You Can't Stop the Waves: Dealing with the Uncertainty of Entrepreneur Life

Entrepreneur life is full of uncertainty and things that are outside of our control. Being a successful founder requires to you to find ways to thrive amidst this inevitable chaos.

In this week’s episode, I’m introducing you to some of the tools that I’ve found incredibly helpful for my clients, and myself, in learning how to cope with this uncertainty - mindfulness and self-compassion.

Some people are turned off when they hear about mindfulness or self-compassion, which is understandable, but not a sign that these practices aren’t for you. In this episode I’ll also share with you some of my own reservations when I started to practice these skills, why it’s so normal to have knee-jerk “no” reaction to practicing them, and what I tell my clients to help them stay open minded and give mindfulness and self-compassion a try. I hope you’ll stay open to learning more and deciding if you want to experiment with these skills yourself.

In the words of mindfulness teacher, Jon Kabat Zinn, “you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” As a founder you can’t stop those waves, but you can learn tools to make sure they don’t pull you under. In other words, in order to stay in this game for the long run, it’s essential to learn ways to increase your emotional resilience and mental fitness such as mindfulness and self-compassion. I hope you enjoy the introduction to these practices in this week’s episode

A huge thank you to my podcast producer, Ineke Camille of Zourit Solutions, for helping me to get creative with this week’s show!

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Connect with your host, Dr. Melissa Parks, elsewhere:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissacparks/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melissaparksphd

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Website: https://melissaparks.com/

Schedule a free 30 min. discovery call with Melissa to see if coaching with her would be a good fit: https://melissaparks.com/free-consultation-call/

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If you’d like additional support for your mental and emotional well-being as a founder please visit Melissa’s website for a list of resources to help you find a coach, therapist, or peer support.

Transcript

So I have been practicing mindfulness myself for about the past five years. And then that's been on, like when I've been practicing on a consistent basis. But actually had a time before that, before I even really knew about meditation, I would say, where I was really skeptical about it. So I did, I've done yoga for a long time, probably more than 15 years. But I was one of those people who would try to sneak out of my yoga class, at the very end, they just thought like, I'm here for the exercise, I don't need to, to do this mindfulness, or to this mindfulness or meditation stuff at the very end like this is, you know, I could do something better with my 10 minutes. So I've definitely made a huge shift. But I want to share that just because if you feel at all skeptical about mindfulness, or about, you know, about self-compassion, as well, I'll talk more specifically about my own skepticism around that, too. If you feel a little skeptical, like, just know that that's okay. And that's completely normal. And that can be really intimidating to think about sitting down, and just being with your thoughts and being with your feelings. And so that can be challenging things to do. 

What I tell my clients all the time is that this is a skill. And it's a skill, like learning a new language. It's like learning to tie your shoes. And anytime we're learning a new skill, it takes practice. So often, when I suggest to my clients, you know, we try out a meditation session, or I give them a link to a guided meditation to try out between sessions, they come back and tell me things like, I'm not very like, I'm not cut out for this, or I'm not very good at this mindfulness stuff. And so I just want you to know, if you have any thoughts like that, that are coming up, it's completely normal. And this is, again, it's a skill, it takes practice, and you don't need to be good at it. Even people who practice meditation for years and years, they wouldn't say they get good at it, I think that they get. What I've heard people say is that, because I like people who've been meditating for decades and decades, I know, I've just, I feel like I feel like I'm a relatively relative newbie in comparison. But even people who who have decades of experience say that their mind doesn't stop wandering, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't just stay focused or go blank or anything like that. But what happens is that you just get more practice of noticing where your mind goes, and and you get to strengthen what I call the attention muscle, you strengthen that you notice where your mind is going. And you more quickly bring it back to the here and now, because that's what mindfulness is about, it's really about trying to stay in the present moment. 

So very often our minds are going off into the future, right? Especially right now. I bet. I mean, I'm sure. It's hard not to be going off to the future. And just wondering, you know, what, what is going on right now? And our minds don't like uncertainty. So it's really normal that they go off to that they're like trying to kind of, you know, like, figure out what is the end to this story? When does it end? When does at least this chapter and, and what's that going to look like? And so mindfulness can really help us to, like, bring our minds, you know, away from that uncertain future. And really bring it back to the present moment. Again, really hard to do. 

