Rebecca's Blog

Healing Authenticity with Self-Compassion

183:856036732 (Rebecca Foxx) — Sun, 07 Aug 2022 02:25:21 GMT

Healing Authenticity with Self-Compassion

Inauthenticity is an attachment wound...an injury that says we can't be who we truly are without risking rejection or abandonment. This wound threatens to overwhelm us with feelings of fear and shame whenever we're faced with a choice of true expression.

Our needs for authenticity and attachment are frequently in competition with each other, and we may very often have had to compromise one of them for the other.

Attachment injuries teach us that when we FEEL bad, we ARE bad, and that we need to change who we are or hide aspects of ourselves, our true needs or feelings in order to prevent our badness from causing a rejection or abandonment.

Self-Compassion, which is the internal presence of Mindfulness, Self-Kindness, and a recognition of our Common Humanity, teaches us that when we feel bad, we are simply encountering the very human experience of suffering - and that, just as when any human being is in the midst of suffering, we need our pain to be seen, cared for, and offered kindness. We can bring these qualities of Self-Compassion to the feelings of shame, fear, and self-doubt that were created by our attachment wounds.

In this way, Self-Compassion offers a pathway to healing the pain of our attachment wounds, and a new way of meeting the struggles that arise as we begin navigating our lives with more authenticity.

Meditation teachers Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield tell about a hospice worker who shared observations on being with dying people. The worker said that the number one regret that people have when they are dying is that they had not lived more true to themselves...more authentically.

This anecdote always fills me with great pause. If we don't work through this struggle to be our authentic selves, there are big implications for the peace we find in this life.

Nonetheless, this struggle is so deeply human. Dr. Gabor Maté, an expert in the field of trauma and childhood development explains that, as human beings, we have two strong, yet often competing, instinctual needs – the need to be an authentic self and the need to establish and maintain attachment bonds with our caregivers. Dr. Maté states, "When authenticity threatens attachment, attachment trumps authenticity".

It is often during our early childhood years that we learn to give up aspects of our authentic selves in order to protect our attachment relationships.

Why do we choose attachment over authenticity?

As human beings, we are born into this world dependent on our caregivers for survival, and from day one, our instincts know it. If we cannot maintain an attachment to our caregivers, we will quite literally die. In this way, we are hard wired to secure an attachment to our caregivers at any cost, and we adapt in a variety of ways to assure that we do so.

These adaptations involve making adjustments to any expressions of our authentic needs or emotions which threaten to jeopardize our attachment bonds. For instance, if our caregiver is regularly unable to tend to us because they are highly anxious or overwhelmed, we might adapt by suppressing needs or emotions which could potentially place added stress on them, making them less accessible to us. We may make ourselves "easy", or not "too much trouble", increasing the chances that our caregiver will at least be able to stay in proximity to us. We learn to suppress the expression of needs that may put our connection to our caregiver at risk. Or we may develop particular tendencies, such as being super helpful, which our caregivers find pleasing or easy to be around. Of course, adaptations such as these occur instinctually, through the felt experience - not through our rational deduction skills. This is why insecure attachment patterns often cannot be fully healed through simply recognizing cognitively that our needs or emotions are valid.

Our primary attachment relationships and the way we adapted in order to maintain them in childhood sets the stage for how we navigate relationships in adulthood. We internalize habitual attachment responses, in which particular sensations, impulses, emotions, behaviors, and thoughts/beliefs become interwoven.

Our tendency as human beings is to interpret all experience through a “self-referential” lens - in other words, as we encounter experiences in life, we take away beliefs about ourselves or what the experience says about us. Once these self-referential beliefs are formed, they are easily reinforced as each new experience gets filtered through the lens of this belief. New experiences become additional evidence or proof that the pre-existing belief is true.

When our caregivers regularly leave or cannot offer the care that we long for when we express our needs, we may interpret that we are bad for needing or for expressing our needs...or that we are not helpful or good enough to get what we need. We may develop a core negative belief that it is not safe to need anyone too much or that abandonments happen because we are too needy, or not good enough. These beliefs may be experienced as conscious thoughts, or they may be experienced as sensations, for instance, a constriction in the chest and belly that tells us to "back off", "stay quiet" or make ourselves more helpful and pleasing.

No matter how well things go for us in our early lives, there will inevitably have been some ways in which we sensed that we needed to adjust or hide aspects of ourselves in order to protect our primary attachment relationships. Of course, the more regulated our caregivers are, the more likely we are to develop secure attachment patterns, or to internalize the sense that it is safe to express our authentic needs without risking abandonment or rejection.

To the degree that we did internalize adaptive reflexes to suppress aspects of our authentic selves, we carry these self-protective patterns forward with us, into our lives, and into our relationships, particularly with those we love, depend on, or need…aka, those we most fear losing.

So how does Self-Compassion help to restore the ability to be an authentic self?

Dr. Janina Fisher, psychotherapist and trauma expert puts it this way, "Self-Compassion mimics the experience of secure attachment in childhood."

