Self-compassion & the permission to enjoy
Now that Self-Compassion for Dummies has officially launched, I occasionally get to hear the experiences of people who have read the book and begun to practice. The following is from a new friend and colleague who shared a fascinating (and very practical) first experience of the practice:
I have diligently been reading your book (mid Chapter 3 now) for the past few days. In the past I have struggled to pick up a sport. I was never the athletic kind when I was a kid, and you would always find me with my head buried in books rather than outside playing. My extent of sport was to pay an occasional glance at Steffi Graf's latest fashion at Wimbledon (yes, I am dating myself here). For the last 7 years or so, I have started appreciating a lot more the benefits of being active and learning a sport. My husband, on the other hand, is very athletic and plays sports regularly. In the past he has offered to teach me a multitude of things: I start with a lot of enthusiasm, but within 5 minutes it would end up being a screaming match between the two of us, me getting extremely frustrated, and an hour later just plain bitter about the whole thing, and you guessed it right, that would be the last of that particular sport.
Anyway, fast forward to yesterday.. I was cleaning my garage and found a tennis racquet that I had bought at some point thinking that it’s a sport I would like to learn. But I am sure we had an aforementioned incident, and I had tucked away the darned racquet, never to see daylight ever again. Somehow, yesterday I wanted to pick it up again. So I asked my husband (timidly) if he would teach me. It was one of those picture perfect summer days! So we headed over to our neighborhood tennis court. 90 minutes later, I was ecstatic. I did not know where the time went. No, I had not overnight become the next contender for the US Open, but I was genuinely happy! I was really surprised - what had changed? Why did I not have the same terrible, upsetting experience I have always had in the past? I thought about it a lot and here's what I think was different this time:
1. I went to the court with absolutely zero expectations. I just wanted to enjoy the beautiful day as if I was going for a walk in the park.
2. Every time I missed a shot or didn't get it right, my first thought was 'gosh, you suck!', and then I would remind myself immediately that this is the first time I am even holding a tennis racquet on a court. It's just going to take time, and as long as I am having fun, let's keep going.
3. When my husband repeated the same instruction for the fifteenth time, instead of getting mad at him (my previous reaction used to be “does he think I am stupid, I get what he is saying, just saying the same thing again and again is not going to make me do anything differently”) I thought “he really cares that I get this right and hence he is being so patient with me.”
4. And lastly, when I would miss a ball or couldn't get it over the net, instead of focusing on what I couldn’t do, I kept telling myself what I could do - that I ran all the way to where the ball was, or I at least managed to hit the ball, so what if it didn't go all the way across.
Not having ever practiced self-compassion before, I did not know what to expect, but I think I have stumbled into something and had a glimpse of what it could look like. And oh gosh, the effect is absolutely exhilarating! It's like I can actually breathe and really immerse myself into what I am doing without a worry in the world.
I cannot thank you enough for introducing me to this side of me that I didn't even know existed. I have always been top of my class, over-achiever, goal oriented, “everything-needs-to-be-perfect” kind of a person, and never cut myself any slack. I always thought that being understanding and kind to myself is unacceptable. Don't get me wrong, I am not a mean person, I would say all of those things to others, but when it came to me, I would be my harshest critic. I don't think what I did yesterday was expecting anything less from myself or lowering my standards. It was merely giving myself permission to enjoy the process of learning, and not anticipating the end outcome.
This person discovered, on her own, what I write about in the book: that we don’t lower our standards when we are kind to ourselves, but instead we open up to the fullness of our experience, which leads us to want to stay engaged, try harder when necessary, and generally make the whole experience more fruitful and rich.