Category Archives: Uncategorized

Self-Compassion Saturday: Marianne Elliott

8 Replies

Marianne Elliott is a writer, human rights advocate, and yoga teacher. Trained as a human rights lawyer, Marianne worked in New Zealand, East Timor, and the Gaza Strip prior to her time in Afghanistan, where she served in the United Nations mission (2005-2007). Her memoir Zen Under Fire, tells the story of her work in Afghanistan and the toll that work took on her and her relationships.

Marianne writes and teaches on creating, developing and sustaining real change in personal life, work and the world. She created the 30 Days of Yoga online courses to help people establish and maintain home yoga practices to support them to do their good work in the world. At the holidays – more than ever – we need practices to keep peace with ourselves and others. Marianne created her Zen Peacekeeper Guide to the Holidays to help you find a calm, compassionate path through the holiday season.

I first discovered Marianne Elliott by way of Susannah Conway, at least I think that’s how it happened. It’s hard to tell for sure, because however first contact happened, it quickly became clear that many of the other bloggers, teachers, artists and healers whose work I follow have a connection with her in common. However it happened, I immediately was drawn to how she blends activism and practice, manifesting gentleness as power, showing that soft is strong.

I was lucky enough to meet her at World Domination Summit, to take a yoga class with her. Her energy is simultaneously calming and energizing. She may not be the first person who suggested the idea but she’s the first person I really heard and understood when she talked about the yogic principle of balancing your effort with ease, a concept that has helped me make and sustain an important shift. Along with Anna Guest-Jelley and my local teachers, Marianne has inspired me to enter yoga teacher training. I am so happy to share her perspective on self-compassion with you, kind and gentle reader.

polaroidportrait31. What does self-compassion mean, what is it? How would you describe or define it?

It’s simply being kind to myself – meeting myself, whatever my emotional, physical or psychological state, with loving kindness. As simple, and difficult, as that!

2. How did you learn self-compassion? Did you have a teacher, a guide, a path, a resource, a book, a moment of clarity or specific experience?

I think the first teacher to really speak to me, through her writing, about self-compassion was Pema Chödrön. I was in Afghanistan at the time and suffering a lot. It took reading Pema’s books to see how much of my suffering was being caused by my own harsh judgements of myself, and the mean commentary I had running in my own head.

My meditation teacher Peter Fernando helped me learn self-compassion both through his own kindness – towards me, himself and everyone else I watched him interact with – and through meditation practice.

Another wonderful teacher for me has been Sharon Salzberg who teaches loving kindness meditation and practice. I’ve recently had the gift of getting to know Sharon as a friend as well as a teacher and she really does embody the kindness she teaches.

Today, thanks to teachers like Peter and Sharon, I practice metta (or loving kindness) meditation regularly as way to cultivate compassion and loving kindness towards myself and others. Here is a link to a free recording of a metta mediation which I’d love to share with anyone who is interested in trying the practice.

3. How do you practice self-compassion, what does that experience look like for you?

It’s a practice of softening towards myself, of connecting to my own heartfelt desire for my own well-being, and finding a source of gentle, sweet kindness towards myself – even when I’ve made a mistake. Metta meditation has helped me cultivate the capacity for this, but it still doesn’t always come easily.

Here’s an example: let’s say I’ve just ‘messed up’ in some way. Maybe I made a mistake that caused another person some stress or inconvenience or pain. There is a learned tendency in me to be harsh with myself, and often I’ll feel that rough edge of judgement rushing up on a hot wave of shame.

My metta practice can help me pause, in the moment, and connect to a sweeter, gentler place in myself. I can find compassion for myself and extend a hand of friendship to myself, just as I might to someone else. Initially I found that the kind voice in my head sounded a lot like my teacher, Peter, but these days it sounds more and more like me – just a kinder, gentler me than the version that used to rule to roost inside my head!

Girl in blue at school Lal4. What do you still need to learn, to know, to understand? What is missing from your practice of self-compassion, what do you still struggle with?

Some days the mean voices are faster, louder and more insistent than my inner sweetheart (as another teacher of mine, Natalie Goldberg, likes to call it). I’m not sure this is because anything is missing from my practice of self-compassion, except perhaps consistency! It’s an ongoing process – to strengthen the voice of the inner sweetheart, being a kind friend to myself in my messiest or darkest moments. But I feel confident in the transformative power of the metta practice.

marianneI am so grateful to Marianne, for these responses, but also for her presence in the world, awake and compassionate, alive with intention, and for her willingness to work towards easing suffering, in herself and in the world, to show up with an open heart. To find out more about Marianne, to connect with her:

Next on Self-Compassion Saturday: Sherry Richert Belul.

