The three pillars of self-compassion are mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness. Mindfulness involves bringing awareness to one's experiences using the five senses to observe reactions and patterns during times of suffering. Common humanity recognizes that suffering is part of the human experience and connects us, helping to lift feelings of isolation. Self-kindness encourages treating oneself with gentleness and understanding, rather than harshly, when difficulties arise.
5. • Mindfulness is simply bringing awareness to our surroundings and
experiences using our 5 senses: Sight, Touch, Taste, Sound and Smell
• By repeatedly bring awareness to our sensations, we can start to observe our
different reactions and thought and behaviour patterns in times of suffering
and discomfort.
• We may notice that we “over-identify” with certain difficult situations, which
effect our behaviours and then go on to create our reality
• Our brains have evolved to resist bringing attention to discomfort because of
our highly sensitive fight or flight response. This is great when in actual
physical danger, but not useful for psychological or emotional discomfort
• Some unuseful behaviours we use to avoid emotional suffering may be:
eating, drinking, binge watching TV, smoking, drinking, over-working etc.
1. Mindfulness
6. “You can’t stop the waves, but you can
learn to surf.”
- Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There
You Are
1. Mindfulness
8. 1. Compassion means “To suffer with.” Suffering is common to all human
life and it’s our faults and and difficulties that make us who we are.
2. As we start to become better acquainted with our own suffering through
mindfulness, we start to become more understanding of the depths of
discomfort experienced by those around us and it’s humbling and
unifying
3. Knowing that others have been through similar difficulties can be
extremely comforting. We are never alone and our sense of isolation and
alienation starts to lift!
4. When we deeply understand the experiences of others, it is very hard to
feel feelings of hatred or resentment towards them.
2. Common Humanity
9. “A human being is a part of the whole called by us “Universe,”
a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his
thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest,
a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is
a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires
and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task
must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our
circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the
whole of nature in its beauty. ”
- Albert Einstein, The Einstein Papers
2. Common Humanity
11. 1. Self-Kindness is treating ourselves with gentleness and understanding,
simple but definitely not easy!
2. As we start to sit with our discomfort, which is already there, we start to
notice how we treat ourselves in difficult times, and it’s not always a
pretty sight.
3. Our whole culture tells us to deal with difficulties by being strong and
silent, but it’s not an effective way of dealing with the issue. In fact, it’s
not dealing with the issue at all.
4. When we treat ourselves in this way, we subvert our fight or flight
system and produce oxytocin, a feel good love hormone that makes us
feel more connected to ourselves and to those around us.
3. Self-Kindness
12. “When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be
touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it
doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and
limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and
gentleness is there, as well as how much space. ”
- Pema Chödrön, Start Where You Are
3. Self-Kindness