I wanted to share with you a funny story that as I was preparing for this, so mindfulness is kind of like the opposite of being on autopilot or being mindless. And while I was preparing for this, just in the past hour, I lost my phone. And I was just thinking, Oh, I'm being so mindless right now, like, this is kind of really ironic. I'm preparing for a talk about mindfulness. And I've completely lost track of where of where I put my phone. And so again, I just want to share that little bit. Just to say that this you don't need like, you don't need to be perfect at this. It doesn't mean like you don't need to be mindful 100% of the day, I don't think it's realistic. Ask yourself to do that. But just getting more awareness about where your mind is going. And when you can train to bring it back to the here and now rather than having it jumping all over the place, to the future to the past can be can be a really helpful tool.

So again, I started practicing mindfulness about five years ago. And what I found was that, like it started, really, I took a class called the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction class. And I did it at first because I really wanted to, to be able to use the tools that my clients, and I think a lot of health, helping professionals take versus like about mindfulness and self-compassion, thinking about how can I use this with my clients, which is great, it's really great, right? Because then we can share them with with more people. But what I wasn't expecting, and I think often people aren't expecting, it's just how beneficial these tools can be for yourself as well. Which is cool, right? I got that it ended up being that it wasn't only to help the people I work with, but really to benefit myself as well. 

And so when I took this class, I was in the middle of a really, really hectic time in my life. I was I was seeing, like about 20 Different therapy clients a week, I was working on my PhD. And I felt like I was drowning, like, just really, really overwhelmed. And those waves were there, and they had definitely sucked me under. And so what I found was that, in my first class, the teacher said to us, okay, what we're gonna practice right now, okay, you know, close your eyes, it's time to meditate. And I close my eyes. And I was like, Oh, my God, we have to sit like this for 30 minutes, how am I going to how am I going to do this, my mind was going all over the place, right? Sometimes that's called monkey mind, in the world of mindfulness. And my mind was totally like, like a monkey jumping from wall to wall. But I like followed my teachers kind of little prompts about what to do with my mind, and that moment what to do with the feelings that were coming up. And I got through it. And I felt like my head like popped up a little bit like, above the water. And so I was convinced that you know, to come back the next week and try it, try the practices at home. 

And that was an eight week course. And it really helped me learn how to practice mindfulness in my daily life. And then it was something that I was able to use on a day to day basis, again, teach it to my clients as well, but really, to use it for myself to stay focused to stay really more engaged in my life. And so it really became something I was really passionate about. And I started teaching some courses about it as well, while I was living in Madrid at that time. So in those courses, I would always tell people that when we are learning a new skill, like for instance, learning to swim, if this was a swimming class, we wouldn't just be sitting around and talking about, you know, what is it like to swim? Like, how do we move our arms, right, we would be getting in the pool, and we'd be getting wet. And so I think that's like the one of the most important and helpful things we can do with learning mindfulness is to actually to try out some mindfulness right now. 

Don’t worry, I'm not going to ask you to sit for 30 minutes, like I had to do in my first first mindfulness class, it's just going to be a short five minute meditation, but give it a try, I'm going to ask you, you're welcome. I'm gonna give you a couple different options, you're welcome to close your eyes through this for many people, that is really helpful to have their eyes closed. So they're not distracted by different things. But you don't need to, if that feels like it's too much. And for some people, it does, and it's okay, you can just put your gaze down and just try to focus something on something that's not too distracting. And if at any time it gets to be too overwhelming, or you think today is not a good day for this, that's okay, too, you can just take a break and you can listen to this audio later. And try it out. So get comfortable, wherever you are getting, it's going to be about five minutes long that we're going to do this stretch out a little bit if you need to, you know, sometimes when we start tuning into our bodies and how we're feeling we start noticing places that are uncomfortable. I'm going to be reading from something so I'm not going to close my eyes but do close your eyes and just take a couple of deep breaths in so.