P.S. If you didn’t see the first post in this series, you might want to read Self-Compassion Saturday: The Beginning. Or make your way through all the posts tagged Self-Compassion Saturday.

Self-Compassion Saturday: Lisa Field-Elliot

2 Replies

I first discovered Lisa Field-Elliot’s blog and photography by way of Susannah Conway. I was instantly drawn in by her aesthetic, so beautiful, dreamy and deep, soft around the sharpest edges, elegant but raw. Reading her blog posts is like being visited by an oracle in a dream or going on a vision quest, a healing ritual, magic and medicine, a gentle and complete surrender to wisdom and grace delivered with such compassion.

Her vision is poetic but brave, facing the truth directly, going deep. She is “a witness, narrator, liaison, photographer, interpreter, whittler, language-miner, image facilitator, poet, and ally.” My regard for her only grew knowing she had a dog, loved and lost him, and then courageously entered into that relationship again with another beast destined to break her heart. I am so happy to share her perspective on self-compassion with you today.

lisa1. What does self-compassion mean, what is it? How would you describe or define it?

I believe self-compassion to mean truly honoring, and allowing for, our own suffering. To be with the hurts, the uncomfortable, the longings and the hungers, and to offer value and substance to these experiences. More than that, to go further and to respond, in kind, to what the self is really wanting and needing. To ask, and then to answer, without any payment in the form of shame or greed, guilt or assumed indulgence.

I believe this to mean allowing for the unpredictable nature of being human. It means being kind. It means allowing for plans to change, for the mountains to call, and for rest and retreat to be taken freely. It means beholding beauty as our birthright and our longings as legitimate. It means loving the self as much, or more, than the other.

fogandhill2. How did you learn self-compassion? Did you have a teacher, a guide, a path, a resource, a book, a moment of clarity or specific experience?

For me, the embodiment of self-compassion has come through a lifetime of self-discovery, and validation from those that have come before. I was born porous and open, and with that constitution, came a sensitivity to simply living. When we struggle inside, we seek to know the way through.  Along the way, I found the paths of yoga and Buddhism provided vivid maps and frameworks for what it means to be compassionate and to value self-care and inquiry.  Teachers have shown up throughout my life in women’s groups and retreats, spiritual circles and in friendships. Poets like Kahil Gibran, Mary Oliver, Hafiz, Rumi and Ghalib have lit my path. Writers and healers like Tara Brach, Elizabeth Lesser, Pema Chödrön, and Martha Beck have made tremendous offerings toward my understanding, and valuing, of loving care for myself.

Mothering has, perhaps, had the greatest influence on my experience of self-compassion.  The sheer abundance of responsibility implicit in the raising of children has brought me to my knees over and over again, pushed me to the edge of understanding my capacity to love and to lead, and simultaneously depleted and overflowed my reserves again and again. I had to learn to trust and care for myself, to model what it means to listen to my body, my heart, my instinct. Out of absolute necessity, mothering begs for self-compassion.

cupandsky3. How do you practice self-compassion, what does that experience look like for you?

For me, self-compassion is an underlying theme in all that I do. I have had to learn to listen to my body’s requests for each day–for rest, for movement, for nutrition. Likewise, I have had to be tuned into my need for stimulus and inspiration, balanced with my need for silence and retreat, for nature and nurturing.

teaandfeather

So, what does this look like?  In short, it looks like flexibility. It looks like being willing to change plans if something doesn’t feel right. It looks like saying no to an opportunity if my body responds with a knot in my gut. It looks like taking the time to feed myself well, to exercise, to stare at walls when I am overwhelmed. It looks like PERMISSION to respond to whatever comes up inside of me, in the most gentle, kind, and loving way possible–as I would for my children, or anyone else that I love.

swim4. What do you still need to learn, to know, to understand? What is missing from your practice of self-compassion, what do you still struggle with?

I still struggle with the question of whether or not I am giving enough of myself to the world. I struggle with the days that my body clearly begs for respite, and I know that there will be disappointment on the other side of my choice to care for myself, and I must choose carefully what will create the greatest cost and benefit. I also struggle with adapting my longings for a quiet, rhythmic existence to the anything-but existence of life in a family with active teenagers and a puppy! Sometimes, being compassionate is simply listening and acknowledging, even if the situation cannot be changed. It isn’t always doing, but rather allowing for what comes up–and this is what I am still learning.

lisa02I am so grateful to Lisa, for these responses, but also for being an example of feminine power, a particular blend of gentleness and courage, wisdom and compassion, soft but strong. To find out more about Lisa, to connect with her:

Next on Self-Compassion Saturday: Marianne Elliott.

P.S. If you didn’t see the first post in this series, you might want to read Self-Compassion Saturday: The Beginning. Or make your way through all the posts tagged Self-Compassion Saturday.