Offering Yourself Mercy
Self-compassion sounds like a good idea, but how do you actually do it when you don't already feel it?
It helps to have an action that we can do to nudge us into remembering that compassion is available. Here, now, just as we are. Especially when we've done something we don't feel good about, or when life circumstance makes our shortcomings plain and vulnerably visible.
In fact, we need self-compassion most when we're not particularly feeling it, when life (or our own internal criticism) is giving us a hard time.
Mercy: offering compassion or forgiveness to someone whom it's within our power to harm or punish. This video is a short compassionate body dialogue about practicing mercy for yourself.
I'm curious, does this talk about self-compassion and mercy resonate with you? How do you offer yourself compassion when you "don't feel like it"?