Self Compassion begins when we turn towards our true emotions and needs with Mindfulness:

Mindfulness is the practice of purposefully attending to our present moment experience non-judgmentally, with qualities of curiosity and interest. Mindfulness allows us to slow down and “press pause” on our auto-pilot or habitual inclinations. We have a tendency to over-identify with our thoughts and emotions, which makes it very difficult to bear witness to our own suffering. Mindfulness inserts a little bit of space or distance between the phenomena of our internal worlds (i.e. thoughts, emotions, sensations, moods) and the seat of awareness from which we witness it.

Bringing mindfulness to our true emotions and needs, we have the opportunity to offer non-judgmental and interested attention to parts of ourselves that have been pushed away or hidden for many years. When we do this, it is like saying to those parts of ourselves, “I see you. I see you are suffering. I’m here. I’m willing to stay, listen, and be with you. You are allowed to be exactly as you are”. When the parts of ourselves that have been hurting in hiding for so long are finally seen and acknowledged in this way, they feel the deep relief that “someone is finally listening!”.

Staying present to our inner truths with Self-Kindness and Common Humanity:

It can be very difficult to sustain our mindful presence toward the parts of ourselves that are hurting – the parts that hold feelings of shame, guilt, fear, anger, and doubt. This is because we tend to strongly dislike or fear these parts of ourselves. Of course, these parts were never “bad". They were simply aspects of ourselves that we learned to reject or disallow in order to maintain our attachment relationships.

In order to safely extend our attention to these parts of ourselves, it helps to cultivate the two other qualities of Self-Compassion – Common Humanity and Self-Kindness.

These qualities soothe feelings of shame and isolation, allowing us to sincerely investigate how to meaningfully care for our difficult emotions or unmet needs.

Self-kindness allows us to sincerely inquire within, “What do I need?...What do I really need?"

Self-Kindness offers a nurturing tone and a non-condemning orientation towards our difficult emotions and unmet needs. With Self-Kindness, we bring an attitude that sincerely cares about the suffering that is happening, and we provide warmth, acceptance and encouragement to ourselves. One way to sense into these qualities is to ask yourself the question, "How would I be with a good friend who was feeling this way?"

Take a moment here to sense into the posture, facial expressions, tone of voice, the way your heart feels, and the intentions you hold toward a good friend who is suffering. Self-Kindness happens when we orient towards ourselves in that way, in the midst of our own suffering.

These accepting, non-condemning qualities may not have been consistently available to us from our caregivers. But we can give them to ourselves now.

Pausing for a moment, you might consider, "What might it be like to have my vulnerable feelings held with kindness?"..."With the support of a non-judgmental, and benevolent presence, whose sole intention is to lessen suffering, what needs might I be willing to acknowledge and become curious about how to meet?"

As you may have imagined, the impulse to hide one's self progressively lessens, when qualities of warmth and kindness are present. Likewise, the inclination to understand and care for what hurts authentically grows. As we learn to bring these qualities of kindness to ourselves, we develop our tolerance for unpleasant emotions and unmet needs. This allows us to stay mindfully present to them, and to truly discern what we need and how to meaningfully offer it to ourselves.

As we grow to authentically know ourselves more and more, and as we witness more parts of ourselves with kindness, we can then begin to share ourselves more authentically with others. When we have an internal sense of acceptance, being ourselves in the world does not feel so risky anymore. In fact, we are likely to be less tolerant when others are unwilling to accept us as we are, and we are more likely to set firm boundaries, in that, we no longer expect ourselves to become inauthentic or uncomfortable in order to maintain a relationship.

The final ingredient of Self-Compassion which supports living authentically is the quality of Common Humanity.

As we turn toward and bring kindness to difficult aspects of our internal experience, we can cultivate the awareness that these are parts that exist within all human beings – in other words, we are not alone…not fundamentally flawed for having these needs or emotions. In fact, we are simply human for having them.

We can know this cognitively but again, our attachment wounds exist on a felt level, and even when we may rationally recognize that “we are human”, we may not have absorbed this truth on an embodied level. In order to do so, we need to have the opportunity to witness this truth through our own direct experience.

Witnessing our Common Humanity means witnessing that we are all subject to pain and suffering.

In Buddhist Psychology there is a distinction made between pain and suffering. As psychologist and meditation teacher, Jack Kornfield puts it, "Pain is an unavoidable aspect of the natural world. It is physical, biological, and social, woven into our existence as night is with day, as inevitable as hard and soft, as hot and cold."

It is painful to experience something that is unpleasant and it is painful to lose something that is pleasant. It is human nature to resist that which we find painful. However, it is also our resistance to pain that creates suffering.

The Mindful Self-Compassion Program offers the following formula to illustrate this point: "Pain × Resistance = Suffering".

Suffering unfolds out of our reactions to, or our strategies for avoiding inevitable pain...aka, our resistance...aka, our strategies for holding onto that which is pleasing and pushing away that which is displeasing. We all do it. It is human nature to suffer.

This nature to secure pleasant experience and avoid unpleasant experience drove us intuitively to develop our strategies of self-protection when we were young. Patterns of inauthenticity...of accentuating certain parts of ourselves (i.e. "I'm such a good helper") while hiding other parts of ourselves (i.e. "I'm too needy"), developed in order to hold onto, or avoid the pain of losing the care of our attachment figures (care that may have had inevitable limits given our caregiver's particular capacities).

