards the care and well-being of others; to have the intention to ease the suffering of all beings.

Sometimes, we may focus on this part of spiritual life so intensely that we forget that we are, in fact, part of “all beings.” This leads us to the topic of Self-Care, which, in some sense, can be considered the fundamental aspect of our meditation practice, both on and off the cushion (or chair if you are so inclined).

Here is a piece from an article in Lion’s Roar magazine by Ravi Chandra, a blogger for Psychology Today.

Being present and caring toward others helps those who suffer become more present and caring toward themselves…

Caregivers often must deepen their capacities to self-comfort in order to help their loved ones find comfort.

Mindful Self Compassion, a practice developed by Kristin Neff and Chris Germer, teaches us to offer self-comfort in three components:

1. Mindfulness, which includes noting, labeling, and sitting with difficult emotions, experiences, and disconnections, as opposed to letting them run into a story, judgment, or criticism of self and other.
   
2. The recognition of our common humanity, which entails realizing that any emotion and suffering we experience is shared by many, if not all, people.
   
3. Self-kindness, which means we offer ourselves kindness when we are suffering.

In difficult moments, we can offer self comfort by reminding ourselves of the three components.

With mindfulness, we can say to ourselves, “This is a moment of suffering.”

With recognition of our common humanity, we can say, “Suffering is a part of life.”

With self-kindness, we can say, “In this moment of suffering, may I at least be kind to myself.”