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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
Benefits of Mindfulness: Mindful Living Can Change Your Life
Mindfulness 101: A Beginner's Guide
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Rhonda reflects on the power of self-compassion for bringing healing to our lives.
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.
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