Start close in - taking a self-compassion break 💗

 
Start close in. Start with kindness.

“We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time… Our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold and the car handle feels wet and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being soft and unrepeatable.” - Mark Nepo, from The Book of Awakening

I’ve been spent the past 10 days on a silent meditation retreat (at home!) “ungloving” myself to feel what’s real and alive. To pause, listen inwardly, and be as kind and gentle as possible with whatever called for my attention underneath my protective coverings. With nothing to do but be, there was no shortage of tough stuff to explore (especially in these intense times!). The familiar stories of being deeply flawed, undeserving, unworthy of love and connection until I’m “perfect.”

I’ve realized anew how easy it is to forget the truth of who we are – our innate goodness and belonging. It’s truly a tragedy how much time we spend trying to cover up our insecurity and be what we think others want us to be. As Galway Kinnell writes, “sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.”

I always find it helpful to remember our shared humanity: We all have messy lives and carry wounds of not feeling loved, accepted, seen, understood, and safe to varying degrees.

As someone who’s never felt that I fit neatly into any one community, I love this reminder by Sebene Selassie: “Weirdos. Will. Slay. Because not fitting in to any one community is a super power. But only if you choose to fit into yourself first.” (here’s a beautiful example of what that can look like )

Fitting into ourselves first takes self-acceptance and self-compassion. We start close in and bring awareness and kindness to our difficult emotions, experience, and hurt parts. We tend to ourselves first so we can better widen the circles of our compassion outward and support others.

One powerful way to cultivate self-compassion is through the practice of RAIN. It invites us to be with our emotions and actual lived experience with mindfulness and compassion. The acronym RAIN stands for:

  1. Recognize: Seeing clearly what's going on and how we are stuck inside an experience;

  2. Allow: Creating space to be with the experience just as it is;

  3. Investigate: Moving from the story and beliefs to getting in touch with the actual lived experience, with kindness; and

  4. Nurture: Offering kindness inwardly.

Here's a ~16 min guided RAIN practice.

I let it RAIN over and over again during the retreat and found more spaciousness, freedom, and a deep sense of love and belonging.

May you always remember your loveliness. And if you don't believe it, I'll believe it for you.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

 

What's the kind thing to do? 💗

 
What's the kind thing to do?

“I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I will give myself to it.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

“We have to consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit.” - Audre Lorde

In these deeply divided and polarized times, it’s easy to make others bad. There’s a saying: The world is divided into people who think they’re right (and that’s the whole saying). It’s easy to get into “us versus them” dynamics. It’s easy to become defensive when we feel threatened by people with different views.

Forgetting our shared humanity, we dehumanize others. We exclude rather than widen the circles to include others. We become more reactive in our relationships.

I’ve seen this play out in my own life. Since I was a child, I remember wanting to be “good.” It felt like a prerequisite for love, acceptance, and belonging. In my pursuit of perfection, I became quite rigid about what’s right and wrong along the way. I was quick to judge myself and others for falling short of my impossibly high standards. I got caught in anger when I saw injustice and unethical behavior. I was afraid to show vulnerability and truly let others see the real and messy me. I often felt disconnected from others.

What’s helped me counter our “us versus them” programming is practicing lovingkindness. It involves actively cultivating an attitude of kindness, friendliness, and openness toward others and ourselves.

How do we make being tender with each other a habit?


In lovingkindness practice, we try to look for the good in ourselves and others, beyond our negative qualities and conditioning, and acknowledge the complexity of being human. We start by sending friendly wishes for health, fulfillment, safety, and peace to ourselves. We then gradually widen the circles, sending kind wishes to a loved one, more difficult people (gradually working up to more difficult people), our communities, and all beings. When I have difficulty seeing the good in someone, I often envision them as a little child to better get in touch with kindness and compassion.

As we send friendly wishes, it’s helpful to get in touch with our actual experience of kindness when we feel it. What does kindness feel like in the body? Through the body, we can get in touch with a deeper level of connection beyond emotion. With practice, this can help us connect more easily with kindness as we move through the day.

Lovingkindness practice is proven to decrease stress and anxiety, decrease negative feelings toward yourself and others (i.e. anger, judgment, self-doubt, unworthiness), and enhance social connections with others. An attitude of kindness allows us to respond to people and situations in more intentional and friendly ways rather than being reactive.

And, importantly, cultivating lovingkindness does not mean condoning hurtful behavior and injustice. Without closing off our hearts, we can better discern the appropriate response which might mean creating clear boundaries to protect our safety and wellbeing, holding others accountable, and taking action to address injustice.

What if we led with an attitude of kindness? What’s the kind thing to do?

With lovingkindness,

Sarah-Marie

 

Seeing the good in others ✨

 
Remember to see the good.jpg

Who would we be as a society if we saw the good in each other?

