Compassion is a word the vast majority of us easily embrace as a beautiful value. You might consider it one of your core values. It may be the lens that you want to see the world through.

“Compassion involves "feeling for another" and is a precursor to empathy, the ‘feeling as another’ capacity for better person-centered acts of active compassion; in common parlance active compassion is the desire to alleviate another's suffering. ^”  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion

So far so good, right?

Where this starts to break down is when we examine how well we are consistently compassionate towards ourselves.

Guilt, shame, negative self-talk and ridiculously high expectations are all part of what we more frequently offer ourselves.

Picture a scene where we have someone other than you hanging out with you all day and saying all these horrid things to you. “Your stomach is ugly.” “I can’t believe you just said that, you are so dumb!”

Whatever if may be, your negative self-talk is not something you would likely ever say to someone else. The impact of us allowing this self-critic to go unchecked is enormous!

When other people talk to us the way our inner critic sometimes does we call it ABUSE!

Receiving messages all day long that criticize us instead of building us up takes a toll. It requires resources and limits our abilities to care for ourself and limits our ability to care as effectively for others.

Self-compassion provides a rich environment where we can more quickly fill our tanks back up. Self-criticism is like poking holes in your fuel tank.

As we practice self-compassion and unplug our inner critics, we begin to see others differently. We notice when our friends are mean to themselves. We start to model kindness to self more often. We can differentiate between healthy self-compassion and distasteful narcism.

Unplugging your inner critic and awakening your self-compassion is life-changing!

As we started planning for The Cedars Ranch 's debut wellness event (our new event center in the Texas Hill Country), this important topic quickly took the lead as a foundational one for all other wellness topics and events to come.

Fierce Self-Compassion: Unplug Your Inner Critic will be hosted at The Cedars Ranch on Saturday, April 27th, featuring keynote speaker Dr. Kristin Neff , pioneering researcher in self-compassion at the University of Texas. 

We'd love you to join us for the self-compassion event of the year, and learn proven strategies to cultivate emotional well-being, build inner strength, and thrive in our lives. This event is also prequalified for CCEUs with the International Coach Federation (ICF), in the form of 2 Core Competency Hours and 4 Resource Hours. Get Your Ticket Today while places remain! 

Buy Your Ticket

Please feel free to share this event with your friends, family and colleagues too. Hope to see you April 27th! 

Until next time,

Marilyn

Marilyn Orr, CEC, PCC is a Leadership and Mentor Coach with Capacity Building Coaching , and Training Partner on EQi 2.0 with MHS. She is co-owner of new Texas Hill Country eco event center and wellness retreat, The Cedars Ranch. Marilyn provides professional coaching for executives and business leaders, mentor coaching for coaches, and leadership development support in the form of coaching skills training, soft-skills development, facilitation of key discussions and team coaching. Want to work with Marilyn? Reach Out to her today.

Marilyn is published author of everyday resiliency workbook How Absorbent Are Your Shocks? , and is leading a workshop on developing emotional resiliency at the upcoming Fierce Self-Compassion: Unplug Your Inner Critic event at The Cedars Ranch in the Texas Hill Country this April, 2019.