Self Care for the Holidays: The Three Pillars of Self-Compassion | ep89
Today’s Mindset Monday reads:
The person most deserving of your kindness, forgiveness and patience is yourself.
Let’s be honest, the likelihood of having a meltdown over the holidays is pretty high. Maybe that looks like snapping at a loved one or crying over a burnt holiday meal (....not speaking from experience here), but the truth is no matter how much emotional spiritual prep we do, there is a chance that we will do something we regret over the next few weeks.
To me, the most important tool to cultivate over the holidays is compassion. More specifically, self compassion.
You hear a lot about self-compassion in the world of wellness. You know it’s important. You know you need more of it. But also, it can be really hard to practice towards ourselves. And one of the biggest barriers as to why is that most of us don’t know how to practice self-compassion.
When I’m struggling to show myself compassion, I think of the three pillars of self-compassion outlined by the brilliant Dr. Kristen Neff.
Pillar 1: Self Kindness
Think of how you would talk to and treat a friend who came to you feeling down about themselves. What would you say to them? How would you hold space for them? How would you be with them?
Your answers indicate how you show kindness to others. Once you’re aware of that, the practice then becomes doing those same things for yourself.
Self Kindness asks you to do unto yourself as you would unto others.
Pillar 2: Common Humanity
When we get into a shame spiral, we start to think that we are the ONLY person in the world who has ever done this thing or felt this way. Asking yourself “Is this something others have done, experienced or felt?” reminds us that we are not alone and that while this is a unique experience for us, it’s one that many other people have experienced as well.
Meaning, we're not the only person who has burnt a holiday roast and then spent 20 minutes crying over it (again... not speaking from experience here...).
Pillar 3: Mindfulness
Mindfulness essentially means being present with how you are feeling. It asks us to not run away from the difficult emotions but to also not become identified by them and make them part of some story.
If we tend to run away from our emotions, pausing and asking ourselves “How am I feeling?” and tending to that emotion allows us to be present.
And if we tend to become identified with our emotions, pausing and asking ourselves “What am I making this moment mean?” allows us to become aware of how we may be spinning this moment into a story.
To begin practicing more self compassion, start practicing these pillars in your life today. Ask yourself these questions. Pause and reflect on how you're talking to yourself.
By practicing in these small ways, you can be the most loving ally to yourself over the holiday season. Even when you burn the holiday roast (again... not speaking from experience).
If this is resonating with you and you want to go even deeper, I encourage you to head to listen to this week’s podcast episode where I go through each element and give tangible examples.
A quote to take with you:
“Self-judgment makes us feel really isolated and alone; whereas, self compassion connects us to others.”
Want to dive deeper through journal prompts?
If you want to be in the know and get each Mindset Monday straight to your inbox complete with journal prompts to take you even further, get on my email list.
About your host, Shirin Eskandani
Hi, love! I’m Shirin.
Coach, speaker, writer, and life alchemist.
I teach you how to trust your intuition again, tune out all the BS, and let your heart lead the way.
Because once you strengthen your inner GPS, decisions become easier, boundaries become clearer, and belly laughs become a daily thing.
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME:
I’m a certified life coach (accredited through the International Coach Federation)
My husband and I met on Instagram and we live in Brooklyn, NY with our plant babies
I have a masters degree in Music and was a professional opera singer for twelve years. I worked all over the world singing on stage at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera (more on that later…).
I believe in the woo just as much as I do the work (internal and external). No amount of crystals and affirmations will make up for a lack of a healthy mindset and aligned action.
I love all the Real Housewives franchises. Don’t make me choose one… seriously, don’t.
+ Read the episode transcript here
[00:00:00] Welcome to Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast. If you're looking for more purpose, more passion, more joy in your life. then you have come to the right place, let's create your dream life while living your dream life. Okay. Love.
[00:00:23] Hi love. Welcome to Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast. This is where we take a deeper dive into my Mindset Monday post, which you can read on Instagram at at @wholeheartedcoaching, or you can get the full post. Plus my weekly journal prompts. When you sign up for my email list, you can do that in the show notes, or you can head to my website, wholehearted-coaching.com.
[00:00:47] So today is our final installment of my holiday series at home within yourself for the holiday. So for the last few weeks, I have been focusing on how we can thrive during the holiday season. This is an incredibly overwhelming and stressful time of the year. Yes, it is amazing. We have Mariah Carey, we have a eggnog, we have chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
[00:01:15] However, we are also in community and contact with people who often trigger us. We are overwhelmed by the amount of things we need to do. So while this can be a time of great joy. I also recognize this can be a time of overwhelming stress. So these episodes are here to just give you some tools and ideas to help you be your most grounded and aligned self during the holiday season.
[00:01:45] And our first episode, we talked about boundaries. And last week we ended up talking about reacting versus responding during a triggering moment. And today we're going to talk about compassion, specifically self compassion, because listen, I have been talking about boundaries and responding and being your most grounded self.