Amidst so much division and polarization, it’s easy to make others bad. It’s easy to blame the other side. It’s easy to get defensive and angry. It’s easy to be self-righteous.

What takes worthwhile effort is seeing the good in each other and undoing the conditioning of separation and disconnection.

Seeing ourselves as separate, our differences become distorted into othering and give rise to systems of domination and oppression. We forget our shared humanity. While we are not the same, we are not separate. The victim and the perpetrator are not separate. Liberals and conservatives are not separate. Our impacted ecosystems and we who contribute to our climate crisis are not separate.

A very useful skill in these times has been loving-kindness - a quality of friendliness and well-wishing towards all living beings. In lovingkindness practice, we are undoing the conditioning of separation and disconnection. We are learning to see the goodness and express care towards others and ourselves. When we generate friendliness for people with whom we might disagree, it enables us to respond in more intentional and kinder ways.

The idea of loving-kindness may seem a bit counterintuitive, with so much hatred circulating in the system. Yet that's exactly what makes this inner counter-programming so important.

As Nelson Mandela said: "It never hurts to see the good in someone. They often act the better because of it."

And of course, the key first step towards generating friendliness for others is directing kindness towards ourselves.

I invite you to carry the spirit of lovingkindness as you move through the coming week and see how it impacts you and others around you. For example, I've been sending friendly wishes to people I've been passing on the street or in the park.

How might you generate more friendliness towards others and yourself?

Below is a guided lovingkindness practice and a few other resources to support you.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources

[PRACTICE] - Lovingkindness 

Start by bringing attention to your chest, to your physical heart, or to wherever you feel kindness and connection in your body, if you do feel it. Notice if your heart feels open or closed - or anything in between.

Begin by focusing on whoever most easily opens you to lovingkindness. Then expand your lovingkindness to include others and yourself. You can use or adapt phrases/friendly wishes such as:

  • May you be safe and protected from inner and outer harm.

  • May you be well and strong.

  • May you be free from worry.

  • May you live your life with ease.


Here's a 20-min guided Lovingkindness practice.
 

[POEM] 

Excerpt from "Please Call Me by My True Names" by Thich Nhat Hanh

“I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.”

[GUIDED MEDITATIONS]

 

Know that it's possible 💗

 
Know that it's possible

Deep breath out.

What a roller coaster of feelings this past week has been: Hope. Fear. Anxiety. Confusion. Exhaustion. Heartbreak. Hope. Grief. Worry. Relief. Hope…

I've heard many others express they've been through a similar roller coaster. Maybe you've been as well. It’s good to know we’re never alone in our experience.

While these are highly polarized times, there’s so much more that unites us than divides us. We all share the same fundamental human needs for safety, fulfillment, and connection. We all experience pain and difficulty in life.

Einstein said: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." We cannot solve the challenges of our time from a reactive and fear-based place which further divides us against each other.

We’ve got to lean into both the inner and outer work to heal division and dismantle our systems of oppression.

Along the way, may we see our shared humanity in all of our interactions. May we treat each other with respect and kindness. May truth and kindness guide our actions.

We seed the future through our actions today.

What kind of context do you want to create? What will most serve healing?

Know that it’s possible.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources 

[PRACTICE] - Recognizing Our Shared Humanity 

Try to recognize everyone's shared humanity in all of your interactions with others this week. Notice how this impacts you and others around you.

[LISTENING] 

[QUOTE] 

Excerpt from Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone
“Active Hope is not wishful thinking.
Active Hope is not waiting to be rescued . . . by some savior.
Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life on whose behalf we can act.
We belong to this world.
The web of life is calling us forth at this time.
We’ve come a long way and are here to play our part.
With Active Hope we realize that there are adventures in store, strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with.
Active Hope is a readiness to discover the strengths in ourselves and in others; a readiness to discover the reasons for hope and the occasions for love.
A readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts, our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose, our own authority, our love for life, the liveliness of our curiosity, the unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence, the keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead.
None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk.”

[GUIDED MEDITATIONS]

 

Let's be human together 💗

 
Permission to be human

"'Free' is not free from feelings, but free to feel each one and let it move on, unafraid of the movement of life." - Jack Kornfield 

These are challenging and unsettling times in so many ways. You may feel like it’s all too much to be with at times. You may be done with 2020. You're not alone. 

And yet we’re alive in this moment right here. This moment is calling us to be with what is. Now is (still) worth showing up for.

The way out isn’t to run away or numb. What we resist persists.

Resistance is how we naturally protect ourselves against vulnerability. We cannot selectively numb though. When we block the grief, fear and anger, we also block the joy, love and our sense of aliveness. 