Though we become identified with our self-protective strategies, often seeing them as being "who we are", we can step back with mindfulness and begin to recognize that they arose, and continue to arise, out of our suffering...as a function of our human nature, in an effort to protect us. We may also begin to witness how the self-protective patterns in others arise out of their own suffering too. The more we recognize and witness our common humanity, the more easily we can access feelings of sincere compassion for ourselves.

The more compassion we have for ourselves, the more inclined we are to do whatever we can to lessen our own suffering.

It is out of this deep inclination or commitment to move in the direction of less suffering, that meaningful action and change can often unfold.

When it comes to the suffering of inauthenticity, meaningful action or change may take the form of saying what we really feel in our relationships, setting boundaries, speaking up when we see injustice, taking up space, asking for what we need, or voicing our opinions...even when doing so may be displeasing to others. This doesn't mean that we stop caring about how others feel or what they need. It simply means that we allow what we feel and need to be held within our own care too.

When we can authentically express what we feel and need within our relationships, we experience a deeper sense of connection and trust within them. When we know that we are sharing ourselves fully with another person, we know that we are being loved and accepted for who we authentically are, not for being who someone else wanted or needed us to be.

If we find that others are unable to meet our authentic feelings or needs with the care that we long for, we may need to turn towards the truth of what they can and cannot offer us. There may likely be some inevitable pain or grief that arises when we do this. Rather than adding to our suffering by resisting the truth of how things are, we can simply hold this grief with Self-Compassion.

It may sound counterintuitive, but when we are willing to accept painful realities, such as that a person who we love cannot care for us in the way we long for...when we are willing to feel painful emotions, such as grief...we suffer less.

When we allow reality to be how it is, we are free to be exactly as we are.

"I see you, Mara": Sitting with Discomfort & Releasing Self-Doubt

183:856036732 (Rebecca Foxx) — Sat, 08 May 2021 23:12:23 GMT

"I see you, Mara": Sitting with Discomfort & Releasing Self-Doubt

In the myth of the Buddha's awakening, Siddhartha Gautama (the soon to be Buddha), sat beneath the Bodhi tree, with an intention to meditate until answers to the predicament of human suffering became clear.

That evening, as he sat in meditation, Gautama was attacked by "the demon", Mara - traditionally thought to be the representation of the human shadow side. Mara bombarded Gautama with various temptations and challenges, hurling at him a sea of arrows, each one a cause or condition for the hindrances of greed, hatred, fear, and doubt to arise. Gautama met each arrow that Mara threw at him with presence and compassion, turning each one into a flower petal.

By the morning, surrounded by a field of flower petals, Mara issued his toughest and final challenge, calling into question Gautama's very right to be there. In my mind, I imagine that Mara says something like, "Who do you think you are? How could you even dare to think that YOU could become an enlightened being?"

In this moment, the Buddha placed his hand to the ground, and called on the earth goddess to bear witness to the truth of who he was. And as the story goes, the ground shook, the skies rumbled with thunder and lightning, and Mara disappeared.

I love this story.

Mara is such a powerful representation of the internal hindrances that can carry each one of us away. The moment where the Buddha places his hand to the ground, so perfectly illustrates our capacity to come face to face with the hindrance of self-doubt, steady ourselves, and know what we know.

An important postscript to this story is that the last time that the Buddha encountered Mara was not on the morning of his awakening. In fact, contrary to the idea that we "conquer our demons" and leave them behind, Mara continued to show up unexpectedly throughout the Buddha's life. When this would happen, the Buddha did not ignore Mara or try to get rid of him, but rather, he would turn toward him and say, "I see you, Mara". He would then invite Mara to tea and, without disturbance, the Buddha would sit with Mara while he had his visit and then went on his way.

A few months ago, I had an experience that had the feel of a challenging encounter with Mara. It was a situation that had all the right ingredients to elicit in me, a number of hindrances...anger/hatred, fear, doubt. Through mindfulness practice, I have become more skilled at recognizing when situations like these are happening, as they are happening. The recognition that there are conditions present which can carry us away into reactivity, is like saying, "I see you, Mara".

"I see you, Mara", is a practice that brings mindfulness to the seeds of suffering. When we are confronted with painful conditions, our habit energies, such as anger/hatred, anxiety/fear, shame or doubt, can unfold automatically. When particular causes and conditions arise in our world, they instantly set these energies in motion. Some phrases that we use in our culture to describe this experience include, "being triggered", or we say that something/someone "pushed our buttons". In moments that we say those phrases, we are really recognizing that Mara is here.

When we take that first step of pausing to steady ourselves in the midst of Mara's presence, we become empowered to choose what happens next. We can't necessarily choose whether or when Mara shows up, but we can choose how we relate to him.

Do we avoid or ignore him? Do we try to get rid of him? Do we go after him in an effort to feed and satisfy the habit energies he has poked at? Or, as a radical alternative, might we invite him to tea? Might we stay grounded...let him have his visit, and then be on his way?