For some of us, I know the day is just starting but for for others of us, you know the day might be ending and this might be the very first time that we're really just having a chance to sit here and check in with ourselves and, and be still. Through really with mindfulness. It is the opportunity to switch from a mode of doing to a mode of just being which can again often be unfamiliar territory. With mindfulness we're always going to have something that's like a sort of anchor for for our attention to remember because our attention can float off to the future or float off to the past. We always want to to be able to have Have an anchor for it. And so we can always bring our attention back to that. And today, our attention is going to be focused on our breath. So we don't need to breathe in any particular way, we just are going to tune that attention to our breath as it comes in. And as it flows out.

And while we're doing this, we can also take a moment to notice how we're sitting. And notice how your breath is coming in. Notice if you hear anything, or what you might feel against your skin.

Notice half your mind how your mind is doing. Is it really active? Is it slowing down. And with mindfulness, we also want to not judge what's happening. So we just want to try to observe it like a curious scientist, just seeing, okay, that's what I'm noticing right now.

Let's really tune our attention to our breath as it flows in and flows out. Some people like to turn their attention to the breath as it comes in and out of their nostrils. And other people prefer to notice their belly as it rises. And as it falls. So this, if this is your first time meditating, meditating, you might notice you know, just play around and see where does your attention go most naturally.

And now, I'm going to invite you to take a challenge. So I want you for the next couple of minutes to try, just keep your attention on your breath, just observing it as it flows in. And as it flows out.

Now again, especially if this is one of your first times meditating, or if you just notice your mind is more active today, you may find this really hard to keep your attention on your breath, because our mind er is a really good storyteller. And it usually tries to tell us all sorts of interesting stories to grab our attention and pull us away from what we're doing. So with mindfulness, we want to try to allow those thoughts to come and go. For instance, as if they were cars passing by, or clouds floating by in the sky.

Just letting them be there. Whatever it is, that's coming up, and seeing if you can bring your attention back to your breath. 

It might also be helpful to think about your mind just letting it chatter away as if it was the radio or Spotify in the background. You can't turn that radio off, you can't turn the noise completely off. Because even Zen masters can't do that. So remember I said the people who have been meditating for years and years they can't turn it off. Just let it play in the background and try to keep their attention focused. Keep your attention focused on your breath.

Some people also find it helpful to think about their mind as a little puppy dog that wanders away. And then we don't want to yell at that dog when it wanders away. Right just very gently, we pick it back up, bring it back next to us and then focus back on our breathing again.

And now we're going to bring the meditation to a close. And so what we can do here is we just start noticing, again the room that we're sitting in maybe the chair or the ground or whatever surface you're sitting on, starting to wiggle your fingers and your toes and then whenever you're ready you can open your eyes or lift your gaze again and I'd love to know you. If you'd like to share you like to you're welcome to share anything about it? Or any ask any questions that you might have about this experience? But without any pressure at all, there's no need to have any questions right now. So feel free to turn on your mic if you'd like to ask a question. Or feel free to type something in the chat as well.

I do want to mention too, that, you know, this is just one way that we can practice mindfulness. So this is what is sometimes called for a formal practice. And what that means is that it's a practice that we it's a seated often like a seated meditation practice. So we're closing our eyes, we're being quiet, we're tuning into our breath. It's more like what people think about when they think about meditation. But we can also do things that are called informal practices, or mindfulness on the go. And those are things that you can do right now or any day, that are more things that are integrated with your day to day activities. So you don't always have you know, even five minutes sometimes just sit down and be still. And so what you can do is you can use some of these same kind of same tools of mindfulness with your day to day activities. So for instance, if you're brushing your teeth, you can kind of be trying to keep your attention focused on brushing your teeth, and your mind will wander off. And it will go you know, to be thinking about your to do list for later in the day. Or maybe think about something happened the day before. Or maybe noticing some anxiety or nervousness that's coming up. And what you want to do is just very gently, again, bring your attention back to the here and now to the activity that you're doing to brushing your teeth. 

Really, mindfulness is trying to do one thing at a time. And so often we're trying to do multiple things at a time, right, like multitasking. So mindfulness is just a way to remind ourselves like, I just want to be in the here and now just doing one thing at a time and strengthening my attention muscle. So again, you can get creative with this, you can do do it with all the brushing your teeth, washing the dishes, going for a walk, if that's something you can do right now. When you're having a conversation, you can practice having more of a mindful conversation and just trying to be in the here and now. 