So give yourself permission to feel. Let the emotions move through you. They have a beginning, middle, and end. Exhaustion happens when we get stuck in them - when we don’t complete the cycle. 

May we let these times be a teacher of who we really are - of presence and love - and what matters most. Rumi wrote: “This turn toward what you deeply love saves you.”

What or who do you deeply love?

We’re all human. We’re all trying to figure it out. And we can’t do this alone. We all need spaces where we can be witnessed in our humanity. Where we can make room to be with the life that's here. 

What are these spaces for you? 

Below are a few resources that I hope might be supportive for you.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources 

[PRACTICES] 

Thanking Your Emotions 

When you notice a difficult emotion arising as you go about your day, you can stop, take a conscious breath, and say "Thank you for trying to protect me. Thank you for trying to take care of me. I am OK for now."
 

RAIN of Self-Compassion

Through the practice of RAIN, we can bring mindfulness and compassion to difficult emotions and experience. It invites us to be with our emotions and actual lived experience with self-compassion. The acronym RAIN stands for:

  • Recognize: Seeing clearly what's going on and how we are stuck inside an experience;

  • Allow: Creating space to be with the experience just as it is; 

  • Investigate: Moving from the story and beliefs to getting in touch with the actual lived experience, with kindness; and 

  • Nurture: Offering kindness inwardly. 

Here's a ~16 min guided RAIN practice.  
 

[POEM] 

Excerpt from "Go to the Limits of Your Longing" by Rainer Maria Rilke
 
"Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand."

Guided Meditations 

 

Beware inner fake news 💭

 
Beware inner fake news.jpg

We live in such polarizing times. There's a saying that goes: "The world is divided into those who think they're right." And that's the whole saying. 
 
As I explored in last week’s letter, we all have an inner critic that focuses on what’s wrong with us, others, and our circumstances. I think of it as inner fake news.  
 
Believing “something is wrong with me” divides us against ourselves. Believing “something is wrong with you” divides us against each other. When we feel inferior or superior, we lose touch with the intrinsic worthiness of everyone. We are not connected to a deep sense of belonging to ourselves, each other, and nature.
 
In these divisive and challenging times, it’s so easy to fall into judgment. I catch myself every day.
 
Gandhi said: “Our beliefs create our thoughts. And our thoughts create our feelings. And the thoughts and feelings create our behavior. And our behavior creates our destiny.”

Our limiting and fear-based beliefs stem from our childhoods, generations past, and our culture. I grew up with a deeply held belief that once I become “perfect,” everything would be alright. I’d finally be worthy of love and belonging. I behaved in ways consistent with that belief (being in perfectionist mode) and ended up getting responses that reaffirmed it. So we get caught in a cycle – our beliefs lead to behaviors that strengthen them in turn.
 
The first step in freeing ourselves from limiting and fear-based beliefs is to become aware of them. When we notice we are getting caught in emotional reactivity, we can ask: What am I believing right now? And we can pause and bring awareness to what's actually going on in our lived experience.
 
We can realize that our limiting beliefs are real but not true. And we can find out who we really are underneath them. We can trust the goodness, love, and presence that is our being. 

Whatever we practice grows stronger. We can actively replace our inner critic and limiting beliefs with a kinder and wiser response. 
 
What would your life be like if you didn’t believe anything was wrong with you (and others)?

Below are a few resources that I hope might be supportive for you.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources 

[PRACTICES] 

Self-Reflection: Investigating limiting beliefs  

The following questions, adapted from Byron Katie's work, can be helpful for investigating and loosening the grip of limiting beliefs: 

  1. What am I believing? 

  2. Is this really true? 

  3. What is it like to live with this belief? 

  4. What does the vulnerability (hurt/fear) under the belief need? 

  5. What stops me from letting go of this belief? 

  6. What would my life be like without this belief? 

  7. Who (or what) would I be if I no longer lived with this belief? 

Thanking Your Inner Critic

When you notice your inner critic as you go about your day, you can stop, take a conscious breath, and say "Thank you for trying to protect me. I've got this. I am OK for now." You can focus your attention on your breath, sound, or the sensations in your body to not get hijacked by the inner critic/judge and come back to the present moment.

Poem

Excerpt from “Peace is This Moment Without Judgment” by Dorothy Hunt 
“Peace is this moment without judgment.

That is all. This moment in the Heart-space

where everything that is is welcome.

Peace is this moment without thinking

that it should be some other way,

that you should feel some other thing,

that your life should unfold according to your plans. 
 
Peace is this moment without judgment,

this moment in the heart-space where

everything that is is welcome.”

Guided Meditations 

 

You already always belong 💗

 
You already always belong.jpg

“You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all.” - Maya Angelou

So much feels separate and divided in these times. While our bodies may be physically distanced from each other, our hearts don't need to be. 

