Podcast Transcript | Ep. 57

The Power of Self-Compassion and Empathy

The Power of Self-Compassion and Empathy | Ep. 57

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Order Within Navigating a world of endless chaos and crisis, many of us are experiencing inner turmoil, insecurity, anxiety, fears, and isolation. These feelings are only being amplified by news cycles. Social media and never ending political madness. How do we find our way out of the chaos?

[00:00:24] How do we find strength within ourselves? How do we find meaning in a world driven by materialism? These questions and many more I aim to answer on the show. My goal is to be a trusted guide on your journey to selfhood. May you find what you seek. Hello and welcome everyone. I'm your host, Brandon Ward back with another episode of order within.

[00:00:54] Today's episode is going to be covering the power of self compassion and [00:01:00] empathy. This is one of my favorite topics. Although I feel like every topic I talk about on here is one of my favorites, but it really is because it's been one of the most influential pieces. I've been able to add into my life through all the work that I've done.

[00:01:16] Within myself. And developing compassion and empathy for my own being. Is really the transformative turning point. In my life. There are moments when I had these pieces of awareness that hidden. And there are different moments that impacted my life, but. Self compassion and empathy for my own being is something that I've grabbed on and gained from and leveraged.

[00:01:45] Since this time and it's been insanely impactful. My faith is always a part of my life. That's a huge influence in all that I do, but it's always been in my life, even when I wasn't aware of it fully. But compassionate and empathy is something that I [00:02:00] learned. That's the difference. And so I would actually put it up there with quitting porn as a main, like those two decisions.

[00:02:08] I like that. I made his choices, the learn self-compassion and then quitting porn and like embracing my masculinity and then leading me into quitting born are probably the biggest, two of the biggest decisions that I've made. That's impacted my wellbeing overall. So I want to talk about that. And today's show.

[00:02:27] And how it plays a crucial role. And our personal development and mental health. I think the.

[00:02:34] It's there's additional things that I've been learning in this coaching program. I'm in a coaching program right now called positive intelligence. It's by usher. some main Charmaine. And it's been fantastic. I've got a great pod group that I'm in of other coaches. The value that we're creating in that group is phenomenal. But this stage in the training program, we're talking about empathy for ourselves. [00:03:00]

[00:03:00] So it sparked the inspiration to do this episode and talk about what that means in deeper, in detail and at a deeper level. So let's go ahead and get into it.

[00:03:11] So we're going to be going over. So we're going to start by understanding self compassion and empathy. And then we're going to talk about why we struggle with it. The importance of it. And strategies to cultivate it. And then we'll conclude the episode.

[00:03:27] Self compassion and empathy is going to be. Learning to love ourselves fully without condition. So learning to unconditionally love ourselves. All that we are. The good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. We that's the aspect of ourselves. So we know what compassion is. We know what empathy most of us do. I should say compassion. We can be compassionate for other people. We can be compassionate for.

[00:03:53] Animal life, which is being empathetic. It's being mindful of the [00:04:00] existence of another life. It's being mindful and recognizing and honoring that life. It's honoring the sovereignty of that life. It's honoring the essence. And it's right to existence that, that life has all of these pieces late. Are.

[00:04:14] Made possible by compassion. That's when we are applying compassion, those are the things that we're directing at other lives and other beings, other living creatures. Empathy is our ability to feel and relate. Two others.

[00:04:32] And ourselves, that's the thing. So when we're thinking about these principles of compassion and empathy, It's now applying that same compassionate principle that we do to life outside of ourselves, to ourselves. And then the same thing with empathy. So empathy is going to be able to connect and relate to the feelings of others. Understanding.

[00:04:50] Someone else's perspective. We can empathize with where they're coming from. We can empathize with their family life. We can empathize. What their health [00:05:00] situation, their financial situation, it's putting ourselves in their shoes and experiencing it and getting feeling what that would be like imagining ourselves in their shoes.

[00:05:10] So that's empathy, right? So we're going to apply those things to ourselves though. And that's the difference? And. This is all tied up in understanding ourselves, which allows us to love ourselves. And the cool thing about this new program that I'm in. And I've talked about inner bonding, which is the process of parenting ourselves.

[00:05:32] And. It's a very. It's different than what Shazad is teaching in this program in the sense that. There's a component of it. So there's a, there's huge value in learning to be. Apparent to ourselves being compassionate to ourselves, caring for ourselves. And, but I'm going to talk about some specifics of how there's some techniques that he's teaching in this program that I haven't discussed on this show that I think could be impactful for people because the work that I did in the [00:06:00] past,

[00:06:00] Was going back to myself, within myself and envisioning that part of myself. So the seven-year-old the five-year-old, the three-year-old whatever. And going back to that person, But we're going to talk a little bit about how in this program he's actually showing we're actually using real pictures of ourselves from our childhood to capture the essence of our being and the component of that, and that all ties together.

[00:06:25] With how we learn to love and understand ourselves. And by going back. Like a great way to develop compassion and empathy for ourselves is sometimes when we think about it as adults. W we can be critical and judgmental of who we are, and it's easier to judge ourselves as adults, but it's much harder if we think back to ourselves as children.

[00:06:46] And learn to be compassionate and empathetic for that version of ourselves. And you can add an whole other layer of impact. By using a photo of ourselves from that time. And that's, what's [00:07:00] interesting about this program is that they layer in this picture of yourself, or you look at your picture of yourself at a certain age, whatever it may be, the idea is that you're going to capture.