One, one kind of metaphor that I like thinking about is this idea of like if my mind is like a balloon, right, and so it can sometimes float off to the future. And sometimes it might float off, you know, more to the past. And what we want to do is notice when that balloon is floating off, and we want to grab it. And we don't want to yank it back to the here. And now we want to be really gentle with it, we want to very gently like pull it back to the here. And now. Because mindfulness is all about paying attention in the present moment, in a non judgmental way. 

This is where I want to switch a little bit to the self-compassion piece, because that's that non-judgmental piece. And I practiced mindfulness for a lot of years without realizing how judgmental I was being of my mind, and of the feelings that were coming up for me. So, again, I think it's for anybody who has a perfectionist tendency, which I definitely do, sometimes you can bring that into the mindfulness space and be really hard on ourselves with where our mind is going, and what what are feeling the feelings that are coming up. So I started mindfulness about five years ago. And then about two years ago, I took my first course about self-compassion. So it was something I'd already tried out was already using with clients a little bit. But it was my first experience going, I went to a five day intensive course, for the Mindful self-compassion program. And that was when I really just noticed wow, like, I'm really I'm really yanking that balloon back to the here. And now when I'm practicing mindfulness. So that was kind of one of my first wake up. So it's just like, oh, okay, you know, this, actually, this, when we bring in self-compassion, and really look at mindfulness, through a self-compassion focus, it can teach us a lot more. And that's what I found. That's why I've gone like kind of my focus has been more on the self-compassion piece. It's just because I've found that to be even more beneficial with myself with my clients, to really look at it and practice it through this lens of just being really gentle and really kind with ourselves. 

So mindfulness and self-compassion really go hand in hand, we can, you can have one without the other basically. And I just usually now I'm taking more of a focus on the self-compassion piece and just looking at it through that lens. And so with self-compassion, often, people who are teaching self-compassion, focus on their being kind of three elements to self-compassion. One of those is mindfulness. So we can't have we can't practice self-compassion. We can't be there for ourselves in difficult times. If we're not if we don't have mindfulness. Because if we don't A mindfulness we get too wrapped up with with the story of what's going on. And we really do get pulled under, right, like talking about those waves like we can really sink under if we don't have mindfulness. 

So mindfulness is one thing. Another piece is the common humanity piece. And so I think that's so important at all times, but really important. And I think it's something that we can tap into right now is just, when we're hurting, when we're going through a difficult, difficult time, we can tap into that common humanity of that being human is really hard. And right now, everything that we're experiencing are, we're not alone in it, right? Sometimes when we're going through difficult times, it can be really isolating, we can feel really alone. And we're not, we're not. And I think we can see, we can really, I hope tap into that even more now. It's just knowing like, we're in this together. 

And then so that's the mindfulness, the common humanity, and then there's also the self kindness piece. So we do that with self-compassion, instead of being judgmental to ourselves. And unfortunately, that self judgment is often the place we go to automatically. So sometimes, we can think about self-compassion as treating ourselves and talking to ourselves in the same way that we would talk to a friend or to a loved one. Or if you have children, to your children, or even to, you know, to a beloved pet that you have to sometimes we can tap into those really warm hearted feelings when we think about a pet. 

And so maybe just think for a second, you know, with everything that's been going on in the past couple of weeks, just thinking about, like, how have you been treating yourself? And how have you been in talking to yourself. And because we all we all talk to ourselves, that's a dialogue that's, that's going on in our head. I know, I've been hearing a lot of people saying things like, I'm not doing a good job at all of this. Like, I'm not setting a good example for people around me. I'm messing things up, I should be doing better. I'm not coping well, then again, not coping. I'm not gonna say I'm not coping well, like, I'm too afraid. I'm too nervous. And too, I'm, I'm too angry, and I can't keep it under control or, and so I don't know if that's what what you've been saying. I know, for myself, I've definitely noticed moments of self judgment of just feeling like, No, I'm the helping professional, I should have that, you know, I should be cool, calm and collected. Right? 