In the situation that I encountered a few months ago, I got a taste of tea with Mara. As the situation began to unfold, I quickly recognized that Mara was here by noticing particularly familiar sensations in my body - a racing feeling in my chest, blood rushing to my face, constriction in my core, tightness in my arms and legs. Historically, these particular habit energies moved very quickly and carried me away before I would even get the chance to say, "I see you, Mara".

But with regular practice, it is possible to grow our capacity to pause and slow down the pace at which these energies move and grow. With this slowing, comes the ability to witness and label what is happening..."I see you, Mara"..."I see you, fear/anger/greed/doubt". Once we identify and acknowledge Mara's presence, we can choose to invite him to tea...to sit with him...sit with discomfort...work to stay grounded, steady, and present in Mara's midst.

About 8 years ago I took an online course with Tara Brach and I asked her for guidance on working with self-doubt. She referenced this story of the Buddha's awakening, and she noted the importance of grounding one's self by establishing a physical connection, just as the Buddha did when he placed his hand to the earth.

Since then I've come to know a pretty constant connection between my hand and the arm of my chair (or the cushion/mat if I'm on the floor). A habit of comfort has formed that immediately activates and supports my presence as soon as I simply feel into the sensations of contact between my arm or hand and my chair. When the conditions for self-doubt begin to arise, I can turn my attention there, perhaps pressing into it a bit more, and I can sense my own Buddha nature...my own capacity to pause, ground, breathe, steady, bear witness, and remember the truth of who I am.

In that situation a few months back, some words arose for me as I did this. I like to think of them as my version of inviting Mara to tea. The words that came were, "It's okay, I've done my work". Mara was welcome to throw his toughest challenges at me. I trusted myself to meet them with compassion and presence...hand pressed to my chair..."I see you, Mara".

And challenge me, he did. He threw at me arrows of aggression, devaluing words, and threats of harm. He presented the perfect causes and conditions to elicit in me the hindrances of anger, fear, and most of all, doubt.

But instead, I fielded each arrow with presence and compassion. I did not quite turn them into flower petals like the Buddha...but my steadiness allowed me to meet anger with kindness...fear, with calm.

Likewise, the sparks of self-doubt that got nudged around by those incoming arrows were quelled and settled as my hand pressed down...calling on the arm of my chair to bear witness to the truth of who I am. Sounds funny, I know. But my arm chair is a perfectly beautiful and supportive witness.

Really those words, "I've done my work", came from my own inner witness. Many times, over the course of many years...I have witnessed myself struggle, get caught in, and work through traps that Mara laid for me. I have practiced turning toward and learning from those struggles, so that one day, - Dare I even think it?! - I might be able to have tea with Mara without losing myself or my truth.

When we've done our work, we know what we know. And we do not apologize for that. Mara's visits are not so dreaded anymore when we trust ourselves. In fact, they become opportunities for practice and internal inquiry. Ongoing practice and inquiry acknowledges that although we know what we know, we also recognize that there is always more to learn...there are always deeper layers to investigate with curiosity. We become open to this ongoing learning when we are willing to have tea with Mara.

Mara is a great teacher. And in truth, his presence in our lives transforms us. Without Mara, the story of the Buddha beneath the Bodhi tree, would not have been the story of the Buddha's enlightenment.

Remembering the True Self through Common Humanity

183:856036732 (Rebecca Foxx) — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 14:23:44 GMT

Remembering the True Self through Common Humanity

When I teach Mindfulness and Self-Compassion, it feels like I am part of a wave of good-will rippling out into the world. I teach these skills one on one, to my psychotherapy clients, and in a group program called The Mindful Self-Compassion Program. In both settings, these practices support powerful shifts in how people relate to themselves and their suffering.

Personally, I have a very special place in my heart for group practice, because I have had some powerful awarenesses within group settings. In particular, these have been moments in which I deeply recognized my common humanity.

Common Humanity is the recognition that all humans suffer, are vulnerable, and fallible. It is a core component of Self-Compassion and for me, it opened a pathway into another core component, Self-Kindness. These qualities together framed a path for me to be able to live more authentically in my life.

When I was first being introduced to practices of Mindfulness and Self-Compassion, the thing that hooked me...that made me know that they would become such an important part of my life's path, was a moment that I refer to as "the moment I remembered the truth of who I am".

In that moment, I saw two seemingly contradictory things simultaneously;

· A unique and incredibly precious being.

and

· A being who is just like everyone else.

The first part – Seeing a unique and precious being - came in the form of a glimpse of what I've come to call my "true self". In that glimpse, I saw, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that, I felt, the presence of someone who I just knew had always been there.

Though she'd been covered over, silenced, pushed aside, pressed down, forgotten about...though she had for many years been hidden away - quiet and unseen...this unique and precious being had indeed been born into this world.

I saw her...still inside there...and actually, quite unscathed beneath all of the false identities that had been layered over her. There she was - this sweet, gentle, curious, playful, silly, kind-hearted, precious soul. I knew her. I recognized her immediately. I could even sense how she loves to spin in circles, arms outstretched, twirling freely. I could feel how badly she wanted to do that, right in that moment...though I still restricted her from doing such things.

As powerful as it was in that moment to remember her, at that point in my life, I felt so very far away from her. The protective identities I'd been wearing were much more familiar, and I wore them quite automatically. They were still very much inclined to monitor her closely and meticulously control what she said and did.

