Cultivating Self-Compassion Despite Obstacles, with Sean Fargo

Speaker 1 · 0:05Hey everyone! For today's episode, I thought I'd share a little bit about something that's so central and foundational to our lives. And yet something that most of us struggle with the most. Self-compassion. These barriers to self-compassion are often the result of our upbringing, social conditioning, and culture in which we live. I'm going to share some of the things that keep us from offering ourselves our own care and what we can do instead to make space for the fullness of our humanity. You know, when we talk about self-compassion and grief and mindfulness, it's not like they're these foreign concepts that we have to learn for the first time. They're things that we already know to some degree. We might not use these words, but we've all had moments of presence and moments of grief and moments of just, you know, wishing ourselves well. But, you know, there's also these other conditioned beliefs, patterns that we adopt that get in the way of this natural human experience. There's a lot of conditioning around this, at least in the West. Oftentimes parents are quick to say, oh, it's okay, don't feel bad, don't feel sad. Here's a piece of candy. Here's a smile, like, oh, it's okay. There's the gender thing going on, too. You know, boys don't cry. Or for both genders or all genders, like, are you being a crybaby? And we're not meant to be happy all the time. A lot of people are scared to feel grief. A lot of people are scared to open to their suffering. And that's a form of suffering. And so oftentimes we we kind of project that outwards. And there we fear other people doing what we're afraid to do ourselves. Because we might fear that we'll we'll get lost in it, or we'll never come back, or that it's self-indulgent, or that it's going to be too intense, or that we'll admit to our own unworthiness. I think Sharon Salzberg does a really good job of messaging this, that it's okay to feel what you feel. Gabor Mate says this a lot too. You know, with my daughter, I really do my best to allow her to feel her range of emotions. And I'm always saying things like, Yeah, it's okay to feel sad sometimes. I feel sad sometimes too. It's okay to feel angry sometimes. It makes sense. I get angry too. One of the most important things we can do with our kids is to model our humanity so that there's not this sort of pattern of hiding it, of suppressing it. I've done a few YouTube's over the last couple months where I take it a step further from it's okay to feel what you feel, to it's important to feel what you feel. It's not just okay, it's important. And as Francis said, it's something to be celebrated. That's great. You're allowing yourself to feel this. I'm allowing myself to feel this.

Speaker 2 · 4:28I don't need to figure it out, I don't need to rationalize it. I don't need to teach myself through this. Can I feel this?

Speaker 1 · 4:44And there's so many cultural messages that are kind of the opposite to that. Everything's being sold to make you feel good. You know, it's amazing what marketing can do. This pen will solve all your problems, and a lot of us have these thoughts and beliefs that stem from childhood, usually from parents who communicate, say, some conditionality to full love, or maybe we perceived it that way, and if that's the case, I do encourage journaling about it and expressing sort of a reactivity in a closed environment, and then working with well, how did they get to that point where they expressed it in that way? And maybe writing a letter to that parent that they won't ever read, but writing a letter to foster some sort of communication around it, but not actually giving it to them, but writing a letter, just kind of being curious about what it was like for them to parent in that way, and to notice how that pattern is their pattern, and it's not a pattern that we have to adopt for ourselves, working with self-forgiveness and forgiveness of them after that, but um self-compassion is usually women veer to this more than men. A lot of people, but especially men, I think have this hero mentality, especially sort of traumatizing a lot of younger teen boys, that it's not manly to open to our emotions or our suffering with care. Because oftentimes the story of who we think we are gets in the way, or what we think we are. I am someone who does this, I am someone who doesn't do this, I am a rational head-based person.

Speaker 2 · 7:27I am damaged goods.

Speaker 1 · 7:32I am lost. Whatever we're carrying around who we think we are, what we think we are. See if we can just soften that and drop that a little bit, if any of those ring true.

Speaker 2 · 7:48Yeah, I am unworthy. I am not good enough. I am not as bad as other people. Just drop these stories a little bit, and just sense into this experience right now of being me.