And, and like I told you at the very start of this, like, we don't need to be like that. But even though I know that sometimes that's not the automatic thing that comes up. And that's okay. Again, that's okay. Whatever is coming up is okay. But if you think about, like, maybe you had a conversation with a friend, or, again, maybe one of your children, if you have children, and in the you know, just about the stress that they're experiencing over the past couple of weeks, and I'm sure you probably didn't tell them like, Yeah, you really are messing things up, or you're doing such a bad job right now. Or, you know, you should really like Get your act together and deal with this global pandemic, in a more productive way. It's not that big of a deal, it's going to be fine. Look for the bright side. And these are all kinds of things that hopefully, we're not saying to other people, right when they're coming to us in times of pain and suffering. But often, they're what we say to ourselves, right? What we say to ourselves is like, you got to snap out of it, you've got to do better. You got to be there more for the people around you. 

And well, I have many things to say there. But one thing is we can't be there for the people around us if we're not taking care of ourselves first. So you know that saying like, you can't pour from an empty cup, we have to fill our own cup, we have to take time for ourselves. We have to be kind of beer on beer support system right now, in order to be a support system for other people too. And then also, yeah, just being able to talk to ourselves in like a kinder, more gentle way. So really acknowledging, you know, the pain that you might be experiencing right now. That can that's mindfulness of our feelings. So being able to say like, oh, this really hurts right now, or this is this is stress. This is fear. These are all normal human reactions to have right now. And it's okay. And I'm not alone. I'm not alone in it either. Those are really what were the kind of the messages we need to be telling ourselves right now are these kinds of things that are really non judgmental with what we're going through and really just accepting and really just saying to ourselves, like, I'm here for you, I'm here for you and you're not alone.

So again, so often, you know, people will say to me, like, okay, but good. I'm just not good at that. Or like, like, I can't, I don't I don't know why I'm so hard on myself. There's so many reasons why we might be hard on ourselves. One of those is because because of the fact that we have a negativity bias in our brains. And so what that means is like, our brains are just more wired to be looking out for danger. And sometimes we direct that towards ourselves. And so they're our brains are looking out for what's missing, where we might not be doing things good enough. And it takes practice to to have our brains kind of evaluate ourselves and say, You're enough, you're doing good enough, you're doing really well. It's okay to be feeling how you're feeling. So it takes it takes practice, you know, I'm gonna sound like a broken record by the end of this hour with it as it takes practice. 

Another thing too, is that we don't like feeling pain, as humans, and not that we don't like to, but actually, it's really good for our survival that we are aware of when physical pain is coming, and we get out of the way. So for instance, if you touched a hot burner on the stove, and you know, you, your brain responded, like Danger, danger, that's physical pain, right? Now, it will be really good for you to pull your hand away. Same thing with you know, you're about to cross the street and you see an oncoming car coming. Yeah, you want to jump back. And so we can be so thankful that our brains are do have that tendency to pull away when physical pain is near. The problem is that our brain does the same thing when emotional pain is there. So our our instant reaction, usually when we're feeling fear, or when we're feeling sadness, or loneliness, is to judge ourselves about it to try to paint a, you know, paint a silver lining on things like, you know, it's going to be okay. And those things can end up being really invalidating to the pain that we're feeling. So with mindfulness and self-compassion, we can acknowledge and observe, wow, this is what's happening right now. We don't get all wrapped up in it, we don't have to sit with it all day long. But we can just acknowledge that it's there. 

So again, if you're a parent, or work with children, or just think about, you know, maybe you know, back when I was a kid, maybe what did I need to hear? You can think about things like that about, you know, how would I talk to somebody who's going through a really painful time? And what would it maybe a child need to hear right now, if they're feeling scared. And really, what they need to hear is like, it's okay to be scared. And these are scary times. And there's nothing wrong with that. We all feel afraid at different times. And what do you need right now? I'm not I'm here for you. I'm here for you. And is there something else you need? 

So one of the really great self-compassion exercises that I love to share with clients and practice myself, it's called the self-compassion break. So this is something I've shared on my website before. So if you've been on there, you might have seen it before. But I would love for us to practice it today, too. Because it goes through these different phases, or these different pieces of self-compassion and mindfulness, the common humanity, and that self kindness. 