[00:02:07] And we all know that while we may be able to do that, some of the times. Some of the time, we won't be able to, some of the time we will yell at a family member. Some of the time we will totally ignore our boundaries. Some of the time we'll have a complete meltdown in our kitchen and start just crying in a heap on the floor.
[00:02:30] I'm not saying that from personal experience and I'm not not saying that's not from personal experience. So this self-compassion key love, I think is the most. Because there's no way that we're going to be able to do this holiday season perfectly. There's no way we can do a perfectly from what we are planning to do, right?
[00:02:49] If you have maybe a big dinner you're going to have and all these amazing treats and surprises for your family, and there's no way that we can do our own, self-care perfectly during this holiday season, they're just. So we're talking about compassion because this is going to be the glue that keeps it all together for you.
[00:03:09] Because if you can be kind and patient with yourself during the season love, then that is how you will thrive. Today's mindset. Monday reads the person most deserving of your compassion is yourself. I find that we are so amazing at extending our compassion towards others. If someone gets something wrong, if they fail, if they suffer a real heartbreak or going through hardship, we are so amazing at being there for them.
[00:03:43] And I know that this is true for you. Love because let me tell you this whole hearted community consists of some of the most generous kind and thoughtful people that I have ever encountered in my life. And so I would venture to say that if I was to ask your community what they thought about you, how you come through for them in hard moments, they would say, yup, this person always comes through.
[00:04:08] They are patient. They are kind, they listen, they are so there for me when I'm going through difficulty. And I would also venture to say that when you are going through difficult times, You find it difficult to extend that same kindness towards yourself, that same sense of understanding and patience and compassion for yourself.
[00:04:32] Whenever I talk about compassion, the first thing I talk about is that we actually don't trust self compassion. We have a complete bias towards. Many of us think that self-compassion is just a form of self pity, that in order to learn and to grow that we have to be unkind to ourselves that if we mess up, the only way that we will learn, the only way that we will do better is if we're unkind to ourselves, we worry that if we are self-compassionate, we're going to become lazy or self-centered, we do not trust self-compassion.
[00:05:13] And yet we instinctively know that compassion is how we need to be with others when they're going through a difficult time. Right. That instinct is just so strong for us. And yet we don't have that same instinct when it comes towards ourselves during a difficult time. I want you to reflect and think about a recent time in which you did something that you weren't so happy about.
[00:05:38] Maybe it was a recent quote, unquote mistake or quote unquote failure. Maybe it was a way that you reacted to someone, maybe it was something at work or in your personal life. And I want you to be really honest. When you look at this moment, the circumstance, how did you respond to yourself? How did you hold space for yourself?
[00:05:58] Did you hold space for yourself? How did you talk to yourself in this moment? Reflect on. And then reflect on if I was to have done this, these same things to a friend or a family member, what would the result have been, or would I ever do these things or say these things to someone that I love? Y'all let me tell you.
[00:06:25] Most of us are probably thinking, wow, I am really unkind to myself and I would never ever say these things or do these things. To a family member or a friend or someone that I loved, but I get it. It can be so incredibly difficult to self reciprocate, compassion to show that same compassion towards ourselves.
[00:06:47] So in this episode, it's going to be super instructional. I'm going to be sharing the three pillars of self-compassion because one of the other issues we have with self-compassion is we actually don't know how to practice it. So, this is a very clear step one, step two step three episode so that you can start to really instill practice and embody what self-compassion is.
[00:07:13] Because of course I can just say to you, Hey, be nicer to yourself. Don't be such an asshole. Of course, I can say that, but what does that look like in practice? So today's episode is going to be focusing on the three pillars of self-compassion and these were created by Kristin Neff, N E F. I love her and her work.
[00:07:33] And I really, really recommend checking out or videos on YouTube. Any podcasts she's recorded, she is the number one preeminent resource on compassion. The three pillars of self-compassion are self-kindness common, humanity and mindfulness. We're going to go over all three of these pillars and then talk about what they look like and how you can start practicing.
[00:07:58] So first self kindness self-kindness is the ability to extend the kindness and care that we would to others towards ourselves in difficult moments. So this is essentially do unto yourself as you would do unto others. So if you saw someone who was wounded, if a friend came to you during a really difficult moment in their life, I want you to think of what you would do for them.
[00:08:27] Like just really think of that. Maybe you want to write it down. How would you hold space for them? How would you talk to them? What would you say to them? What would you do for them? So self-kindness asks us to really think of, okay. How do I show kindness towards others during difficult circumstances? And then how can I start doing that for myself?
[00:08:50] We all have our own personal rule books or guidebooks to what kindness looks like because we do it towards others all of the time. So if you can get clear on what your kindness looks like, love that is your guide book for yourself. The practice becomes, how can I start to do these things for myself? I recently did a workshop on compassion for a company.
[00:09:15] And I asked them to do this exercise. And so many people said things like I would just listen to them. I would allow them to vent without judgment or shame. I would hold space for them. I would take food over and we'd watch our favorite movie or Netflix show. These are the things that we really need to start doing for ourselves during difficult circumstances.
