Have you ever thought about compassion? I mean, reallllly thought about it? Have you considered the line Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and rather than use it to justify how we treat others, look at it as a reflection of how we treat ourselves? Most of us, especially Christians that I know, live life trying to be “good” and “right.” We advocate for the poor, support legislation that we feel fits our ethics, offer cookies to our neighbor. But does it ever fall short? Do you ever get to the end of your day and realize that you had the most disconnected conversation with your mother, yelled at your lover, and ended it all by stuffing your face with leftover chocolate quinoa cake from the bakery next door? But you were TRYING, right? You did take those cookies over to the neighbors, and you volunteered at the soup kitchen over the weekend! You’re trying! You WANT to be a compassionate human being! And gosh… you epically failed. And now you’re angry. And now you feel shitty. And now you’re eating cake. And maybe crying, too. Mmmm… salty chocolate quinoa cake–it tastes so good, it hurts!

On today’s vlog I talk about compassion in terms of what that means about treating ourselves. How can we expect to love our neighbors as ourselves when we go around hating on ourselves? Negative self-talk is something that I’ve struggled with most of my life. I never realized how bad it was until I lived in a community setting and people started pointing out my self-discipline modalities. I would drop a glass and say, out loud, “Rachel, you idiot!” And someone would say, “You’re not an idiot. You just dropped a glass.” And so I would have to backtrack and say, “Hey! It’s okay Rae, you just dropped a glass.” Or someone would tell me something I did that upset them, and I would wallow in a despair of self-hatred. “Why am I such a bitch? Why can’t I just be nice? Why do I always end up with people getting mad at me?” Either that, or I would be defensive. I couldn’t just listen with compassionate ears and accept that the way someone perceived my actions was perhaps not the intention I had behind them.

Today I talk about this, and how it relates to my history of sexual abuse, and how I began understanding compassion in a deeper and more loving way. Compassion is still something I struggle with, especially toward myself, but my goodness have I made TREMENDOUS progress. We do not have to live in a world of self-hate.

As always, please share this video, discuss, question, and offer your own stories about compassion. I want to hear from you!

Be you, be true, be love.