I do want to say like, another thing that sometimes can be difficult about practicing self-compassion, is that sometimes when you first start practicing self-compassion, and being gentle and kind with yourself, it doesn't always feel good right away. And the reason is, is it think you can think about it, like, you know, so if you were out in a really, really cold weather, and you got inside, you're like, Oh, I can't wait to get into a really hot bath. Like, that sounds so nice. And, and wonderful. But if you've ever done that, you know, like, you get in, and it kind of stings. And it burns at first, right? So even though it sounds great, in theory, it might hurt a little bit at first. And the same thing can happen with self-compassion. And the reason for that is is because of the fact that often being really kind and gentle to ourselves, can remind us of opposite moments where we haven't had people treat us like that, or we haven't been kind with ourselves. And so if you notice that coming up, like just I really want you to know, like that, that's okay. And that's normal. It's definitely I've had those experiences come up before. And really, then so in those moments, you know, you might just check in with yourself and see, is this okay? Is it okay to kind of sit through this. And if it's not, then that's the most self-compassionate thing you can do is to say, I'm going to I'm going to try this exercise later, I'm going to go do something else for myself right now. You know, maybe if you wanted to continue listening to what I'm saying, you can do something like, you know, if you have a pen, they're like doodle or something like that. But just to let you know that, that as we're trying this exercise, if you feel that at all, it's completely normal. There's nothing wrong with you. 

So with the self-compassion break, we're also going to bring in another element of self-compassion. That's called soothing touch. And it might sound a little weird to try this out, but it works so well. And it's not just because it like, I don't know, because it sounds all sounds nice and fluffy or anything like that, like we know on a physical level that are that kind of Yeah, on a physiological level, that actually soothing touch, even when it's our own hands can actually really deep, like down regulate our nervous system. So it's a really fancy way to say it can really calm us down. So you can do things like you can actually give yourself a hug, I really like putting two hands on my chest. It's amazing how much of a difference it can make. Sometimes I just even just do that, and I, oh, wow, that was really soothed. Or you can do something, if that feels like too much like, well, that's I don't want to go there. You can do something like more subtle, rest your hands on your lap, wrap your hands around your stomach, rest your head in your palm, get creative with it, whatever feels most natural for you. But there will be a time in this exercise that I suggest that that you incorporate that as well.

So again, I'm going to ask you to close your eyes, if that feels comfortable, you always have the option to just look down if you want to do that instead. And we're going to just get comfortable again and shift back into focusing on our bodies. Take a couple deep breaths again.

We're gonna bring to mind something that's happened recently, that's been challenging. And when you think about this, I want you to think about something that has been challenging, but has not been overwhelming. So I know right now a lot of us are faced with really difficult moments. And it might be tempting to try out something that's been the most overwhelming thing of your week. But that's actually not very self-compassionate, because again, we're practicing. And when we're practicing something, we want to start with something more simple at first, just to get some, get some experience to get some practice with it. So maybe if you think about, you know, on a scale of zero to 10, something that's maybe three or four. Sometimes this can be helpful to think about, you know, you wouldn't just throw yourself into the deep end of a pool, right? You would, would wade into it if you were just learning to swim. So we're just waiting into this self-compassion practice. But thinking about something that that has been hard, maybe some negative feedback you've gotten or something that's happened, that's happened to at home, maybe with your kids or your partner. Just bring that to mind. And what we want to do is we want to bring some mindfulness to that. 

So if you can notice, you know, a specific feeling that comes up, you can name it, you can, you know, say, oh, that's, that's anxiety, or that's shame right now. Or that's loneliness, or that's fear. And, but it's okay, if you don't have a specific feeling that comes up, you know, you can also just say something like, This really hurts, or, you know, try to try to use your own language and what makes sense to use. So then that sounds the most natural for you. So maybe it's just the sax I hate this even, you know, it's okay to say that, whatever it is just our, you know, whatever comes up naturally for you.

And what we want to do, though, is try to not judge that. So if you did say I hate this come up, but we also want to say, It's okay. It's okay to feel this way right now. It's a normal human feeling to feel this. Sometimes things hurt. Now, we're shifting into that common humanity piece. So we can also say things like, I'm not alone. This is a hard part of being humans. These kinds of things hurt. Sometimes here, people fall into the trap of saying things like, Well, other people have things worse. And so this isn't a big deal. And if you find your mind going there, I just really want you to pull back because pull back and just stay focused with your experience. It hurts. And what's going on for you right now hurts. And we want to validate that.