[00:09:40] These things aren't just reserved for other people love. These are also for you as well. You deserve that same kindness and compassion and understanding in those difficult moments. So that self-kindness number two, common humanity. This is also known as universality or equanimity. Common humanity is the ability to recognize.
[00:10:03] That we're all flawed and we're all works in progress and that what you are going through or what you just did is something that so many other people have experienced as well. You know, when we get into a place of self judgment, self judgment makes us feel really isolated and alone that you are the only person who's ever done.
[00:10:23] Something this dumb, or you're the only person who's ever felt this way. Whereas compassion, it asks us what. Broaden your scope broaden that perspective. Is this possibly something that other people have done or other people have gone through or experienced? Self-compassion connects us to others that when we go through a hard time, we know that we are not the only person and that while we are all unique beings, that so much of what we go through is similar.
[00:10:55] My favorite example to share when it comes to common humanity or universality happened the summer. So I got an email from HBO that said HBO, max test. And perhaps you got this email too. I totally ignored it. Cause I've just never opened up emails like that. But I found out later that what had happened was a new intern had started working at HBO and they were learning how to use their email system.
[00:11:22] And they accidentally sent out a test email to hundreds and thousands of HBO subscribers. Yeah. Talk about a big mistake. Right. And what happened was that there was an overflow of compassion from people and that they started to send in their stories of how they messed up when they were an intern or how they messed up really at.
[00:11:48] So all of these stories started to pop up of people, sharing similar stories of how they send an email to the wrong person, or they be CC'd someone on an email that was about that person, right? That sense of, Hey, listen, this is a tough situation, but you are so not alone to remember that what we have gone through, what we're going through, what we're experiencing is not just us being dumdums or failing.
[00:12:16] But that it's part of the human experience. And while it is something that can be really heartbreaking and disappointing and difficult, it's something that others have gone through are going through or will go through. This is part of compassion. So now we're at the final pillar of compassion, which is mindfulness.
[00:12:37] Mindfulness is the ability to be present with the reality of the moment, the feelings, the thoughts, the sensations. And not try to run from or resist how you're feeling and what you're going through, but also not to over exaggerate. So what happens so often we go through a difficult circumstance is we either just try to brush it off, right?
[00:12:59] Like, oh, this is fine. I'm just going to pick myself up and just keep going again. And we don't really allow ourselves to feel the feels to honor what is happening right now. Which is really just us avoiding, right? We're not processing anything. We're just avoiding it. Or on the other side, we end up becoming overly identified with what's happening.
[00:13:20] Right. And we just can't seem to let it go. We ruminate. And that's where we're making this circumstance part of some story about who we are. And so what mindfulness asks us to do is, Hey, Be present with this moment, be present with your sadness, your anger, your frustration honor, that be with it. But also don't allow this to become some story of who you are mindful.
[00:13:48] That's can sometimes be the toughest one because when we go through a difficult circumstance, It's natural that we either want to run away from feeling the feelings, especially during the holiday season, which is a time in which a lot is being asked of us. Right. Or we want to just fall into a story about who we are and what compassion is really asking of us as love.
[00:14:11] No, be in the pain. But you are not a failure. You're not a terrible daughter. You're not a terrible spouse. You're not a terrible worker or colleague. No, you're just going through something difficult. There are a lot of great mindset resources here, but a recent episode I did about perception and circumstance will be really helpful in allowing you to release the stories that are coming up for you.
[00:14:37] If you're going through a difficult moment and finding it hard to show yourself some of that compassion. One of the number one questions I ask myself always after a difficult situation is what am I making this mean? Right? What am I making this mean about who I am? So if I snap at my partner, maybe I'm making it mean that I am a terrible partner, that I can't get anything.
[00:15:01] Right. If I send an email to tens of thousands of people on a listserv, maybe I'm making that mean that I am a total failure at life. So really becoming aware of what the story is, because the stories just distract us from really tending to the wound of really nurturing ourselves of really healing. What is here now, right.
[00:15:23] They take us out of the present moment and they make us ruminate and obsess over things that aren't really what we need in that moment, because what we needed in that moment is compassion. We need the self-kindness. We need the common humanity. And we need to be able to be in the feelings, but not make this part of some story.
[00:15:43] So love this holiday season while you're out in the streets, showing kindness and compassion and grace to everyone in their mother. Remember that you deserve that same compassion yourself. That you first and foremost are worthy of and deserving and need that. Self-love self-kindness self patience as much as everyone else.
[00:16:12] So remember when you don't know how to uphold your boundaries, when you totally react to something that someone you love said, compassion, compassion, compassion, compassion. I'm sending you so much love over this holiday season and we're going to get through this together. I promise. But remember when things get tough compassion and also a good Mariah Carey song until next week, love, I will talk to you then.
[00:16:47] Thank you so much for joining me this week. If you liked this week's episode, please share it with a friend comment and rate this podcast until next week. See you later. Love.