Be Well Moment: A Practice to Show Yourself Kindness

Welcome back to Be Well Besties. In our last episode, we talked about how self-compassion often gets misunderstood as being soft, avoidant, or letting ourselves off the hook, especially when things feel uncomfortable or imperfect. Today, we're joined by Ben Dolowich, our intern Ben, to explore mindfulness practice that helps us stay present with ourselves instead of checking out or just powering through. This kind of awareness is an important part of real self-compassion.
Not ignoring what's there, but noticing it honestly, without judgment, so we can actually grow and respond differently.
Let's dive in and talk about how mindfulness can help us practice self-compassion in a way that keeps us engaged, not off the hook.
Before we kind of get into the practice, there are two things that I think are very important to keep in mind as you do this exercise.
Number one, remain curious.
Put on your Sherlock Holmes hat
and be prepared to blow some bubbles.
Just like you did.
We do love bubbles around here.
The reason for this is, you know,
as you guys pointed out,
it's important to be very non-judgmental
about what comes up in your mind.
If you're gonna practice self-compassion,
that also means you're practicing self-acceptance.
Oh, say that again, please.
If you're gonna be practicing self-compassion,
that means you're also practicing self-acceptance.
Okay, I'm gonna try and let that digest a little bit.
Let it sink in.
The second thing is to remember,
to fall back on what you would say
to someone you love very much,
if they say the same things to you
that we may encounter today through this exercise.
In the journey of self-acceptance and self-compassion,
you may come across moments
where you're very not nice to yourself.
And that's totally normal.
As we kind of talked about exhaustively in the last episode,
that's part of the package of having a brain that only wants to survive
and only wants to find the bad things, the negative things that can hurt you.
So again, the two things to keep in mind before this practice,
remain curious and talk to yourself and react to the thoughts you have
the way you would if it was someone that you love very much
sharing these thoughts with you.
So my practice is simple.
You just have to close your eyes and you just say to yourself, I am.
And don't finish that sentence.
Let your brain finish that sentence.
How you finish that sentence could be a lot of different things.
It could be a characteristic of yours.
It could be something that describes maybe the way you engage with your work.
I don't know.
that's kind of for your brain to uncover for itself.
Don't fight anything that pops up.
If it's good, then you've identified something
that you really love about yourself.
You've identified a building block to some good self-esteem,
some very quality self-acceptance, self-compassion.
And if you've identified something not so nice,
something negative popped up for you,
then that's kind of something to explore further
to maybe dispel, maybe challenge as you incorporate more self-compassion in your day-to-day
reflection of yourself, your day-to-day self-image. So that's the exercise.
What came up for y'all, besties?
Thanks, intern Ben. A, I really appreciated that this was a very short exercise that we can squeeze
in whenever we have 30 seconds of time, which oftentimes in our busy lives is all the time we
have. I was really surprised by what popped into my brain. It was not something that I
would have thought. I mean, it was a characteristic that I consider myself,
but it's not one that I tend to linger on or remember when things are hard.
So yeah, it was just kind of a little wild ride for me.
Yeah.
And I am a very visual person.
And because you said bubbles, the IMs were in bubbles
and then they would pop and then the next one would come.
Again, also a little surprised by some of the things
like that felt very random.
And I think it's important to mention, because you had said,
don't try to fill in the blank, let your mind do it.
It can take it.
It took me a second to warm up to that.
Like at first I was like, what I should be thinking this thing
or it should be I am fill in the blank with the thing that you want it to be versus and it took a
few iterations of going through for it to then just flow more naturally and those I am's I also
love we've done I am statements before in different aspects but this is a different twist
than I have practiced I am statements before and I love the non-judgmental just whatever comes up
versus trying to create this I am affirmation statement
that I should aim or strive to be
or I want to be this versus like it just is.
So I had a lot of gratitude for the practice as a whole
and stretched me in a way that I wasn't quite expecting.
Yeah.
And I didn't know the practice.
I didn't know what it was going to be.
So it was interesting to have my brain just assign the thing.
Like my brain really did fill in the blank
and it happened to be a positive.
So I just kept going, you know?
So somehow more and more and more kind of popped up
and that was just a nice time to be able to kind of sit
and relax and be here with you
and with, of course, all of our besties.
But it was really a time of kindness.
So thank you for that.
No problem, no problem.
Now, if there's an instance where maybe
a not so kind thought pops up into your head,
and I'm not surprised to hear that it kind of took some
getting ready to just let stuff flow in. Your brain's always in life or death mode.
Anything that it perceives as any type of danger, it will do what it can to steer you away from that.
It's a big barrier to self-acceptance and an unconditional positive regard for what pops up
in your mind. So that's why it's important to talk to yourself with a lot of kindness.
Because if you're going to explore something that your brain is assigning as maybe dangerous,
maybe something to avoid if you're going to go down that path you may as well go down that path
with someone who is very kind to you yeah yeah like holding trying to hold it with a huh didn't
know that like i i've oftentimes if it was not like something that i would deem positive i was
just kind of like a that's there yeah that one's there and this is a great time to remind our
besties that if things feel hard use your resources reach out to your friends reach out to your loved
ones if you need professional guidance reach out to 988 you can call text chat 24 7 and they are
always there to assist you but intern Ben thank you so much so much gratitude for you joining us
today and helping us flex our self-compassion muscles just a little bit besties remember that
that if you like this practice, you can bookmark it and come back as many times as you need.
Like, share, and follow Be Well Besties wherever you get your podcasts,
and we'll see you in the next episode. Take care, besties.