I have often envied people of faith – it’s clearly very comforting to have that belief and certainty about your life and what comes after it. But as well as being raised in a non-religious family, I was also taught from an early age to think critically. My family was highly political, liberal and motivated to make the world a better place. And part of that mindset was thinking critically about everything – what we read in the media, what politicians and others in power said and did.

I then studied Sociology at university and later, before retraining as a therapist, was a health journalist for over a decade. As a journalist I was taught to look for evidence-based treatments, for both mind and body, which was an excellent theoretical foundation for my move into psychotherapy. So, plenty more training in and encouragement of critical thinking there.

Since switching to psychotherapy later in life, I have retained this ability to think critically, question and try to understand the evidence, or at least the theory, behind every form of therapy I have studied. And this is why – somewhat frustratingly, I must admit! – I could never wholeheartedly sign up to any one therapy model. All of the many approaches I have trained in have their wisdom, their strengths and rich array of resources. But they also have weaknesses and things I can’t just blindly sign up to, because I don’t agree with them – that would require a kind of religious faith, which is not the way my mind works.

What is the compassionate self?

One of the things I have grappled with on my journey as a therapist is how to understand, name and work with the inner resource that is so crucial to therapeutic work, but has many names in different traditions. In Buddhism, this would be called your Buddha Nature; in Taoism, it would be your chi. In indigenous cultures, most of which practice some form of animism, this resource would be thought of as your spirit – within you, but also outside and all around you, in objects, places, and animals.

With the greatest respect to those who do, I don’t believe in souls, or spirits, so for me this inner resource must come from your brain – which is of course the most miraculous, exquisitely complex object in the known universe. And in the various forms of psychotherapy I integrate in my work with clients this brain-based resource would be called your Healthy Adult, in schema therapy. Internal family systems speaks of the Self. Family therapist Terry Real’s relational life therapy frames this as the Wise Adult. I like all of these ideas and think they each have their usefulness and innate wisdom. But I especially like the idea from compassion-focused therapy (CFT) of the Compassionate Self.

Let me explain why, before exploring how you can access this powerful, healing inner resource in your day-to-day life. First, I am really fond of the CFT model. Its founder, Professor Paul Gilbert, is a brilliant evolutionary/clinical psychologist – on his trainings in Derby I learned a great deal about the way our brains were shaped by millennia of adaptations, in some ways helpfully but in many ways not so much. He argues that most of our psychological problems come from an ‘old brain’ (subcortical) vs ‘new brain’ (cortical) conflict and also integrates traditional CBT with Eastern philosophy, especially ideas from Buddhism, which really resonate with my view of the world.

Like Professor Gilbert, I see compassion – for self and others – as the key healing ingredient for my clients. Kristin Neff’s work on self-compassion has also been a big influence on me, so let’s add a dash of her wisdom and insight here. Which brings us to the Compassionate Self – how can you access it in your daily life?

You, at your best

The good news is that you don’t have to become someone different, or better, or more spiritually advanced, to embody your Compassionate Self. All the qualities this innate, inner core offers – strength, courage, wisdom, kindness, love, maturity, resilience, healing and, of course, compassion – are already inside you. You just need to do what the Buddha called ‘waking up’. Because he taught us that we all wander around in a dream, thinking we’re not good enough, or flawed, or broken in some way. And we think that if we only we had this thing, or that person, or this piece of wisdom, then we would be OK.

But… are you ready, because this is perhaps the most important thing you will hear today. None of those things is true. You are a walking miracle. And utterly unique – not one of the eight billion other humans on this planet is quite like you. You are perfect, with all your imperfections. You are lovable, with all your little quirks and eccentricities. You are beautiful, with all your flaws.

And you already embody this Compassionate Self in more ways than you know. It’s you when you spend 20 minutes chatting to an elderly neighbour, who recently lost his beloved wife, despite being frazzled after a long day. It’s you when you somehow manage to remain patient, at 3am, when your daughter had that bad dream again and needs a hug and reassurance that it was just a dream before going back to sleep. It’s you when your heart breaks as you read about refugees in some terrible situation, and donate to a charity that helps them, even though you can’t really afford it.

You embody your Compassionate Self when you make the effort to message that friend who recently got divorced and you know is especially lonely on Sundays. It’s you when you give your wife an especially long and tender hug, because you can see in her face she had a really tough day. It’s you when you organise a surprise party for your friend’s 40th birthday, even though it’s a huge job and you are already overwhelmed by your seemingly infinite to-do list.

So to embody your Compassionate Self, all you need to do is wake up from your dream of defectiveness and realise that this is you, already – it’s you, at your best.

If this has piqued your interest and you would like to meet this wise, compassionate version of you, try my Compassionate Friend Meditation on Insight Timer. People seem to really like this one – I hope you do too.

Sending you love and warm thoughts ❤️

Dan

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