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When we honor ourselves we also honor all the beings who cared enough about us to help us and teach us. We can practice self-appreciation as a wisdom practice and offer gratitude and appreciation to those who nurtured us toward the person we are today.
Photo by Joey Yu on Unsplash. Music by Joe Valley. Meditation by Kristy Arbon.
MSC meditations © Christopher Germer & Kristin Neff. Mindful Self-Compassion. September 2017. All rights reserved. If you would like permission to reproduce, distribute, publish, display, or modify these materials, please contact www.CenterForMSC.org.
During this self-appreciation meditation, I appreciated my sense of humor, my playfulness, my insightfulness, and my gracefulness/elegance. But I was stymied regarding identifying anyone having helped, guided, taught, or nurtured these qualities. I’m a little confused as these qualities seem to be innate–and so not teachable–but on the other hand, there has in general been an absence in my life of guidance, help, and teaching. (And that hurts; though I’m also proud to be “self-made”.) The only advice or guidance I ever received from either of my parents was, one day, in response to my seeking help, to put my burnt finger under HOT water. (The opposite of what’s needed for a burn.) Other people in my life have been more generous and helpful with their guidance and teaching, but not regarding the above qualities.
Thanks so much for sharing your reflections, dear Donna. When I read the list of qualities you appreciated in yourself, it made me smile. I love hearing how we are our own supporters and cheer-people. And it sounds as if you’ve really had to develop your appreciated qualities on your own due to lack of folks around you showing you these things. We see and feel these things somewhere in our environment, so maybe you saw them and felt them in a bunch of different people as you were developing, but there isn’t one person who was a consistent role model. And sometimes we develop qualities because we experience how harmful it is in relationship to not have these qualities (so we work extra hard to not be that person). Thanks for being in community with me ❤️.