The glimpse of my true self was fleeting and hard to hold onto. I felt unsure as to how I would help her to be free. But I could sense my sincere wish for that to be so, and I committed to her that I wouldn't abandon her again. I would find a way to stay connected to her and allow her to be present in this life.

As I scanned the room that I was in, noticing the other human beings around me who were also sitting in meditation and quiet reflection, I registered the other piece of wisdom that this powerful moment had to show me - that I am just like everyone else.

As I sat, connected to this precious being inside of me, I was filled with a sense of awe, love, and compassion for the others in the room - imagining the precious beings in each of them. I felt this strong sense of knowing that they each had a “true self” inside of them too. I imagined that perhaps they had also forgotten theirs somewhere along their path. I didn't know any of their stories, but I knew with clarity that they had each experienced their own share of suffering...perhaps they were in the midst of it...maybe they were even learning to hold it right in that moment...just like me. I saw them, their external forms, and the precious beings deep within each of them...and I realized, I am not alone. I am just like them and they are just like me.

We are all deeply connected in this way. My beloved meditation teachers, Bill and Susan Morgan, often use a phrase, "Alone, together...each of us, alone, together" . To me, this captures the essence of our common humanity…the comfort of our common humanity. Each of us alone is having a unique, human experience…and all of us together share that we are having a unique, human experience. Each of us suffers, is vulnerable, and fallible…and all of us suffer, are vulnerable and fallible. Each of us is a precious being, born into this world longing to be safe, happy and free…and all of us are precious beings, born into this world longing to be safe, happy and free. Each of us, and all of us…Alone, Together.

But we don't know it. So many of us suffer, for so long, with the belief that we are alone in our aloneness, alone in our fears, separate in our struggles. We think our suffering is different...and we think we are different for it. The irony is that we cover over our authentic selves or hide them away from the world as a way of protecting them from suffering. The truth is that this only blocks them from being present in the world and ultimately, from knowing the truth of their humanity.

To recognize the truth of our humanity does not mean to minimize, or deny the real experiences of pain that we have. It simply means that we widen our view and hold that pain within the context of what it means to be human.

The awareness of Common Humanity that comes through self-compassion practice is different than a rational knowledge that “we are only human”. Practice gives us the opportunity to deeply absorb this truth on an embodied level…to see it with our own eyes…to know it through our own direct experience.

Self-Compassion practice became so meaningful for me and such a foundational aspect of my own healing path, because in that moment of remembering my “true self”, I directly experienced the truth and beauty of my shared humanity. But that moment was a seed planted on my path of healing that would likely have faded quickly without regular practice.

Each time I practiced, my relationship to my true self got stronger. I began to get to know what it felt like to embody her and it became easier to stay connected with her between practice. My wish to live authentically grew in its sincerity. I began to see very clearly how my automatic, protective strategies actually created more suffering for me, not less...they suppressed and interfered with my ability to be fully present and engaged in my life.

Nonetheless, giving a voice to my authentic self was really difficult because the automatic feelings of fear could overwhelm me when I tried to do so. Self-Compassion encourages that we meet growing edges such as these, kindly and gently, so that we can move in the direction of less suffering, not more.

One practice that really supports us in gently meeting our growing edges, is that of Loving Kindness. Also known as “Metta”, this practice involves orienting one’s attention to phrases, or wishes of well-being for ourselves or other beings. We silently hold and repeat these phrases internally, connecting with the felt experience of the wish we are holding. The traditional phrases of Loving Kindness are:

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live with ease.

But we can create any phrases that resonate for us and hold them as intentions, or heartfelt aspirations of what we wish for ourselves.

I began to hold intentions around my wish to live authentically in this world, in the form of Loving Kindness phrases; “May I live authentically. May I be truly present. May I speak my truth.” Connecting with these loving kindness phrases helped me to stay connected to what I really wanted for myself…and to my commitment to work toward cultivating these qualities. The lovely thing about holding wishes or intentions is that they do not demand us to be at a particular outcome…they simply help to keep us committed to coming back, over and over, to a path that we care about.

I once saw a quote by an unknown author that read “If you feel you are not strong enough to let your voice be heard, start with a whisper. Your voice will come.” To me, the loving kindness phrases that we hold are like the whispers that we start with…whether it is around finding one’s voice or manifesting some other change or intention that we know is needed in order to suffer less…the moment that we consciously, kindly and sincerely wish these things for ourselves, we are cultivating a compassionate orientation toward our own suffering. And that quality of truly caring about our suffering, is the starting point for meaningful change.

There are many ways to cultivate skills in Mindfulness and Self-Compassion. My experience has shown me that when we practice with a community of others, we have a special opportunity to directly witness our shared humanity.

These days, there are many ways to become a part of a practice community. One of the reasons I love offering the Mindful Self-Compassion Program is because it naturally seems to cultivate that sense of shared humanity. In the MSC Program, we practice Loving Kindness, sit with reflections that allow us to sense into our common humanity, and explore how to set and sustain meaningful intentions. Being present to ourselves while also being present to others who are practicing in this way, can beautifully orient us toward that sense of "Alone, Together".

Whatever path you choose,

May we all come to know our true being.

May a wave of good-will ripple out to all beings everywhere.

Mindfulness and Compassion: Two Wings of a Bird

183:856036732 (Rebecca Foxx) — Sun, 17 Jan 2021 23:30:52 GMT

Mindfulness and Compassion: Two Wings of a Bird

Mindfulness and Compassion are often referred to as Two Wings of a bird. As the wing of Compassion balances with the wing of Mindfulness, we begin to stabilize our hearts and minds. We can steady ourselves on these two wings as we move through the turbulence of our lives and the world.

Mindfulness allows us to see our moment to moment experience clearly, without layering our habitual judgments or interpretations over it. Compassion supports us in holding that experience with kindness and with a recognition of our human-ness. Compassion also holds a committed intention to support the lessening of suffering wherever possible. Together, Mindful Self-Compassion brings a warm, connected presence to the full range of human experience. It is a practice of befriending ourselves.

It can be helpful to understand how each wing functions in order to appreciate how they work together.

Mindfulness training purposefully orients our attention to the present moment without judgment. It is a practice of sustaining our moment-to-moment awareness by noticing when attention has “wandered off” or gotten lost in evaluating the present moment as good or bad, and then returning it to our actual embodied moment to moment experience. Mindfulness practice allows us to increase the space between stimulus and response which, as Viktor Frankl’s famous quote explains,

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”.

Mindfulness practice trains us in growing that space, which over time provides us with greater opportunities to know what is happening as it is happening…to be a witness to our experience rather than the one who is lost in it.

When we are present in this way, we have the ability to shift out of auto-pilot, and consciously choose our response to whatever is happening. Mindfulness orients us toward our experience with curiosity and interest, rather than judgment, which frees us up to sincerely explore and choose the most skillful response for the moment. This is why mindfulness is known as the wing of wisdom - it often leads us to develop deep personal insights and wisdom. As we practice holding our difficult experiences mindfully, we come to see how our suffering unfolds, what sustains it, as well as what supports it in lessening. We are the ones offering ourselves this presence, and yet we are also the ones receiving this presence. Having our suffering seen in this way - free of judgment and with the sincere interest to fully understand - is likely something we would all want from a good friend.

However, staying present to our own suffering in this way gets pretty tricky! We are after all the ones suffering and the ones being yanked around by an inherently judging and wandering human mind. This is why there is a saying that “the more mindful we are, the more self-compassion we need”.

Self-Compassion meets our suffering and busy mind activity with friendly qualities - kindness and common humanity.

Kindness is a quality that offers warmth, understanding, and acceptance. It does not turn away from, minimize or ignore suffering, nor does it layer on criticism. Kindness has to do with the tone with which we meet our suffering. It is a friendly, supportive, and encouraging tone. This does not simply mean “being nice” to oneself – although that may at times be what kindness calls for. Kindness speaks truth, but it does so in a non-condemning way.

Common Humanity is a recognition that we are not alone in our suffering, short-comings, or struggles. It acknowledges that our suffering and what we may often see as personal failures or flaws, are actually a part of what it means to be human…it all falls within the realm of the shared human experience. When we orient toward our difficulties through this lens of common humanity, we reduce feelings of isolation and shame.

Finally, compassion holds as a central intention, the wish to move things in the direction of less suffering. Self-compassion asks the question, “What do I need?” In a moment to moment sort of a way, self-compassion holds our present moment experience with these qualities of kindness and common humanity, and considers what, if any adjustments might support me in alleviating suffering. This may at times mean taking precise and meaningful action, and at other times, it may mean softening and finding pathways to settling.

If you are interested in training the two wings of mindfulness and compassion, a great way to do so is to take a Mindful Self-Compassion Program (MSC). MSC is an 8 week training program created by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer that teaches the skills of Mindfulness, Self-Kindness and Common Humanity. It consists of meditations, short talks, experiential exercises, reflections, group discussions and home practices. Over the course of the program, participants learn to bring a mindful and self-compassionate presence to difficult moments in their lives and develop the skills to respond with kindness, care, understanding, and wise action.

Visit https://www.twowingscmc.com/msc to learn more about current MSC Programs co-led by me, Rebecca Foxx, LCSW-R at Two Wings Compassion and Mindfulness Center.

Mindfulness-based and Compassion-oriented psychotherapy and counseling also supports clients to cultivate the skills of these two wings and apply them to the difficulties they are facing in their lives. Please feel free to visit me at Rebeccafoxx.com to learn more.

Self-Trust

183:856036732 (Rebecca Foxx) — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 22:28:13 GMT

Self-Trust (Written 2/17/2020)

I was recently reflecting on my journey of starting my private psychotherapy practice, and I thought a lot about my path of developing self-trust (an ongoing process), which truly was what allowed me to choose to start my own business.

When I chose to open my practice, I took a big risk as I left a stable government job which offered me job security, a good salary with the potential of regular pay increases, good health benefits and perhaps even the eventual possibility of career advancements. I had thought about the possibility of leaving agency work before, but for all of those previously stated reasons, I never really considered it in a serious way. It had always seemed to be a bit of a "pipe dream"...an option that was only really possible for people with a lot of external resources or safety nets, and a level of internal strengths and capacities that I perceived were far greater than what I had to offer.

