“The motivation of self compassion arises from love, while the motivation of self criticism arises from fear. Love is more powerful than fear.”

-Krisin Neff 

Self Compassion is hard and it is very counterintuitive to how we typically operate as humans. Simply put, we’re a negative species. We have a negativity bias that serves us well up until a point.  Oftentimes what happens when we face rejection or failure our self criticism kicks in. It can be quite addictive and spark a spiral of very critical self talk and rumination. If we failed it means we did something wrong so let’s beat ourselves up so that we can be better next time. If we get rejected, let’s critique ourselves as to WHY we weren’t enough. 

Been there. Done that. It doesn’t work. In fact it makes things infinitely worse. 

Especially in sport, there is definitely an attitude that if we fail we need to get back to the drawing board so we can figure out how to...

Here is a common human experience: We have a feeling or emotion. We don’t like it or judge ourselves for said feeling or emotion. 

I can’t tell you how many times I have gone through failure and rejection and then beat myself up because I am taking it so hard.

Running dialogue: 

“I shouldn’t be this sad” 

“It’s not that big of a deal” 

“I should be over this” 

“It shouldn’t bother me” 

“I should be more positive” 

Anybody been there? We place so much judgment on how we think and feel. We are a judging species and although we will never NOT judge we can help ourselves out. 

In his book “Wherever You Go There You Are,” Jon Kabat-Zinn describes what it might be like to not judge. “Imagine how it might feel to suspend all your judging and instead to let each moment be just as it is, without attempting to evaluate it as “good” or...

Self Care. What a buzz word these days. 

The National Institute of Mental Health (2020) defines self care as “taking the time to do things that help you live well and improve both your physical health and mental health.”

But to me that doesn’t really give us a direction for our self care. What does self care mean? 

With COVID especially there has been a shift and A LOT of talk about self care. It’s no surprise that when we are dealing with hard things we NEED to take care of ourselves. In speaking with one of my closest friends last week about what I am going through she mentioned that “we have to have heightened self care when things are tough.” 

Failure and rejection are tough. 

But at the same time I feel like we’ve morphed self care into many activities,  “acts of love” and pampering that aren’t actually taking care of ourselves. Great example, pouring yourself a glass of wine or making yourself...

“If we don’t express our emotions, they pile up like a debt that will eventually come due.” 

-Marc Brackett, PHD

Feel all the Feels. 

We get clear on WHAT we’re feeling and we accept what we’re feeling but we have to actually do the feeling. 

Unfortunately this is where more often than not we have to sit with our emotions and discomfort and allow time to heal. So. Freaking. Hard. But I promise this is THE only way. 

 Being Well with Dr. Rick Hanson and Forrest Hanson is an incredible podcast that I highly recommend. In a recent episode on navigating failure they described how the sooner we attend to our feelings when we face failure and rejection the better. Why? Because this is what both the mind and the body need. In order to move through and “regulate” our emotions in an efficient way we have to honor them and give ourselves permission to feel however we are feeling. Easier said than done. 

One...

“The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.”

Gabor Mate

Accept vs Resist. 

Let’s start with Resistance to our experience. 

As Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer explain in their book The Mindful Self Compassion Workbook (2018)  “what we resist, persists.” 

What does it mean to resist our experience? We run from our emotions. We don’t like our experience. We deny our experience. We avoid, numb and block out what we actually feel. For me, resistance can look like trying to “rationally” or “logically” explain my way out of a feeling. Oftentimes I find myself adding more things than I can count to my schedule and running on “go go go” mode so that I don’t have TIME to stop and feel. I find myself avoiding being alone because when I am alone that means I actually have to be with myself and my feelings. I get irritated, I’m on edge and I find myself...

“Naming or labeling difficult emotions helps us disentangle or unstick from them.” 

-Kristen Neff and Chris Germer 

When it comes to failure and rejection there is a whole shit storm of emotion and feeling.  It’s worth it to understand how greater society influences HOW we navigate emotion and how that might play into the experience of rejection and failure. Although our society has made progress we still very much view emotion as weak. Many people grow up in families that don’t talk about feelings at all. When it comes to failure and rejection, more often than not (particularly in sport) the message is to reflect, learn and then put your head down and get back to work. There is a time and place for that depending on the scenario, but this is missing a huge and MASSIVELY important part of how we process the emotion that comes with failure and rejection. 

Processing emotion is hard. It’s uncomfortable and it can take...

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” 

- Winston Churchill

“Today’s rejection may become tomorrow’s acceptance.”

― Ehsan Sehgal

Everyone deals with rejection and failure. 

This is something we sign up for the day we are born. We face it almost everywhere we go, yet somehow, I’m not sure it ever gets any easier. 

It’s important to note that failure and rejection are for the most part subjective. You may look at an experience and feel like you've failed, while someone on the outside looking in may view your experience as a win. I’m not here to debate what failure and rejection are and what they are not. It’s an individual experience that we will ALL face and feel and it’s hard.

As a former athlete playing at a highly competitive DI program, I faced rejection almost every day on and off the field. As a former college coach I remember countless...

Here we are in 2022 and still facing a global pandemic. I believe that we are disconnected now more than ever. The hard part is in many ways we have to be. With new COVID variants still arising, the health of SO many people is such an issue. But this makes life really difficult because we are not meant to be isolated. By nature, we are social creatures. 

Even for those of us that live alone, social interaction is imperative for our health. 

In some ways COVID has forced us to get creative with our social interaction and thank god for technology and the ability to see people via computer and phones. For me personally COVID has actually enhanced some of my relationships. In the early months of COVID a small group of 5 of my closest friends decided to create a text thread that has been monumental in my ability to cope. In many ways COVID contributed towards our group getting closer and deeper than we ever have. This forced us to be more vulnerable, authentic and compassionate...

Welcome back to part 3 of this Self Compassion Series. If you haven’t been able to read my 2 previous posts I urge you to go back and give them a go prior to diving into this piece. 

One of the main ways we can practice Self Compassion is through our meditation practice. 

Meditation practices that are typically used for cultivating Self Compassion are called Metta Meditation or Loving Kindness Meditation. The goal is to cultivate feelings of loving kindness for ourselves AND others by repeating simple phrases. 

The traditional form of Metta Meditation uses a series of phrases that are repeated to cultivate loving kindness for yourself, for someone you love, for someone that is difficult and lastly for the world as a whole (or ALL beings). 

The world renown teacher Sharon Salzburg is a wonderful resource for all things LovingKindness. After reading her book “Real Love” I embarked on this journey to practice Metta Meditation more consistently. But...

Self Compassion. Where to Start? 

If you were unable to catch my recent post about redefining resilience I suggest you do so. I wholeheartedly stand by my belief that self compassion is really what we need in order to be resilient. 

Easier said than done. 

Self compassion is extremely counterintuitive to modern day society. Especially in sport I’m not sure I have faced an athlete that isn’t their own worst critic. So how do we get started with this so-called self compassion? 

In January of 2019 I committed to spending an entire year dedicating my nightly meditation practice to self compassion. Every single night. It was brutal to start. 

Let’s start by defining what Self Compassion is. Kristen Neff, the pioneer of this work defines Self Compassion as having compassion towards yourself with the three core elements of mindfulness, self kindness and commun humanity. Essentially, we use mindfulness to attune to our emotional experience in a...