Cultivating Self-Compassion and Releasing Expectations

Dear one, the weight the world puts on us can feel unbearable at times. We feel the heaviness of expectations. There are expectations about what we should feel, who we should be, and what we should do. My love, on top of that, we put our own expectations, judgements, “shoulds,” assumptions, and pain on ourselves. Too often we internalize the messages of the oppressors, the greedy, the wounded who have acted out on their pain. The messages saying that we aren’t enough. That we must punish ourselves to be accountable. That loving ourselves is selfish, arrogant, and taboo. 

Dear ones, the voices in our heads telling us those messages are not our own. Those are only messages we have learned from the oppressive systems we live in. These messages can be unlearned, and we can be returned to the divine Knowing that we are worthy of self-love and self-compassion. 

We can start the journey of rediscovering self-compassion and unlearning self-criticalness by releasing expectations we have for ourselves. What we expect and what actually is are two very different things. Expectations do not exist in the present moment, which makes expectations highly flawed and problematic. Dear one, release the expectations you have for yourself. Start with releasing what you expect from the next moment, working up to the next hour, the next day, maybe even the next week. You do not need expectations to keep yourself accountable, hopeful, or excited. All of those are naturally present within you. Notice what is true in this very moment. What is true about what surrounds you? What is true about your current sensory experience: what do you see, touch, taste, hear, smell? Now, dear one, what is it you truly feel inside of you? Drop the armor of what you expect yourself to feel, think you should feel, are resisting to feel..and allow whatever is to come forward without judgment. My love, give yourself permission to feel whatever is inside of you. You can always return back to what is true in your senses and surroundings if feeling becomes too much. 

Recognize, dear one, that our emotions come and go outside of our control, so it does not make sense to judge ourselves for what is out of our control. Our emotions give us messages about our environment. Use your breath to soften yourself to the experience of your emotions. We think we need to be hard on ourselves to stay accountable so that we can be worthy. We need exactly the opposite. Love is our biggest source of fuel and motivation, not control or criticalness. So, allow whatever you are feeling to come forward, then use your breath to pump loving compassion from your heart space throughout your whole body. Feel your emotions being swaddled by a loving wave of self-compassion. You are free and held. You are a deeply feeling person deserving of love from others and, especially, from yourself.