For several years prior to opening my practice, I had gone through some big life challenges and transitions, which brought me to recognize deeply entrenched patterns of self-doubt with which I had been moving through my life. I had made so many choices in my life according to what I believed I was “supposed to do” and in an effort to “get it right”. I honestly did not have much experience with sincerely asking myself “What do you really want and need?” with a willingness to then really listen for the answers and to honor my authentic wishes by trying to manifest my aspirations. Rather, I was operating on my conditioning…a sort of program that ran in the background of my mind...whose main function, ironically, was to keep me emotionally and physically safe.

Anxiety and self-criticism were deeply rooted, automatic programs that ran on repeat in my inner world. They manifested in a disempowered body whose movements were closely monitored, whose words were carefully filtered, and whose freedom to choose was significantly restricted. As my awareness of these patterns grew, I began to see the many ways that they were blocking me from ever truly knowing my authentic self and expressing my true potential. I would never live a fulfilled, satisfied life that way.

The other thing that I realized was that these patterns were actually substitutions for my own judgement. At some point along the way, I unfortunately internalized the idea I could not trust myself. I could not rely on my own judgement for guidance because I did not have a sincere sense of self-trust. Conditioned responses of “doing what I was supposed to do” or “the right thing”, were sort of rules on which I could rely, in lieu of my own personal discernment. As you can imagine, and perhaps relate to, this over-reliance on rigid rules can eat away at a person’s sense of human-ness. It can create feelings of loneliness, inauthenticity in relationships, and distance or separateness from others. Seeing all this, I understood that I needed to learn how to relate to myself differently.

I did some big emotional work. I found a therapist who helped me unpack a lot of stuff – guilt, shame, fear – that I'd been carrying around for a long time. I was introduced to mindfulness and self-compassion practices, which allowed me to see myself with kinder, sweeter, more loving eyes. From this view, I saw a human being who was trying so hard to "get it right"...to be so likable, so helpful, so good…a vulnerable and lovable little girl inside. Self-doubt helped her to avoid shame and judgement by advising her to stay quiet and avoid risks which she feared might otherwise expose her inadequacies and imperfections. I learned to stay present to her fears with compassion and to honor what she was attempting to protect against. And I learned how to help her. I helped her by collaborating with her – by holding a space for her to explore and discover her own answers without urgency or threat of shame. I helped her “to know that it was okay to not know” and to be in the process of learning. I helped her to know that there are ways to land softly when things don’t work out as planned and that it is okay to try different things, and to explore her potential without having certainties as to the outcomes.

Which leads me back to my decision to open my practice five years ago. To take risk involves allowing for uncertainty...it means not knowing how it all turns out – a vulnerable position. It means accepting the possibility of many different outcomes and trusting that we will be able to respond in meaningful ways to whatever comes. That is self-trust. It is different than self-confidence and self-esteem, because it is not the belief that we can/will succeed or that we have superior capacities or qualities. Self-trust is the sense that we will meet whatever comes...that as life unfolds, we will be able to show up for it and rely on ourselves for guidance and protection. Self-trust is an empowered and compassionate position that knows how to lead with courage, even in the midst of uncertainty, struggle, or difficulty. It is not conditional to positive outcomes...in other words, it is not given or withheld based on how things turn out.

Self-trust is also not a permanent, concrete state that endures once you have your first taste of it. I most certainly am not moving through life free of self-doubt and anxiety. In my opinion, the work of developing self-trust really goes into the category of “life work”. But each time we practice it, we strengthen it. It’s a lot like building trust with another person. At first, we may take small risks of sharing with them or relying on them. Then, as we find that our risks are honored by being received with kindness and care, we build our sense of trust that we can do so again and perhaps with more at stake.

In our relationship with ourselves, as in any relationship, there will be ruptures in trust at times….something that causes us to ask, “Can I really rely on you? Will you really be there for me when I need you? Do you really care? Will you truly always do your best to keep me safe?” In our interpersonal relationships, ruptures in trust, do not have to mean the end of the relationship. Instead, they can be opportunities to turn toward each other, to seek to understand how the rupture came to be, to bring compassion to each other for the internal or external conditions that contributed to the rupture, and to re-set intentions about how we wish to navigate similar challenges together in the future. When each person engages in that process with sincerity and with intentions to truly listen, understand, heal and grow the relationship, they often come out of that process with a stronger sense of trust then they had before.

In a similar way, as we practice turning toward ourselves with a compassionate attitude and with intentions to sincerely listen and understand, we are able to discern where or how we got off track without shaming ourselves for it and commit to any changes or adjustments that will support our well-being. We can then re-align our aim and move forward, knowing that we have more insight then we did before, which will serve to guide us wisely on our path forward. Through this process, we come to authentically know ourselves, our intentions, our wishes, and to honestly acknowledge our potential pitfalls or responses which do not lead us in our intended direction.

