I’ve just finished reading the book Self-Compassion, by Kristin Neff, Ph.D.

My practice/habit, in what I term professional reading, is to read a chapter or two when I wake up each morning. Of course, if they are LONG chapters, I may - depending on time - just read 10-15 pages, and save the rest for the next morning. Over the years, this practice has worked well for me. The house is quiet, I have a cup of coffee, dogs are with me but quiet — all factors that make for quality reading time (for me).

This book, however, took longer to read than others. And, I actually took a break from reading it, and read two books, Breath, as well as the Science of Breathing. Not sure why - but maybe I do (know why).

Self-compassion is a challenging topic for me. I’ve mentioned in this blog that promoting myself is hard — putting myself out to you, hoping you’ll ‘like’ and/or ‘follow’ me is not the stuff I’m good at. Easier for me to stand in the background, read my books, study, etc.

Step back to my Friday class, last week — I was teaching a YogaBasics class and decided to throw out a balance pose (tree pose, to be specific). Since I spend more time on my mat these days during the classes I teach, I did the pose along with students. Wouldn’t you know, I fell (stepped?) out of the pose. Not too obviously, but enough that I thought to myself “Oh, Leslie, how could you? What yoga teacher can’t do a tree pose and hold it as long as the students?”. A little bit of self-berating, right?

Obviously, something in the book, Self Compassion, must have sunk in; because my next thought was — “Everyone has a bad balance day, you stepped out - so what?” Second side of tree pose — same thing, I stepped out. This time, no berating, but an acknowledgment that it wasn’t a good balance day for me and I let it go. A bit of self compassion, perhaps?

So, I do recommend the book — challenging as it was for me to confront some truths.

I’d enjoy hearing your stories of self-compassion (or, lack of). Leave me a comment!

I hope you have a great November!!!