Taking out an insurance policy on our hearts

When mistakes are made and failures are met, compassion is always a better choice than criticizing, chastising or condemning.

Not only because it’s gentler in the moment, but also because it’s useful in the future. When we can get to know these imperfect parts of ourselves with as much kindness as possible, it’s like taking out an insurance policy on our hearts. One that protects us in the event of forthcoming disaster.

Leary’s research on the curse of the self is revelatory on this issue. He shows how compassion provides a bubble of emotional safety within which we can perceive ourselves and our life’s circumstances clearly without fear of condemnation. If we treat yourself with kindness and respect when things go wrong, he says, our ego won’t be battered by life’s circumstances and it will have no need to defend itself. It will not need to distort the sometimes ugly truth to preserve our feelings and esteem, and it will not cause us to suffer over the common but largely inconsequential setbacks that we experience.

We have to think of it as training ourselves to survive happily in spite of our future frustrations.

One tactic for strengthening this bubble of emotional safety is by speaking compassionately to ourselves immediately following mistakes and failures.

One of my younger coworkers struggles with this. The other day our client really laid into her about their increasing customer acquisition costs. And she was telling me about how she takes small failures like that quite personally, even though she’s only be they arise from factors completely outside of her control. Not to mention, she’s only a few years out of college, and is just starting her career.

My advice to her was to write out a few mantras that she could incant to herself before, during and after the meetings. This bookending practice has been profoundly useful in my own journey to stop beating the shit out of myself.

When people lash out at me for reasons outside of my direct control, telling myself that this is their prerogative, and it’s not an indictment of me, puts my heart at ease.

Telling myself that I am simply an accidental and arbitrary recipient of their vitriol, puts my heart at ease. Each of these compassionate moments is cumulative.

The kinder we are with ourselves, the more we can develop the courage to tolerate difficult moments in the future.

It’s a not the kind of insurance policy most of us are comfortable taking out, but it’s a hell of lot better than prosecuting ourselves for crimes past.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How could you practice being kind to yourself in small, concrete ways?