Speaker 1 · 8:15And not like gathering new storylines, but just staying with this experience of however this is being mean, and sometimes that allows us to kind of drop into the heart of me, and so this is um something that's hard for everyone because who wants to open to their suffering? Why are you asking me to be with what I'm trying to get rid of every second of my life?

Speaker 2 · 8:59It can be especially hard for men, including me, which is why I'm still a big work in progress.

Speaker 1 · 9:13But it takes courage to acknowledge our suffering and to open to it without trying to suppress it or exaggerate it or avoid it. It's like we don't have to like confront our suffering head on and say, okay, I think I'm ready. It's gonna be hard, but I can do this, and that that's fine too, but it can be as simple as just kind of like allowing ourselves just kind of like just be with this energy of of this ease or just tension. It's like, oh, what is this? Like, can I just kind of slide with this for a little bit? Just kind of like move with it. What is this tension? Oh yeah, can feel it here. I think there's some fear. Okay, just a very light, oh yeah, there's tension.

Speaker 2 · 10:25Yeah, I think there's a little bit of fear here, okay.

Speaker 1 · 10:32You know, and then I can like be with it as heavy as I want, or with as much focus as I want, and allow myself to feel intense fear if if if if the situation feels safe, or allow myself to feel grief, or express something intense. And it can just be as light as just kind of this judo move of just kind of moving with the energy a little bit, and just not like confronting it per se, or fighting it, or feeling like we have to fix it, but just oh yeah, there's like subtle shift here. It's allowing the energy to still be there, but I'm like being very gentle with it, not like hitting it, just kind of moving with it, just simple acknowledgement.

Speaker 2 · 11:32You know, it can be a very soft awareness, a soft sense of care. It doesn't have to be doing just kind of opening a little bit. What may be uncomfortable. This discomfort is here, and it's okay. There's also a sense of care.

Speaker 1 · 12:02You know, they're not mutually exclusive. It's not like we're bringing in the care to get rid of the discomfort. Both can coexist.

Speaker 2 · 12:12Yes, there's stress, yes, there's tension, yes, there's suffering, and there's also this gentle awareness. And both may get bigger, or one might get bigger, one might get smaller, kind of sensing into how those energies rise and fall. A lot of people choose to numb themselves via distraction, addiction, doing figuring things out, and that's harming billions of us. And so one of the antidotes to that is to slow down, and that slowing down opens space for our humanity to be felt, to be known.

Speaker 1 · 13:34And so oftentimes on meditation retreats, usually by the end of the second day, start of the third day, boxes of tissues start making their way around the meditation hall.

Speaker 2 · 13:54Because people have given themselves permission to slow down and to allow their feelings to surface, and it's a great gift to feel that.

Speaker 1 · 14:14If I could tell you the amount of compassion that's in the room when there's fifty to a hundred people meditating, and you hear one person cry, there's so much love.

Speaker 2 · 14:35We all feel it. Slowing down opening the space to allow these feelings to come.

Speaker 1 · 14:50You know, I might put on my website that tissues are not included in the price of our offerings.

Speaker 2 · 14:58You know, to encourage this feeling, whatever's here. No judgment. And quite the opposite appreciation for people feeling their stuff and softening their own judgments around how they think they should feel. Mindfulness equals being content. Mindfulness equals being happy. And that gets in the way of just sensing how we actually feel, sensing into how we naturally feel, sensing into all of our human experience.

Speaker 1 · 16:05So for those of us sharing mindfulness with others, you know, we need to keep reminding people. If you're doing a body scan and a strong emotion comes up, let's bring mindfulness to that in the body. Scan that scan the emotion in the body. Doing mindfulness of breathing and tears come up, don't fight them, feel them with mindful eating. Am I so locked into the moisture of my tongue or the flavor of the turmeric that I ignore how this makes me feel?

Speaker 2 · 16:50Slowing down, creating space for our humanity to be felt. Our beautiful humanity.

Speaker 1 · 17:19Not just the ones we like. It's not only okay to feel what we feel, or to turn towards our emotions and feel them, but it's actually necessary and important. So may we all create space for our feelings. An act of self compassion and self care.