Category: self-compassion
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Accepting your limits
How do you react when you fail or are disappointed? When something bad happens over which you have no control? I was sad when I heard of a friend’s friend who gave birth to a stillborn baby. I remembered my own sadness when I struggled with infertility for four years before my daughter was born…
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Our magnificent chocolate cake
The newspaper photograph inspired my husband Jerry. After we both had admired the photo of the tall buttermilk chocolate cake, covered with a thick coating of rich chocolate frosting, we decided to make it for our daughter’s birthday. I am happy to report that the cake came out of the oven looking perfect. The icing…
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Are you kind to yourself?
Many of us need to treat ourselves with a little more kindness. According to an article in The New York Times, February 28, 2011, a “new area of psychological research called self-compassion” indicates we would be happier and more optimistic if we treated ourselves better. Research indicates that people who give themselves a break and…
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Are you compassionate toward others?
In her book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, Karen Armstrong remembers six kind words that were spoken to her when she was 20 and tells how she frequently has recalled them at particularly bleak moments in her life. Armstrong and a group of leaders from six faith traditions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism—have…
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Are you compassionate toward yourself?
Karen Armstrong, former nun and author of 20 books, thinks the world needs more compassion. When she was awarded the 2008 TED prize, she decided to use her award money to develop a Charter for Compassion and then to join with people worldwide to “put ourselves in the shoes of the other.” Armstrong explains how…
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What’s driving you?
Most of us are familiar with the inner critics we talked about in our last blog post—the perfectionist critic, the do-it-all driver, the fake and fraud critic who tells us we’re not good enough, the pleaser critic who keeps telling us what we need to do so that everyone will like us and the comparer…
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How can you quiet your inner critic?
Almost all of us have an inner critic—or inner critics, says Stacey Sargent, a professional coach and speaker. Who is your inner critic? During a recent webinar sponsored by the Association of Women in Communications, Sargent identified five possibilities. The perfectionist critic, who finds fault in everything you do. The do-it-all driver. This critic is…