A theme running through my self-compassion repertoire is being kind to myself. For example an impulsive reaction to stressful or negative thoughts and experiences might be attempting a difficult subject to study with its buzz words and technical terms boosting my ego. Such a subject in my history is picking biochemistry to study as a subsidiary subject choice in my B.Sc. in microbiology. I failed biochemistry which eventually reduced my class of degree by one point. The result is a feeling of failure and low self-esteem. Being mindful to myself would mean choosing tasks which are within my capabilities and sustainable and therefore I would stop giving myself a hard time for disappointing performances in tasks. Here I am breaking patterns of feelings of failure by realising my limitations and not overreaching myself. Having the insight to realise that a particular action may stem from impulsive behaviour, a symptom of schizophrenia, is mindful and allows me to break the pattern of impulsion, failure and low self esteem. Obsessing about failure and giving myself a hard time is less favourable than self-compassion and taking smaller risks. Continual striving to try more complicated and involved things gets heavier and heavier which, to stick to that path, would be idiocy. I would say in this instance that being a witty fool living within my abilities and aptitudes is better than being a foolish wit beset by difficulty and continual striving.
Some of my striving may be down to rejection at school leaving me with a complex and striving which could be a natural defence mechanism to remove myself from that situation. The fact is the more I am striving, the more I am empowering the people that brought about my plight. Mindfulness might suggest it is better to do things for myself which I feel a calling for rather than a competitive attitude to be better than my school peer group.
Breaking patterns is an exercise in itself. Self-compassion and mindful mediation to arrive at insight or spiritual insight could be thought of as shoring up or boosting the ego or self. The idea is to reduce the ego and replace self-will with God's will or wisdom from a higher power. If through self-will I end up in a difficult problem, prayer to God or a higher power will provide divine inspiration or foresight to obviate or avoid the problem. This process of handing the problem over to God or a higher power is self-compassion as it absolves me of the responsibility for actions. An example is I may be frightened to feel happy because it means I have to accept responsibility for my feelings which may include difficulties from the past. If I hand over my feelings I learn to forgive myself. I can only have a higher power's forgiveness if I learn to forgive myself first. If I feel guilty about some action or deed in the past, self-compassion comes into play when I make amends or provide restitution for hurt parties. This is emancipating as I do not have to carry guilt which schizophrenia with its paranoia and accusing sub-vocal rhetoric feeds off.
I think it is possible that the culture of self-importance or narcissism can be manifest in self-compassion (New Scientist 16 Sept 2017 page 47). Fuelling the ego and boosting somebody's instincts makes them want to be the centre of attention and encourage egocentricity. Prestige does not go down well even at the sowing circle, everyone however humble has their own story to tell. Also, if you find yourself in difficulty, de - centring and making somebody else the centre of attention is a way of self-forgetting and finding more resources.
Now self – compassion for me is not competing with other people and not being preoccupied with a self – image of how I see myself as seen by other people because I am empowering them with my life space and what I do. I get all my electricity and frack free gas from an ethical source. I am doing my part for global climate change and helping to guarantee a future for successive generations. I don't feel guilty and my self – compassion states that I can be kind to myself because I am doing the right thing with helping the planet. This also ties in with my newly discovered teachings of Taoism which believes in cooperating with nature. This helps me to de – centre and Taoism has taught me that cooperation is necessary for survival which gives me a new sense of purpose. In the bible it states that 'he who loses his life shall find it'. Not competing is being kind to myself as I am not trying to get somewhere to be better than other people but living in the moment for myself and doing the things I enjoy instead of out of necessity or ego.
The part of the mind that admonishes the ego and it's self – compassion is the ego itself, so all I can do is acknowledge that the ego is at fault and just carry on. Caution though as to say the ego is wrong is to let mindful meditation steal my mind. Thoughts about Ego are valid thoughts as well.
