A moment of self-compassion can change your entire day. A string of such moments can change the course of your life. - Christopher K. Germer

Self-compassion has the “gleam of the particulars,” as poet Naomi Shahib Nye might say. The details of our lives are necessary to contact the deeper meaning of our daily experience.

Actually, when bad things happen to us, we tend to have three unfortunate reactions: self-criticism, self-isolation, and self-absorption. Neff’s three components of self-compassion direct us exactly in the opposite direction: self-kindness, recognizing the common humanity in our experience, and a balanced approach to negative emotions.

Self-compassion isn’t a “thing” that we either have or don’t have. Instead, as a practitioner and as a therapist, I try to remain open to emotional pain and breathe kindness into it, one moment after the next. MEASURING