When we judge a person or event, we make a determination that is “All Good” or “All Bad” When that person is yourself, you can paint yourself into quite a tight and painful corner.
What if a good person makes mistakes? A person who is bad in one situation is good in others? A situation has good and bad elements? What if we misread an intention? What if we judge someone based on one interaction where that person was having a really bad day outside of our interaction?
The opposite of judgment in compassion. For others and for ourselves. A quick reminder of the definition of self-compassion… kindness toward the self entails being gentle, supportive, and understanding: “Rather than harshly judging oneself for personal shortcomings, the self is offered warmth and unconditional acceptance.” In other words, being kind to ourselves in good times and bad, in sickness and in health—and even when we make mistakes. Having self-compassion means being able to recognize the difference between making a bad decision and being a bad person. When you have self-compassion, you understand that your worth is unconditional.
Beginner’s Mind invites us to consider people, places and events as if we were seeing it for the very first time. This keeps old stories and judgments out of our decision making. Let’s apply Beginner’s Mind to Self-Compassion and consider the questions above.
What if I am a good person who made a mistake? What if there are areas of my life where there is continued room for growth? What if I look at what happened through fresh eyes and see that there were things that I did right? What if my intentions were good and still this bad thing happened outside of my control? What if I made a decision when I was tired, hungry, overwhelmed or needed further information? What if I snapped because too many things went wrong before I ever reached this turning point?
Self-Compassion that is gained through the beginner’s mind gives us fresh perspective. A chance to learn from our mistakes. Makes room for future growth. Allows for new resilience. Allows mistakes to be healthy learning opportunities. Helps us to avoid falling too deeply into guilt, shame, fear, resentment, overwhelm. Helps us to remain present while maintaining reasonable hope.
This week, I think I made a pretty good case for why it is good to approach self-compassion through beginner’s mind. I want you to think about these questions and ways that you judge yourself through your thoughts because next week, we are going to work on a specific skill to move beyond defusing the thoughts that block our self-compassion. We are going to clean out the boxes and closets of judgment and make room for self-compassion.