And we want to remember that you're not alone. And then we want to bring in the self-kindness.

So with this piece we want to think about, well, what would I say to a friend right now who's going through a really hard time like this? Maybe I would say something like I'm here for you. It's okay.

You might also think about, what if I had a friend sitting next to me right now, you know, maybe my nicest, most generous, most patient friend, what I really want them to whisper in my ear. And then see if you can say those words back to yourself you might even ask yourself, what do you need right now? What would really help?

And I'm realizing I did the soothing touch, and I forgot to tell all of you about it. So we'll bring that in right now is now you can bring in that soothing touch of trying to give yourself a hug, resting your hands on your chest, wrapping them around your stomach, whatever you decided you wanted to try. And just say those soothing words to yourself, again, those self kindness words, I'm here for you. You're not alone. This is so hard. And it's okay. And even what do you need right now.

When you're ready, you can open your eyes again, and you can stretch out if you need to. Yeah, I'm sorry about that, about forgetting to prompt you for the soothing touch. Like, it's something that I feel like I've has become so ingrained for me, I just automatically did it myself. 

So what I like about the self-compassion break, is it something that we just did as more of like a kind of a formal meditation, but you can do it on the go, you can do it any, any time of day, anywhere you are, you could even do it out in public. Maybe maybe you don't want to do this, if that felt uncomfortable, but you could. But you could do it in your car, while you're waking up first thing in the morning, before you go to bed. And you could just go through it even a little bit faster if that was important. Or just use the soothing touch to that's all it's an option as well. But really, what this exercise can really help you to do is that are automatic reaction is often to have that critical voice, what I often call the inner critic come up when we're going through a hard time, or we might even just our natural tendency is to switch into problem solving mode, I feel bad, what do we need to do to fix it? 

Self-compassion offers us the opportunity to push the pause button before we jump into problem solving mode. Just sit there be there with ourselves for a minute. And often that puts us in a much better place to get into like problem solving, or zooming out and seeing the big picture or the bright side. So you can also think about it like that, you know, I'm just gonna add this as like, hard thing comes up self-compassion break, and then I go into the mode of, of reacting or not reacting but responding in the moment. 

So self-compassion is a way that we can cultivate another voice of more compassionate voice of like an inner friend or an ally. And, and or mentor, an inner cheerleader, like, whatever, however you want to think about it. And again, I'm gonna say what I've been saying a few times is our takes practice, it does take practice. And I can't say that, like I already kind of, you know, mentioned this is that this isn't all, it's not always my automatic reaction either. You know, sometimes I will notice myself being hard on myself. And what I've learned too, is that that's okay. And self-compassion, there is just being compassionate to the part of you that's being hard on yourself. So you can just kind of keep it that adding layers. And just as long as that the last thing is, and I'm really kind and welcoming and, and gentle with myself as the last step. That's really, really helpful, really important. 

So just like I said, with mindfulness, people who have been practicing for decades, aren't just, you know, completely able to shut everything off and be in the moment. Same thing with self-compassion, it doesn't mean that you don't have any critical voices that come up, it just means you notice them. And you're able to, you have tools that you can bring in and be gentle with yourself in those moments, as well. 

So there's one of the myths about self-compassion, or one of the things that can often get in people's way, is a fear that self-compassion is going to be really self centered. We're really, um, you know, make you just wrapped up in yourself and are self pitying. And I just want to really clarify that that's not what this is at all. Like I said earlier, you know, you can't pour from an empty cup. If for you if it's really important in your life, to be able to be compassionate towards others, and be open hearted, and think right now about the time How can I be there for the people around me or people in my community, this, you need this, you need to have have these resources, you need to be there for yourself as well. And research suggests that the more compassionate we are towards ourselves, the more compassion we can have towards the outside world. So sometimes people call self-compassion, inner compassion, it's the same thing. It's like the compassion that you're putting out into the world. You're just directing it also into yourself. Because you're just as deserving of that compassion as well.