Self compassion.

Happy day.

Earlier this spring, I was on the phone with my Mum. Probably I was crying - please tell me I’m not the only one who still starts to cry the second she hears her Mum’s concerned voice on the phone.

Home-made warmth.

My Mum said, “Hey, I wanted to tell you something. I’ve been going through my old photos, and found some things I’d written, and it made me think of you. When I was in my mid-forties, I wrote this line: ‘Every single thing that used to work has just stopped working, all at the same time.’”

“Whoa,” I said. “I know,” she replied.

What kills a soul? Exhaustion, secret keeping, image management. And what brings a soul back from the dead? Honesty, connection, grace.

That was exactly what I had been saying - or a teary, more dramatic version of it - for months. Since my fortieth birthday, almost every part and pattern of my life has shifted in a major way. Some of those changes have been intentional; many of them have been changes I didn’t choose. There have been stretches in the last few years when I’ve been surprised I could still recognize my own face in the mirror, my life having been so profoundly altered in so many ways.

"I want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing as though I had wings.” ~ Mary Oliver

My eyes see the world in ways I didn’t before - less naivete, more compassion, more awareness. I’ve weathered a stretch of heartbreak and grief deeper and darker and more volatile than anything I’d ever experienced before. I’ve struggled with my health, struggled in my body, struggled to make sense of some things and struggled to find solutions to soreness and insomnia. I’ve ended some friendships, which is so hard. I’ve learned to live in a smaller, quieter world, and I’ve been surprised at how much I like it.

After a lifetime of wanting to live as remotely as I can, I’m living in a town now, and I’m delighted. I’m quite enchanted by this little town, enamoured with its beauty and quirks and challenges and gifts. I have a little basket for my shopping, and strong feelings about the best curry in the town.

A reminder about grief: it isn’t linear, doesn’t honour the calendar or the clock or the weather, doesn’t obey the laws of logic or effort. It’s unpredictable. And sneaky. And it lives right alongside joy & hope & good work, & sometimes it’s so quiet you think it’s gone, & then out of nowhere it knocks the wind out of you on a Sunday morning or a Thursday afternoon. You’re not alone. Keep going.

There are some things that remain, through lines I’ve held to like lifelines in this season of compounded change and chaos. A handful of precious friendships, my family, my writing, my yoga, my love of the outdoors and gathering those I love around my table for supper - these things have remained constant, although even those things have been refined, altered as a result of all the other altering.

That’s how it works. The changes connect and cascade, and the only way through it, it seems to me, is with curiosity and self-compassion, one in each hand, the tools for the journey. I’m not a natural at either one, although I’m learning to practice both with increasing regularity.

Let's live lightly, freely, courageously, surrounded only by what brings joy, simplicity, and beauty.

By self-compassion, what I’m talking about is treating yourself with the same care and kindness you’d show to someone you love.

"Your person” or “your people” - it’s the people who, near or far, know everything that’s wrong with you and love you anyways. These are the ones who tell you their secrets, who get themselves a glass of water without asking when they’re at your house. These are the people who cry when you cry. These are your people, your middle-of-the-night, no-matter-what people...

Self-compassion is letting yourself off the hook, letting yourself be hooman and flawed and also amazing. It’s giving yourself credit for showing up instead of beating yourself up for taking so long to get there.

A friend of mine is a researcher and therapist, and we were talking about self-compassion recently. He reminded me that the research on this topic is overwhelmingly clear - the energy of self-compassion fuels so much more lasting change in our lives than shame or guilt or self-loathing ever could.

We find the courage to change when we feel loved. It unlocks our ability to move forward and grow.

The best way to start practicing self-compassion is to tap into the kindness you show other people. So many of us are voices of love for the other people in our lives, and it’s when we learn to speak with that same voice of love to ourselves that we’re able to make meaningful change. Self-compassion is learning to say, “I guess I haven’t learned that yet.”

I said, I like my life. If I have to give it back, if they take it from me, let me not feel I wasted any, let me not feel I forgot to love anyone I meant to love, that I forgot to do some little piece of the work that wanted to come through.

There’s so much I don’t know, so much I’ve gotten wrong, so much I still want to learn and experience and understand as life unfolds.

I keep moving forward, keep putting one foot in front of the other, holding tightly to the greatest gifts I’ve been given in recent years - curiosity and self-compassion. Apply as needed, over and over and over.