I was listening to a podcast about mindfulness recently. I loved their definition:
Mindfulness is compassionate awareness, or being compassionately aware.
I also like this insight:
Meditation is to Mindfulness, like going to the gym is to strength in your daily life. You don’t go to the gym so that you can spend all day lifting weights. You go to have strength to do all the things you do. Meditation can help you strengthen your compassionate awareness.
My take on the ‘compassionate awareness’ thing is that I can notice how hurt I feel about a situation and have compassion toward myself. I can honor my pain. I can validate it. I can choose not to act on it. I can take time to pause and think about the story that I’m telling myself, and see how that is fueling my emotions. I can get curious about why I feel hurt.
I don’t have to shame myself about how I feel. I am not defective for feeling an unexpected feeling. I can gain beautiful insight by digging into what is going on. I can learn to trust myself more when ‘I show up for myself’. I can give myself permission to step away when I am too overwhelmed to work on the ‘why’ just now. I can speak kindly to myself.
- How will you put a little more ‘compassion’ into your ‘awareness’?
- If meditation is strength training, what self-compassion muscles will you build this week?
- What is a mantra, goal, quote or scripture that you could say to yourself throughout the week?
- What ‘counts’ as meditation for you? Could you make it a little more you-friendly?