Why Self-Compassion Might Change Your Ability to Cope With Your To Do List, A Rare Child, and a Pandemic

Pamela Alma Weymouth MFA, MSW

If you told me twenty years ago that I needed to practice more self-compassion I’d probably have laughed and said right, and I’ll eat tofu and start wearing clogs too. 

As fate would have it, I now not only eat tofu but I know how to cook it with a little bit of ginger, soy sauce and sesame oil. Not only that but I practice yoga every morning (for the amount of minutes I can fit in before my sons barge in the door), I meditate while I’m in the downward facing dog, and I have a pair of flowered clogs that are so worn out I cannot wear them in public anymore. My East Coast mother says that I’m a full blown crazy hippy. I’d argue that I’m actually the most sane I've ever been--and that all these things get me through each day with a little bit more grace.

My thirteen-year-old self would have laughed at my fifty-two year old self. I’m a bit more weathered, my belly is a lot rounder, I can’t fit into my skin-tight leather pants, and I’ve got a crooked scar across my forehead, just one of many lines that now mark the terrain of my face. Still, I wouldn’t trade all that youth for the inner-growth that these years have given me. Parenting has been no picnic—but it has pushed me to do the kind of self-healing that I might not have done otherwise. Motherhood is an ass-kicking school like no other.

That’s not to say that I don’t still have a lot of internal scrubbing, polishing and buffing to do—but it is to say that I’ve come a long way from that lost college kid to this mother who learned how to carry howling twins across a city street while pushing a double-wide stroller.

All of this to say that the things that we think we should do as young smart-asses, is not always the thing we really should do. Often, the strident opinions we have in our teens and twenties are direct echoes of what our parents taught us. Sometimes, it takes a winding journey away from home, to lead us toward our own own opinions and values. In the end, we might choose to hold onto the best values that our parents imparted and to release those messages that do not continue to serve us.

Normally, my New Year’s resolutions offer me a mirror of all of my failings (You’re always late! Your house is such a pig-stye! Why can’t you pay all your bills on time! Why do you still have fifteen boxes in the garage from the Dark Ages? Why can’t you be more like So and So on Facebook who alphabetized her spice cabinet during the pandemic along with sewing hand-made flowered masks for seven thousand health-care workers?)

My favorite Buddhist story goes like this. The Buddha asks his student “If a person is struck by an arrow is it painful? If the person is struck by a second arrow, is it even more painful?”

Then he adds, “In life, we can’t always control the first arrow, However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. This second arrow is optional.” 

I typically approach the New Year with a lens to all of my flaws that I’d like to erase. Pushing myself to improve is a good thing. It’s a sign that I want to be a better human. But I know now that pushing myself to fit into a teeny tiny box that I will never fit into is not helpful. Beating myself up (the second arrow) for not fitting into the teeny tiny box? Less helpful. I cannot grow when I am feeling small and bad. 

Apparently Dr. Kristen’ Neff’s research validates the Buddha’s insights. So if you needed a reason to be kinder to yourself—now you’ve got religion and science to back it up.

As you attempt to formulate your resolutions this year, the science suggests you will actually achieve more long term happiness—and results—by choosing resolutions that are kinder, and bring you more joy.

Instead of your masochistic resolution: I need to lose weight because I’m fat, ugly and have no self-control, so I’m going to deprive myself and go on a hard core diet that I will hate.

Try the Self-Compassionate Resolution: I want to eat more mindfully paying attention to and savoring everything that I put into my body.

Then, when you reach for the potato chips instead of the apple, instead of telling yourself what a failure you are, try talking to yourself with compassion the way you might talk to your best friend or your child. Take out the second arrow. 

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