We already always belong to everyone and everything. Yet we experience ourselves as separate. It's a paradox we all navigate. 

Seeing ourselves as separate, our differences become distorted into othering and give rise to systems of domination and oppression. While we are not the same, we are not separate. The victim and the perpetrator are not separate. Liberals and conservatives are not separate. Our impacted ecosystems and we who contribute to our climate crisis are not separate. 

How do we step out of the fiction of separation? What if belonging is not a place outside of ourselves but a set of skills and practices we can cultivate? 

As someone who felt a conditional sense of belonging (following the "rules for fitting in") growing up and has lived in many places, much of my journey has been a quest to find true belonging. I realized it starts within and, as Maya Angelou said, is "no place at all."  

The practice of belonging starts with understanding our own history and where we come from. It involves working with our layers of conditioning, limiting beliefs, self-judgment, biases, etc. And it focuses on cultivating kindness and compassion for ourselves, each other, and all beings. 

An invitation that Toko-pa Turner makes in her beautiful book Belonging is to let our longing to belong guide us in actively creating belonging for ourselves and others. She writes:  

"Where you long for the friend who calls only to find out if you’re well, be that caller for another. ... Where you ache to be recognized, allow yourself to be seen. Where you long to be known, sit next to someone and listen for the apertures into what they love. Where you wish you felt necessary, give those gifts away."  

What does belonging mean to you? 

Who and/or what are you inviting into belonging with you? 

May you know that you already always belong and live from that place. 

Below are a few resources that I hope may be supportive for you.

In belonging,

Sarah-Marie

Resources 

[REFLECTION] 

On Belonging

  • What does belonging mean to me?

  • With whom or what have/haven't I felt belonging in my life?

  • How do I relate to the idea that we are not separate? 

  • How do I relate to the idea that we are not the same? 


[READING & LISTENING] 

Below are a few books and podcast episodes that I've found helpful in my own journey of practicing belonging. I hope some of them may be supportive for you as well.  

 

[Poem] 

From The House of Belonging by David Whyte  
This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging.


[GUIDED MEDITATIONS] 

 

Remember the gold ✨

 
Remember the gold

"Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain." - Danna Faulds 


There's a 10 feet tall Buddha statue at a monastery in Thailand. It was made from plaster and not particularly beautiful. A number of years ago, cracks appeared in the statue during a long dry period. The monks brought their pen flashlights to look inside the crack to maybe find out something about how the statue was built. When they shined the light into every crack, a flash of gold was reflected back. So, they chipped away at the plaster, which was just a covering, and rediscovered the largest pure solid gold statue of the Buddha in all of Southeast Asia. (Thai monks had covered the statue several hundred years earlier to protect it from an attack by the Burmese army.)  

Much in the same way, our layers of conditioning form our protective covering to try to shield ourselves from hurt. We are all products of our conditioning through our childhood experiences, our biology, and our culture. In the process, we can forget the gold underneath - who we really are. We start believing we're the covering, the ego-driven self. We believe the judgments of our inner critic and might feel shame, unworthiness, a sense of being deeply flawed, ... 

I've been examining and chipping away at the plaster for years. It's been a continuous practice to build my self-compassion muscles and free myself from the grip of my scathing inner critic. 

Who would I be if I didn't believe anything was wrong with me? 

I've been holding that question, which I first learned from Tara Brach. It's been a powerful inquiry. 

Recognizing that it's our conditioning, we can honestly see and work with our biases and counterproductive behaviors. We can treat ourselves with self-compassion and kindness as we work towards realizing our full potential. 

Who would you be if you didn't believe anything was wrong with you? 

Remember the gold. 

Below are a few resources to support you.

With love,

Sarah-Marie

Resources  

Poem

Excerpt from “Awakening Now” by Danna Faulds

““I’m not worthy, I’m afraid, and my motives aren’t pure.

I’m not perfect, and surely I haven’t practiced nearly enough.

My meditation isn’t deep, and my prayers are sometimes insincere.

I still chew my fingernails, and the refrigerator isn’t clean.”

Do you value your reasons for staying small more than the light shining through the open door?

Forgive yourself.

Now is the only time you have to be whole.

Now is the sole moment that exists to live in the light of your true Self.

Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain.

Please, oh please, don’t continue to believe in your disbelief.

This is the day of your awakening.”

Thanking Your Inner Critic

When you notice your inner critic as you go about your day, you can stop, take a conscious breath, and say "Thank you for trying to protect me. I've got this. I am OK for now." You can focus your attention on your breath, sound, or the sensations in your body to not get hijacked by the inner critic/judge and come back to the present moment.

Guided Meditations