Dear Monica,

A letter to myself

Dear Monica,

Lately, I know you have been feeling so overwhelmed with all the demands on your life—the demands of being of mother of 3 who need all different things right now, a wife, a daughter to ailing parents, a busy doctor and researcher, a nutrition expert and mentor to so many students. I know you feel you are doing a bad job taking care of your parents, that you are not parenting your kids well, your husband is living a solitary life and even your dogs have forgotten you. I know that you are the harshest critic of yourself and demand perfection in every way. I know.

But, I also know that you are doing the best you can. You love your patients with deep compassion. You do research with ferocious curiosity. You love your family like a lioness and you take care of the earth like she is your own. What you do not do though, is love yourself. You do not love yourself enough to give yourself grace and forgive yourself for what you cannot do. We are all human Monica. You need to realize that you are too.

Sincerely, Monica

Photo by Hala Al-Asadi on Unsplash

We all struggle with self compassion. The perfect example is the care giver who is giving all day long to a sick husband, wife, child or parent. I take care of many many care givers. The patient who is taking care of their 90 year old mother. The wife who takes care of her husband who has dementia in his 70s and has changed in just one year. The parents who take care of their nonverbal autistic child. I see you all. I feel your sadness. I know that there are no ‘thank yous’ in this job. There is just take and take. The sick person can’t help it. They need so much and you are their lifeline. But at what cost? There have to be ways to nurture the self along the way so that you have the energy and love to give to the other person.

Self compassion:

Compassion according to the American Psychiatric association “means treating oneself with kindness and gentleness, with a caring, soothing, and understanding attitude, especially when experiencing difficult life experiences or personal shortcomings. All humans experience suffering, are imperfect and make mistakes. Self-compassion involves considering one's experience as a part of the human experience. Self-compassion also involves acknowledging and being present with one’s feelings through non-judgmental awareness and noticing.”

The thing about self-compassion is two-fold: One side is that you have to truly understand and truly believe that we are all flawed beings. And the other side is that we have to love ourselves knowing that we will never be perfect. We have to appreciate that we NEED to take care of ourselves. We deserve to be taken care of.

What we say to ourselves matters.

Common ways we struggle with self compassion:

1. Self-Criticism: Self-judgment. “I am so fat. I am not smart. I am so slow.”

2. Feeling alone: We often feel we are the only ones who are going through anything hard. That feeling creates despondency, anger and sadness.

3. Having negative thoughts: Always thinking the worst of the situation. “This is never going to go well. I shouldn’t have tried in the first place.”

4. Rumination: Thinking over and over again about the same thing.

Ways we can practice Self Compassion: