Hey Subscriber First Name

Welcome back to our weekly exploration of our inner and outer worlds. I’ve received some lovely feedback recently which I really appreciate. 

As our theme this week is self-compassion, I’ll place those positive words in a gratitude bank for me to use when my inner critic starts prowling!

But for now, let’s get going from where we left off last time:

“What does the word compassion mean to me? And how do I show myself self-compassion during my day?”

Compassion features heavily in my work and can be defined, measured and achieved in many different ways. 

However, the description that lands most with me is from Dr Gabor Maté’s book ‘The Myth of Normal’ where he says:

“Compassion does not mean feeling sorry for people. It means understanding that people act out of pain and then wanting to help relieve that pain.”

That allowed me to see that my unresolved pain and trauma was driving some of my behaviours.

I had become disconnected and unable to find my authentic voice (not a great place to be when you’re trying to grow a business!).

I was hiding because of the worry that people would judge me or hate what I wrote or shared. My imposter syndrome and self censorship was coming from a lack of self compassion.

But through healing myself, I was able to create the self compassion to get out of my own way and do things I’d only ever dreamed of. Like writing this newsletter and posting regularly on LinkedIn.

Finding self-compassion has more than saved my mental health, it’s become the foundations for my business. 

I know that some people won’t like my content but also, some will and most importantly, I’m building belief in myself and that my thoughts are worth sharing.

And due to the rise of beige AI groupthink, now is the perfect time for us to find the self compassion to cut through the noise, to share our thoughts and to speak from the heart. It’s the most daring thing any of us can do.

Sound good, so how do we achieve it? It’s time we received some wisdom from one of the experts in self compassion, Dr Kristin Neff:

I love this wisdom from Dr Kristin Neff - we can be strong but compassionate.

And we can be boundaried but loving.

Much of my coaching training focussed on the compassionate enquiry of how we can make positive change while incorporating our lived experiences.

So if like me, you’ve struggled with an inflated sense of responsibility for others, hate delegating, struggle with imposter syndrome or unable to offer yourself the same care you give others then maybe we should have a chat!

In my experience, the most capable people often have the loudest inner critics. These voices can drive excellence (which our employers love and sometimes enforce) but they come at a personal cost of exhaustion, overwork and over-functioning. 

That’s because many of us learned early on that if we were hard on ourselves, we might avoid the sting of being judged by others.

But that’s not how you’d treat somebody you love. And that’s how we need to think about the relationship we have with ourselves.

Across spiritual traditions, compassion is often described as love meeting suffering or love made visible. It’s a way of being in relationship with the world that honours our interdependence while appreciating our own internal needs.

So how do we find this self compassion? Kristin describes two essential forms:

🌸 Tender compassion

This is the nurturing, soothing, gentle side and the part of us that says:

“This is really hard. You’re doing your best. I’m here.”

It helps us rest. It allows for healing. It creates the inner safety required to be honest with ourselves. This form of compassion is often what we’ve denied ourselves especially if we’ve been trained to keep going no matter what.

🔥 Fierce compassion

This is the boundary-setting, truth-telling, action-taking side and the part that says:

“This is not OK. Something needs to change.”

Fierce compassion protects what matters. It motivates us to speak up, to stop cycles of harm and to stand for justice in ourselves, our teams or the world around us.

Kristin’s core insight is that both forms are necessary. Too much tenderness without fierceness can leave us passive. Too much fierceness without tenderness can make us harsh, even with good intentions.

We need the tender to heal ourselves and we need the fierce to transform systems.

Compassion, is not about being nice. It’s about being whole. It’s about becoming the kind of person who can hold space for pain and also move toward possibility.

I’ve created a Compassionate Leadership worksheet that is free to my email subscribers. Drop me a message if you’d like a copy.

We had an amazing time at People, Planet, Pastry last week. It was one of our busiest ever and we had an amazing mix of people.

With my self-compassionate lens on (and if you’ll forgive me a humble-brag), I’ve realised that I’m pretty good at bringing people together. The community has grown rapidly and the feedback is always positive. And most importantly I love doing it.

But I feel that I have more to offer in addition to these purposefully unstructured events. So from September, I’m going to be launching more in-depth events and workshops under my own business that bring people together and allow more time to navigate change.

And as next week is my 20th edition if the newsletter, I’ll be sharing full details and opening the early registration booking details.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our explorations this week and given yourself the space to slow down and feel grounded that you are always enough.

With so much going on in the world, it can be easy to miss our own personal achievements.

So I’d like our prompt this week to focus on an appreciation of ourselves:

What are the 5 things you’re most proud to have achieved so far this year?

I’m looking forward to exploring this next week in our 20th edition of TrimTabs! I think that might be the first of my 5 proudest moments :)

But until then, with heartfelt warmth and genuine compassion,

Nick