Finally, just as it does harm to our sense of trust in another person when they repeatedly break promises to us or they commit to changes and then do not follow through, it does harm to our sense of self-trust when we engage in those kinds of patterns with ourselves. Therefore, we need to take our commitments to ourselves seriously if we are to build our sense of self-trust. Our commitments to ourselves must be heartfelt and sincere, rather than rooted in "a should", as we are more likely to struggle to follow through with commitments that do not have sincere meaning to us. It is important that we are able to know that we honored the commitments that we made to ourselves as best as we could, or to at least know that we have grown from our missteps.

Self-trust provides the gift of freedom. Freedom to try. Freedom to fail. Freedom to make mistakes, grow, learn, refine, reset, restart, and try again. It offers us the opportunity to know ourselves authentically and it gives us the option of sharing ourselves fully with others. It allows us to make decisions by considering our options with an open heart and an open mind…so that we can arrive at our choice through our own wise discernment – not through some external measure of right and wrong. Self-trust allows us to lay down our own path as we walk it…to truly embrace this journey of life.

I am incredibly grateful that what unfolded in my life as I engaged in that embrace, was the opportunity to grow my business and do the work that I set out to do!

Letting Go

183:856036732 (Rebecca Foxx) — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 22:27:28 GMT

Letting Go (Written 2/3/ 20)

Some of the most important intentions that I've set for myself have been intentions for letting go. Letting go can be an incredibly difficult intention to manifest and like any good intention, it will often need to be reset over and over again.

As human beings, we are wired to cling to that which we find pleasurable and to push away that which we find unpleasant. Being creatures of habit, we also become conditioned over the course of our lives to automatically react to certain stimulus with clinging or pushing away patterns. This allows us to efficiently maximize the likelihood of pleasure, (the feeling tone associated with acquiring valued resources and satisfying needs) and minimize the likelihood of displeasure (the feeling tone associated with unmet needs and with encountering obstacles to valued resources). These feeling tones of pleasure and displeasure are an evolutionary function intended to motivate us in directions (approach or avoid) that increase our chances of survival and of passing along our genes...so it's good news that we have these automatic reactions. But because they happen automatically, they often remain outside of our awareness and drive us on auto-pilot into reactions that we may not otherwise consciously choose.

Our inclinations to hold onto or push away aspects of our experience (referred to in Buddhist Psychology as our attachments and aversions) may not always serve us. For instance, sometimes it is not within our control to hold onto something/someone that we really want to keep. Likewise, it is not always within our power to get rid of an unwanted experience, such as physical pain or illness. Our attachments to holding onto or getting rid of experiences that are outside of our control may actually only add to our suffering. If we can mindfully notice that we are participating in our own suffering, we can choose to let go of our attachments and instead discern the wisest response...the response that will lead in the direction of less suffering.

Another type of letting go that may benefit us, is the kind that unfolds from a recognition that we are repeating mental, emotional, or behavioral patterns, that at one time in our life may have truly been the most skillful, self-protective responses but which may no longer serve us best, given our current developmental capacities and present-day environments. For instance, patterns of self-doubt and "people pleasing" behaviors may once have served to keep us emotionally and physically safe within a highly critical or reactive family environment...or patterns of explosive anger may have allowed us to assert boundaries that were otherwise regularly violated. We may have many alternative options available to us at this time that can more skillfully serve our well-being but we just keep defaulting to the conditioned response. This automatic, over-reliance on a particular pattern is an implicit memory...a felt sense that tells us that this is how to stay physically or emotionally safe.

Whether we are letting go of patterns which no longer serve us or letting go of efforts to control that which is outside of our control, we start by bringing a mindful awareness to our suffering. We become a witness to the inner process that is playing out and we non-judgmentally observe it as it unfolds. We notice which responses fuel our suffering and which ones bring ease. As we do this, we will naturally begin to notice the presence of attachment (clinging to particular outcomes or conditions) or aversion (pushing away/inclinations to get rid of certain causes or conditions), and we can include what we notice there in our awareness of the nature of our suffering. Once we observe what contributes to our suffering, we can begin to consider what we wish to let go of or cultivate, and we can set the intention to do so.

I love to begin my intentions with the words "May I", as is done in Metta and loving kindness practices. I prefer this phrase to words like "I will" or "I vow" because for me, it evokes the sentiment of a sweet heartfelt wish for myself rather than an expectation. So, for instance, after noticing a wave of self-doubt and anxiety about a future outcome, observing how this manifests in my emotions, mind, and body, and recognizing how it contributes to my suffering, I might say to myself, "May I let go of self-doubt. May I let go of needing to know how it all turns out. May I trust in myself and in life's unfolding".

When we let go, we accept that reality is as it is. This does not mean that we become passive bystanders to our suffering or to the suffering of other beings, nor does it mean that we not try to impact change with wise action. Rather, by accepting reality as it is, we can more clearly see where it would be most beneficial to place our efforts. We develop greater capacity to see what is within our control and what is not within our control. In many cases, it may be that as we let go, we discover other difficult emotions, such as the grief of losses that we had been turning away from, or the fears of uncertainty. These are among the inevitable pains, inherent to being alive. We cannot opt out of loss or uncertainty. We can only choose how we wish to respond when these experiences arise. Sometimes the wisest action we can take is to let go and to put our efforts toward tenderly holding our pain with a compassionate presence.