The Evolution of Compassion

Once you have gotten more comfortable with having compassion for yourself, having compassion for others and accepting compassion from others, your self-care can evolve to the level where you create your own source of compassion.

This is the ultimate in self-care, because these positive feelings come from within, rather than being dependent on what anyone else does or says. By making the commitment to self-activate, you can create a beautiful sense of balance between your physical, emotional mental and spiritual health. You will let go of harmful thought patterns, food and exercise behaviors, or alcohol and drug use.

You can activate this soothing system within the body through practices such as deep breathing, singing or humming. You can use visualization by developing the image of a place where you feel safe, emotionally, mentally and physically. Then visualize yourself in that place.

You can also visualize yourself as a compassionate self, or use a vision board to create a physical reminder of what you're working towards.

Looking within for compassion won't come naturally at first. You can develop your sense of self-trust by making a list of your successes and accomplishments; this is evidence that you can be trusted – you can achieve your goals and overcome your challenges. Write these things down every day until this self-trust becomes a part of you. You can also write about the times when you felt most compassionate towards yourself or others, or when you felt the most compassion from someone else – and you were able to receive that compassion.

Through journaling you can develop an ideal of what you're looking for in yourself or someone else. Then you can use imagery and even affirmations to call forward these ideals.