Sweetheart. Darling. Or my mother’s favorite, sweetness. Some spiritual teachers tell us to refer to ourselves by these names in moments of distress. For some, this is the start of loving kindness practice.
Now, I don’t know about you, but calling myself “sweetheart” does not come naturally. In fact, for me that word is just plain corny. But I must tell you, I’ve used it. When I’ve been irritable, agitated, restless, anxious or some other variation of god-awful, I have called myself sweetheart in the context of a prayer. The prayer is not my own, it belongs to author, Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist Sylvia Boorstein. It goes like this:
Sweetheart,
I can see that you are in pain.
Relax.
Take a breath.
Pay attention to what is happening.
We’ll get through this together.
I find this self-compassionate prayer to be completely counterintuitive during times of distress because my automatic response is to be critical and frustrated with myself. Some version of this can literally come out of my mouth or just circumnavigate my heart space: Get it together! Moving on… What is the matter with you?! The spoken or silent version of this is always edgy and kind of mean to be honest. Certainly not the way I speak to others in times of distress or otherwise. But I do to myself, especially when I am not performing in life the way I believe I should be (those damn should statements, right?!)
When I think of the word “ahimsa,” a Sanskrit word which means to not injure, I am reminded of the work I still need to do on my harsh inner critic who still seems to rear her ugly head during stressful times. In the past, I might have tried to do the why: as in why do I do those harmful things? However, in my experience, rehashing the “why,” does not seem to deter me from engaging in the harmful automatic behavior, even if the insight is there. What I can do though, is practice, which is to say, condition, a new response to how I speak to myself during situations that cause intense unpleasant emotions. The practice could be “maitri,” another Sanskrit word, which means friendliness or benevolence, often in the form of loving kindness exercises.
Take this morning for example. Well, this morning actually began sometime in the middle of the night when my husband was called out to plow snow again. This was quickly followed up by my daughter crying off and on for several hours due to a belly ache. Of course I didn’t know it was a belly ache at the time, until the explosive diarrhea came just minutes before leaving for daycare. And so on and so forth.
Because I don’t have any trouble at all practicing compassion toward others, if my colleague had come in this morning sharing the same story, some version of Sylvia Boorstein’s prayer would have effortlessly spilled right out of my mouth. But with myself…it’s more like kick a horse when it’s down.
How is that helpful? Well, it’s not, my rational mind knows that. But unfortunately my rational mind does not always rule the roost when it comes to being tender toward myself.
Though it could. I would like it to.
I’ve had glimpses of this maitri practice. For instance when I am distressed now I may light a candle to consciously invite the spirit of god into my living room or kitchen, what have you, as a symbolic way to say: “HELP!” The other day, a weekend, when time is more flexible, I stopped everything I was doing and just sat down at my dining table to read a paragraph from a book that basically said: “You are doing okay. Keep it up. You will get through this. This is only a moment in time.” Not overly Susie-Sunshine, but not cruel or punitive either. Progress.
I had shared in an earlier post that I spent several years in my twenties going to AL-ANON meetings, and one popular slogan that has always stayed with me these years later is: progress not perfection. I try to remember that slogan when I am struggling to practice ahimsa with myself. When reciting Ms. Boorstein’s prayer is the foreign equivalent of me trying to speak Arabic. Sweetheart, you are working on it…
What loving kindness exercises do you practice to bring more ahimsa into your own life?
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