According to Psychology Today, “Compassion is an empathetic understanding of a person’s feelings, accompanied by altruism, or a desire to act on that person’s behalf.” In other words, compassion is when you relate to someone’s situation and you want to help them.

In Internal Family Systems (IFS) it is gentle, non-judgmental care for yourself and others.
“Even the messy parts deserve kindness.”

A couple of things stand out to me regarding these two definitions/interpretations of the word compassion. First, it is non-judgmental care. This is an important aspect of IFS. We need to approach every situation without judgement. Every. Single. Situation. I don’t know about you, but I often find it difficult to withhold judgement. It is easy to sit and think that you know better than someone. You would never handle a situation that way. You would never allow someone to treat you that way, etc. The fact of the matter is, you have no idea what that person has gone through to arrive at this point. Their lived experience is not the same as your lived experience. When we can accept the fact that the way a person is currently showing up likely goes all the way back to childhood experiences and trauma, we can begin to understand their current behavior or situation.

An example of this in my life was my judgement of kids who were naughty in public. Those parents are clearly doing something wrong. My child would absolutely never behave like that. I would never allow it. Along came my children! Six of them! And guess what? Almost all of them, probably 2/3 of them behaved that way in public. And suddenly I was the parent that was struggling to maintain control of my neurodiverse flock of children.

I had a biter. For those of you who have parented biters, you feel my pain. It didn’t matter what I did, I could not figure out how to stop him. I taught him sign language, I trailed him at the mall playgrounds to try to stop it before it could happen, tried explaining it to him. Nothing. He got kicked out of daycare before his second birthday. No one even bothered to tell us that he was on the path to expulsion so the unexpected phone call at work to come pick him up immediately and to never return definitely threw my nervous system into a spin! He remained a difficult child. In fact, I’m pretty sure I lived most of those years in fight/flight. I am happy to report that he has grown into an incredible young man. The point is, we never know what is going on in someone’s life. We have no room to judge.

The second thing that stood out was the non-judgmental care for yourself and others. Notice that YOU come before others. Many women and mothers have been taught that everyone else comes first. And if there is time left over, which there never is, maybe you do something nice for yourself like take a bubble bath or read a book. No more! We need to take care of ourselves first so that we can better care for those around us. It is imperative that we regulate our own nervous systems so that we can better care for those around us. And if those around us; especially our children, never see a regulated mom, we can’t expect them to grow up to be regulated adults. So caring for yourself isn’t selfish, it will allow you to train your children, who can then train their children and so on. Think of the incredible impact that is. It can literally change the world!

We all know what this feels like so I don’t need to provide example, but I will give you a few ideas of ways to take care of yourself first. Carve out time during the day that is just for you. While that may seem an impossibility, remember–you are on the path to change the world! A little bit of time every day to sit and quietly reflect will help more than you think. Breathing. When you take conscious breaths, such as the 5-2-8 method, you are engaging both your brain and your body. You normally breathe automatically, without thinking. Thinking about breathing in for 5, hold for 2, and out for 8 you are actively using your brain to control an automatic process. I find keeping a journal to be helpful as well. It’s a way to take all of those thoughts which are floating around in your brain, and use your body to get them out. It takes movement to write, so once again, you are connecting mind and body. Next up: I’ll post more about Curiousity.

Never forget: YOU ARE ENOUGH! YOU ARE WORTHY OF LOVE!