Meditation: One breath for you, one breath for me
Meditation: One breath for you, one breath for me
Three short practices for tough tending seasons
Lately, I’ve been turning for self-care to three short but impactful practices from Kristin Neff’s Fierce Self Compassion, a must-read for people who care for others and do not want to burn out while doing it.
In her book, Neff, a self-compassion researcher and the mother of a child with autism, offers a basic, science-backed frame for self-compassion meditation, which she calls the Self Compassion Break. She argues that using this meditation helps us to care for ourselves as we do for others, even if this has been hard for us to do in the past, and that this care helps resource us for the challenges we face.
Neff offers variations on this practice for different situations, including Compassion With Equanimity — a practice for when we are caring for someone else who is suffering, and the going is getting tough. This second practice invites you to take “one breath for you, and one breath for them.”
Finally, Neff offers this mantra to say throughout the day, after we’re off the mat and in the world:
Everyone is on their own life journey. I am not the cause of this person’s suffering, nor is it entirely within my power to make it go away, even though I wish I could. Moments like these can be difficult to bear, yet I may still try to help if I can.
— Kristin Neff
These practices above remind me that, just as I have learned in my many CPR trainings as a teacher, we cannot save someone else’s life if we forget to stop and breathe for ourselves. We cannot keep pumping the chest of a person whose heart is breaking if our hands and hearts are exhausted. We are also not solely in control of the outcome — though we may help if we can.
I’d like to extend the invitation to sit in meditation together this week, using one or all of these practices, for what my friend Das calls a Sacred Five (as in, five to ten minutes of your day). And I’d love to hear what comes up for you if you feel called to share in the comments.
May these practices be of benefit for all who are working to make caring sustainable this season. For us, for the tender things we tend, for all of humanity.
Further reading:
Windows Open, Windows Closed: last month’s invitation to meditation, which invites you to check in with your body in order to determine the next right thing for you
Meeting the future halfway: On how parenthood and the pandemic have shaped our generation's relationship to time
Sensitivity on Substack: more links and recs for caring empaths who identify as highly sensitive people (HSPs) and the ones who love them
Meditation teacher
is offering an Intro to Meditation course on March 10 from 11am-12pm EST, for $30. It’s a great chance to jump into this practice if you’re newbie, and want to ride along with someone whose funny and relatable musings on Buddhism I’ve been enjoying for over ten years. He also writes a lovely newsletter called on balancing the life of a meditation teacher with the joys and demands of new parenthood, with his partner, . Highly recommend.
Disclaimer: The book link above takes you to my Bookshop page, through which I earn a small commission. The meditation links above take you to Insight Timer, which allows you to also offer a small donation to Neff in reciprocity. I am not affiliated with this app, although I do love it!
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