🌱 From Self-Awareness to Self-Empathy: A Journey Within

Hello and welcome back!

If you're someone who's committed to building better self-awareness, here's a question for you:

Can we truly grow if we ignore the negative patterns within us?

✍️ Step 1: Recognize the Pattern

Grab a sheet of paper and take a few moments to retrospect.

Write down your recurring negative patterns—habits or reactions that you know aren't helping you. Be honest. For example:

• I get angry easily

• I procrastinate often

• I compare myself too much

• I speak harshly under stress

• I overthink decisions

• I feel demotivated and stuck

Recognizing your repeated behaviors is a major milestone. That’s right—the job is halfway done when you acknowledge them.

But now comes the most important question:

How do I deal with these patterns?

Should we wait for others to point them out? Or should we begin the transformation ourselves?

❤️ Step 2: A Thought Experiment on Empathy

Let’s imagine something powerful.

It’s the end of a long day. You walk into another room and find the person you love the most crying—tears streaming, overwhelmed.

What would you do?

• Ignore them?

• Or go to them, hug them, and say:
  “I’m here. Talk to me. Please don’t cry. I’m with you.”

Of course, you’d choose the second option.

But now the real question:

Would you do the same for yourself?

You just wrote down those “bad qualities.” Maybe things like:

• “I’m a failure.”

• “I’m angry.”

• “I’m anxious.”

• “I have no focus.”

Are you just going to beat yourself up over them? Or are you going to meet yourself with compassion?

🌿 Step 3: Practicing Self-Empathy

Enter the powerful concept of Self-Empathy.

In Buddhism, there's a story about two arrows:

1. The first arrow represents life’s inevitable pain—loss, failure, criticism, struggle. It hits us and hurts. We cannot avoid it.

2. But we shoot the second arrow ourselves—by blaming, shaming, and judging ourselves for being hit in the first place.

Self-empathy helps us drop the second arrow.

It teaches us not to spiral in guilt, but to meet our pain with gentleness.

🧘‍♀️ A Tool to Try: The “Of Course” Response

Next time you're feeling low, anxious, or triggered, try this simple phrase:

“Of course.”

• Of course, I’m feeling overwhelmed.

• Of course, I’m tired and struggling to focus.

• Of course, I’m feeling disconnected.

• Of course, I got upset again.

This small phrase isn't resignation—it’s recognition.

It’s you, honoring your humanity instead of resisting it.

It creates a moment of stillness where healing can begin. And in that stillness, you begin to build a new, gentler relationship with yourself.

💬 Final Words: Be the One Who Heals You

You were able to feel empathy for your loved one, remember?

Now it’s time to offer that same love to yourself.

• Recognize your habits.

• Respond with self-empathy.

• Replace blame with understanding.

Each time you practice this, you take one step closer to becoming your calm, strong, and whole self.

So go ahead. Give yourself a hug in your heart today. You deserve it.

Thank you for reading.
We'll continue exploring this beautiful journey of self-awareness in our next post. Stay kind to yourself and stay tuned. 🌼