And so I wanted her to hear what I’m going to tell you so that we can just recognize. Of course, that feels horrible. It’s one of the most primal fears. As humans to be left out, to be left out of the tribe. And if you think about years ago when people lived in tribes, if you were kicked out of the tribe or left out, you died.

And so of course she was trying to coach herself out of feeling bad. And I think that it was brilliant that she wanted to coach herself and knew that was a thing. But there’s also an element of just recognizing that feels horrible and how can we allow ourselves to feel horrible and take care of ourselves. 

So this is what I wanna tell you about self-compassion. Let’s just start with a really bold truth. Beating ourselves up is not holy. It’s actually very harmful. And so what I’d want my client to do is to not be critical of herself or have that mean girl. You guys know that Jesus never wants you shame as a teaching tool. And we get to learn how to follow him in that way too.

I’ve seen firsthand with hundreds of Catholic women just how hard we can be on ourselves, especially as moms. We wanna try harder, be better, white knuckle through, do more, get our act together. I shouldn’t have said that. Replay all the things we wish we had done differently, but that’s not what the Lord would do.

This work of self-compassion, I first learned from Dr. Kristen Neff. That’s N-E-F-F. And she really started the work in self-compassion, and I’m so grateful that she’s uncovered this because it’s just so exactly what the Lord would want us to know. So you can go to self-compassion.org to learn more. But essentially this is what she teaches. 

And in three parts, self-compassion is number one, mindfulness being present. With what is, what reality is without judgment, people said these words, I ate more food than I planned. So just being present that there are some things that are, and just recognize that without judgment, it’s not bad or good, it just is. “Is” I love that. That word is something I’ll say to myself often. It is, we are, I am when I know these are facts.

Number two, common humanity. Recognizing that we aren’t alone. Other people are feeling this. This is just a human experience. And the third part is what I really want to teach you is self-kindness, which is offering yourself the same tenderness that you would give a dear friend. 

Those three things, mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness. Doesn’t that sound familiar? They’re exactly what we believe as Catholics. Jesus invites us to live in the present moment, to be mindful that we’re never alone, we’re one of many, and he asks us to love ourselves. 

Actually, he asked us to love our neighbor as ourselves, which assumes that we love ourselves. Unfortunately, many people forget that part about loving ourselves, but that is where we enter self-compassion. 

So this is a little skill, a little micro skill that you can learn today. So what does self-compassion look like, especially with food and weight? It can be where we see ourselves do things with food, where we eat off our kids’ plate, where we’re eating while we’re cooking dinner, where we recognize that half the burrito was enough, but then we clean our plate.

It’s where we say we’re not gonna sit on the couch again and eat a bag of Doritos, and we sit on the couch and we eat a bag of Doritos. Anytime we see ourselves do something that we don’t want to be doing, beating ourselves up does not help. Recognizing that we were going through a hard time, we were feeling overwhelmed, something was going on. We can solve for that. 

Self-compassion would say, wow, this is an area where we need some support. Let’s start seeing how we can be helpful here. How can we learn new patterns? What do we need to start thinking differently? How can we structure our day differently so we have more relaxation so that we don’t end up at eight o’clock, exhausted and totally stressed out?

Self-compassion would say, I want to help you. I see that you need help, but I want to help you. Self-compassion is exactly this. The first step is imagining that whatever you just went through, your friend is coming to you. 

I want you to imagine that you’re your friend and she’s coming to you and she’s in tears, and she says, you won’t believe what I just did. I sat on the couch and I ate a bag of Doritos last night. I feel so horrible. I am never gonna get out of this.

What you would do for her is you would look at her and you would sit right next to her. You’d put your arm around her and you’d say, I love you. I’ll help you. Would you like some tea? You’re not a horrible person. We’re gonna get through this. And you let her cry on your shoulder because it does feel horrible when we see ourselves do something that we don’t wanna be doing. 

This is you saying I can help you. So you allow your feelings to be there and say, we’re gonna help you through this. I love you so much. This is gonna get better. We’re gonna find a different way. That’s what you would say to your friend. You offer her comfort. You are offer her encouragement, not criticism. You offer her love, you offer her a safe place. That’s what self-compassion is. 

And when we treat ourselves with compassion, we’re doing exactly what the Lord would. And here’s the thing, is that your brain wants to believe that it’ll keep you stuck if you’re compassionate with yourself. Your brain wants to believe that this is weakness. 

But I’m just telling you that this is the way the Lord would treat you. This is holiness. This is treating yourself with the same kindness that he would treat you. This is the way to freedom. When we’re critical and condemning, we’re stuck. We feel horrible about ourselves and we want to eat more. But when we can say. Ugh. That is hard. That is hard. I see you. It’s hard walking that way. It’s hard seeing ourselves do that. 

I remember one time when I saw myself overeat. It was after a family dinner. I’ve talked about it it several times on this podcast, and I processed it the next day and I just felt so horrible. I said, you know what, Denise? This is hard. It’s hard when we feel like we’ve made so much progress and then we see ourselves do something like this. 

But you are going through a hard time and I’m gonna be extra kind and gentle to you today. ’cause you need my love, you need my support. And all day long I said I’m learning to be extra kind and tender to myself. ’cause that’s what I needed. Kindness and tenderness. I didn’t need more rigidity or someone to be critical of me. 

I didn’t need a diet. I didn’t need to white knuckle through not eating while I cleaned up dinner. I just needed a soft place to land for a day to know that I was a safe place for me. That’s what I want for you. 

So as you notice yourself do things and that critical mean girl voice wants to come out, consider yourself as a friend and treat yourself the same way as a hurting friend. Listen to her, let you be a soft place for you. Comfort her, make her tea. And you be that woman who is learning to be extra kind and tender to herself. 

This is how we grow, this is how we heal, and this is how we align ourselves with the Lord. So I hope you heard what he needed you to hear today. And I wanna remind you that for three more days, and I want to remind you that for the next 24 hours. The doors are open for our Catholic Weight Loss breakthrough program. 

It is a once in a lifetime program that my friend Catholic coach Sterling Jacquith and I will be offering, where we are taking not only the surrender method, but helping women utilize life, powerful life coaching techniques, as well as how to leverage the latest technology of artificial intelligence to be there 24-7.

Coach to overcome cravings and temptations to make weight loss absolutely very simple and seamless, or even offering a weight loss guarantee. So just go into the description and you can click the link to check out all of those details. 

Alright, everybody, have a blessed day.