Be a Leader Modeling Self-Compassion

It’s ok to feel it all at times.

I have started meetings with potential clients (read: important meetings with strangers) with the phrase, “Are you ok?”—because of what is swirling around us in the world during the past few weeks/months/years.

So, this is your reminder that it’s ok.

It’s ok to be a leader who doesn’t have answers, but instead invites a pause, listens, and creates space to sit in the uncertainty. Have compassion for one another, loads and buckets and overflowing amounts of compassion for those around you. And then, allow yourself to embrace self-compassion too.

Let me share a quote from the work of Dr. Kristin Neff that I have found meaningful in this journey:
“The beauty of self-compassion is that instead of replacing negative feelings with positive ones, new positive emotions are generated by embracing the negative ones. The positive emotions of care and connectedness are felt alongside our painful feelings. When we have compassion for ourselves, sunshine and shadow are both experienced simultaneously. This is important—ensuring that the fuel of resistance isn’t added to the fire of negativity. It also allows us to celebrate the entire range of human experience, so that we can become whole. As Marcel Proust said, “We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full.”

Dr. Neff’s research on self-compassion has been crucial to the way I view leadership development in a holistic and integrated way. If you resonate with her words above, see the many guided practices she has compiled HERE.

This is your challenge today, dear leader. I encourage you to pick one practice or exercise (you’ll see Dr. Neff provides estimated times of each activity) and create a meaningful space to reflect and be present with self-compassion for yourself first. Remember that a leader must start with themselves, focusing on the inner work before they can call on others to do the same.

Be the person who models self-compassion, then extends compassion authentically, and finally, calls on others to do the same.