Hey there. It's Rhonda Magee. And I've been asked to answer the question: how does self-compassion lead to healing? This is a great question because it's not obvious to many of us just how self-compassion can actually lead to, you know, that sense of greater wellbeing, ease, a way of reframing something that's been difficult. If we're talking about psychological healing in a way that we can hold it and thrive. So that relationship between self compassion and healing is not obvious.

And. I want to share just a few reflections that I've come, you know, that, that indicate what I've come to see as I've looked at this kind of question over the years. First, it helps to see that self-compassion is really, first of all, a natural aspect of meditation. We take up these practices, whether we've already been experimenting with mindfulness practice generally, or if we're just experimenting for the first time with an intentional practice of self-compassion. Something has drawn us to the will to explore these practices.

And that something is at least in part probably a motivation to alleviate some suffering. And that right there is the common, that the way I define compassion, it's a common definition used by researchers and compassion. It's not really simply feeling, you know, pity or sorrow for someone, but it's that will to actually take an action to alleviate the suffering that we can sense in another person or in ourselves, self-compassion. So now that we understand a little bit more how I'm going to be using the word self-compassion, just to think now about how healing works and what that relationship is between healing and in this sort of inherently self-compassionate practice that we call mindfulness. And these particular practices of self-compassion that that mindfulness can offer us as a deeper support.

So it's interesting to note that the word meditation and the word medicine have the same root med. Right? And to think then about how this, this goal of healthiness is embedded in meditation, medicine, all of which are aiming to kind of restore what in really the early sort of early languaging around this field of engagement was called like restoring, like inward right measure. Like it's like right relationship or a right way of being in our own bodies and spirit and mind. So meditation might be seen as a practice for helping us discern what, you know, what's called for. What that med, what medicine is called for, for us.

In other words, what we might need to do. Right? What's our own original medicine for our own healing? The original medicine we might bring to support the healing and others in our community and our family. So it's all about then this sort of will to, to healthfulness, to well-being, to restoration. Meditation and mindfulness through and through are about those things. So this inherent quality of self-compassion, self-kindness, this will to help us restore our own wellbeing is something that all of meditation and mindfulness is seeking to support us and experiencing from ourselves.

So self-compassion really can help us stay connected with the will. Right? Self-compassion practices, let's say, can help us stay connected to that will within us to do what we need to do to advance our own healing, which by the way, can sometimes be difficult. So as we look deeply into, what's called for, we're going to have from time to time, see that this loving self embrace, this willingness, both to acknowledge that we suffer, but also to know that we deserve to be free from suffering. This is what can help us restore that kind of inward right measure that I was talking about before that, that inner right relationship with our own being body and the wellness within us, that's wanting to be born. So from this place of really seeing more clearly, what's called for, for us to heal, from this place, we can actually be more of a source of our own healing.

And that's true for ourselves and it's true for the folks we work with, the family members we work with, love and live with, the communities, the workplaces where we engage as professionals and, and beyond. So yeah, we can, in other words, be a source of healing and right relationship to what ails us. And self-compassion, the will that exists within us to alleviate our own suffering is an important aspect of our ability to be and do just that. So if you're willing, let's take a moment to practice healing self compassion. And we're just going to have a kind of a micropractice over here.

So the invitation will be to, to just pause, stop right where you are. Haa. And invite a conscious sense of your own body and breathing right here, right now. So allowing your attention to rest in these few minutes on the sensations of your feet on the floor. If you're seated, the buttocks in a chair.

If you're standing, just allowing yourself to just pause, feel the dignity of your body in whatever position you happen to be in in this moment. And as you breathe in and out, allowing thoughts to fall away. And just feeling that sense of connectedness to the earth right here, right now. Hmm. And see if as you do so you can allow the attention to expand into a sense of the body as a whole.

Feeling of spaciousness of your body and your being. And actually noticing what is well within you right here, right now. So even as you experiment with perhaps wanting to feel more wellness, feel more of your own healing, and inquiring as to how self-compassion can help, we begin by just offering kindness to the body as it is, in whatever way we might be feeling wounded, feeling the need for healing. And as we just acknowledged that that is here too, we also, at the same time, with this openness, spacious holding of our whole body and being, we can acknowledge that even as there are aspects of us that might call for our own healing, so too, are there aspects, parts of ourselves right here, right now that are well, or else we wouldn't be here. Again, one of my teachers and friends in this work offers this bit of timeless wisdom.

As we're breathing, as we sit here alive, in this moment, by definition, there is more right with us than is wrong with us. And so yes, there may be aspects of ourselves that, that need to heal and we might be really open to exploring how self-compassion can help us with that. It's also really beautiful to right here, right now with the will to alleviate our own suffering, feel what is well within us. And as you do so, to sense that from this place of deepening Commitment to engaging in self-compassion. You have all that you need to be more of a source for your own loving, compassionate healing in your own lifetime.

Thank you for this moment of practice. Keep practicing like this. And know that you're not alone on this journey toward healing. And I look forward to being with you along the way. But in the meantime, be gentle, be kind, be good yourself on the journey from here.