Meditation: Calm, How to Meditate: (Self)Love Bomb Length: 13 minutes Where: Living Room, Michigan How It Felt: Beautiful & Powerful Who Joined Me: Steve
After a slight detour, we are back to the How to Meditate series on Calm. This session was Day 23 of 30. Just seven more to go!
Jeff Warren shared at the beginning of this meditation that he almost didn’t include this lesson in the 30 day syllabus. He said he still struggles with self-love and self-compassion and tends to beat himself up when he struggles, but he knew he had to include it because it’s so important.
How can we truly have compassion for others if we can’t find it for ourselves?
It was great timing, honestly. I was down yesterday. I felt the weight of the world for some reason, and I was not happy with myself for that. I didn’t have a lot of energy, I was crabby, and I was feeling pessimistic about the state of things, which is not my usual state of mind.
Basically, I was feeling sorry for myself, then feeling mad at myself on top of it for being a baby.
To put it another way, what Jeff said was #relatable.
Why do we do this to ourselves? We gain nothing from kicking ourselves when we are down, but we insist on it. We don’t expect others to always be positive, happy, perfect, on top of things, but we expect it of ourselves? It’s just silly.
I was especially glad Steve was doing this one with me, because he tends toward perfectionism and I’m constantly reminding him to give himself a break, that it’s okay to be a human being who makes mistakes. He’s been doing some inner child work, and this meditation was perfect for that. A lot of telling ourselves, “It’s ok, little buddy.” That kind of thing.
The session ended with a RuPaul quote about loving yourself, which couldn’t be more fitting. RuPaul’s class inspired me to go on this year-long meditation journey in the first place, so it’s a nice reminder of how far I’ve come and why I’m doing this. Just perfect!
Feeling much better today after this meditation helped inspire some self-care and compassion last night. It helps, too, to have a partner who is just kind and patient from his head to his toes. He took a long walk with me, was sweet when I was crabby, let me talk everything out, took care of so much, and gave me some space to decompress. When he’s gentle with me, it reminds me to do the same for myself, for him, for everyone.
The moral of the story: there is no point to beating yourself up when you struggle, make a mistake, or feel more human than superhuman. If we can’t forgive ourselves for being less than perfect, how can we forgive others? If we hold ourselves to impossible standards, it’s likely we are projecting those onto the people around us, too, and that’s just cruel.
Equanimity extends to ourselves, not just the world around us!
My Year of Meditation 