Engaging in Self Compassion

Each year I promise myself that winter will be my quiet season – a time for rest and reflection and revisit my thoughts. As we start the new year, I realize that another winter season has begun, and my renewal plans were buried again under a to-do list that is without end. Sitting down one day, trying to pull my shoulders away from my ears and de-stress, and a question came to mind.

Why am I waiting for someone to give me permission to engage in self-care?

As an educational culture, it struck me that we often put others' needs ahead of our own. Education literature shares how early childhood educators engage in altruistic behaviors – or acts of selflessness towards others. Educators make sacrifices to practice in this field regarding wages, long hours, and a lack of recognition. There are many documented cases of early childhood educators staying in programs too long and sacrificing personal health to continue working with children.

The concept, then of self-sacrifice, becomes embedded in our culture of care. Self-sacrifice, as a habit, distracts us from taking care of ourselves. We make sure that the needs of the children, our families, and our friends come first before we turn to ourselves. The danger of self-sacrifice is that we become adept a postponing our own needs. We believe that our needs come last in the long list of demands. We stop making choices about self-care and start waiting for permission because, indeed, we are not as important as everything else in our lives.

Waiting for permission is a dangerous place because we give up the power to make our own choices. We think that if we sacrifice ourselves, we will gain acknowledgment for our hard work, and our burdens will disappear. However, this is not true. Self-care is like the instructions we receive on a plane – first, put on your oxygen mask and then help others.

Self-compassion then is the act of permitting oneself to take care of self. It is the idea of moving self to prioritize one's own needs. Taking care of self is not selfish. Taking care of oneself is building our reserves, our resiliency, so we can continue doing the hard work. Self-compassion acknowledges that we are important enough to matter, to be a priority in our own lives.

How will you practice self-compassion today?