[00:07:09] The spirit or essence of who you are, the true being of who you are. And this program, he calls it Sage, which is the, it's the being that we bring into this world. The essence that we bring into this world with us. And. You can set aside. Whether you believe in anything or not. Faith or anything that out, like from a creator perspective, this is just, if you think about it, energetically, the continuity of our being is what we bring into this world.

[00:07:36] That's a spark. It's the essence that lives within us. And so we cultivate that. And the idea is that when we look at ourselves as children, We can see that essence. We can remember back who we were and the pictures help us really feel that part of ourselves. So when we engage with compassion and empathy towards ourselves as children,

[00:07:57] We can start to rebuild the relationship with [00:08:00] ourselves. We can start to develop compassion and empathy for ourselves because what we do, what we remember when you do this work. As you realize that child, that kid is still inside of us. Like that little three-year-old that five-year-old, whatever is always in a still.

[00:08:16] So when we go back and we. See that part of ourselves. We see us in that state. And we envision these qualities about ourselves and the things that we love to do as kids. It makes it easier to be compassionate and empathetic for ourselves. As kids as children, as babies, because it's just natural. You see the innocence and you can see that spark. So it allows us to open up our hearts a bit and develop some of that compassion and empathy for ourselves. And we use that bridge to the moment of now.

[00:08:47] When we, as we build this muscle, as we establish this compassion to our past self, our younger selves, that, that child version of what we're looking at that picture, we may be looking at. We know that we carry that child within [00:09:00] us. So we can start to apply compassion in the now because. Being compassionate to our adult selves is also being compassionate to our child self, but it starts with the child. It's easier to love ourselves as children and remember who we were as children. So it's understanding.

[00:09:17] Who we are and how we apply empathy and compassion to who we are by understanding ourselves. And we relate that back to when we were young. And we think about who we were as a kid. And the essence that we brought, the energy that we brought, was it curiosity? Was it. Was it high energy? Was it questioning? Was it creativity? Was it art? Was it love, like all the things that we carry within us as children?

[00:09:40] Thinking back to those times. We can start to develop compassion for ourselves. There's another component. To this program that it's important to talk about. And I'm going to talk a little bit about in this. Next phase here is things that undermine our self-compassion and Shazad. [00:10:00] Talks about the judge, the judge that we all have, which is that critical aspect of our minds. That's the develops in all of us.

[00:10:07] And then saboteurs, which are basically the supporting cast to the judge and there's different types of saboteurs, but the judge is the ruling force that creates the fear, the judgment, the negativity in our lives. It creates anxiety. And we're not loving and empathetic towards ourselves when we're operating from the judge. And that's the essence of it. There's a lot more to it. I'm going to talk more about this program once I get through it and I have the.

[00:10:33] Full view. I'm going to do a breakdown. It may take a couple of episodes actually to get through it. But I'm going to do that for y'all. Cause I think it's going to be helpful and I think you'll enjoy it. And I think it'll be insightful. Hopefully.

[00:10:44] But now we're going to talk about why we struggle and with self compassionate and empathy. And there's some common reasons for that.

[00:10:52] One of those may be societal expectations. Just what society. Pushes on us, the beliefs that society has about the way that we should [00:11:00] be living the things that we need to be doing, the standards that we have to live by. Those are the societal expectations, the things that we were told in school, the things that we may be told by our parents, the things that we may be told by teachers or coaches or friends.

[00:11:14] Other parents. Those are the societal expectations. It goes into culture, into entertainment. All this stuff is in there. And so we can have challenges with that based on the things that we're learning from our society. So that's one aspect of it. Another aspect is going to be our childhood experiences. So the way that we grew up, the way our parents parented us.

[00:11:35] Where they aloof. Were they absent? Were they negligent? Were they abusive? Were they present? Were they loving? There's a wide range of experiences that people have as children and parents, and as being parented. So your childhood experience is definitely going to influence your ability to be compassionate or empathetic towards yourself. If you were shown that through action and example [00:12:00] by your parents, you're one very fortunate and I hope you are aware of it and can be appreciative of that because it's such a rare thing in our world.

[00:12:07] That parents truly love their kids and they show that empathy towards them.

[00:12:12] If you were able to learn that from an example, then you're really ahead of a lot of people. And it, but it's shown otherwise most of us have to learn this stuff though. We have to learn how to be compassionate towards ourselves. We have to learn empathy, but a lot of what happens too is we learn empathy and compassion for other people, but not for ourselves. People struggle with this internally.

[00:12:35] And that's a lot of it's societal stuff. It's our childhood experiences. It's. It's the fear of being selfish. There's a lot of fear around being selfish and self-centered.

[00:12:49] So a lot of fear drives that component to it blocks us from being compassionate and empathetic towards ourselves. And then finally a fear of complacency can be another [00:13:00] component of that. So if we are.

[00:13:03] We think that being loving and kind to ourselves will create complacency. Like we'll be passive, we'll be lazy. We won't do anything, but it's actually the opposite. What ends up happening when we're compassionate towards ourselves and empathetic towards ourselves. Is our energy levels go up. We start to heal and nourish our being, which gives us more energy, which gives us the ability to do more in life. We can create more. We can engage more. We can give more.

[00:13:29] So it actually creates movement and energy, not complacency when we learn. To be compassionate and empathetic towards ourselves. But there can be a lot of things that block us from doing that. And those are the things that we have to look out for, particularly our childhood experiences, because we learn this behavior or we don't.

[00:13:48] And the things that we have to be mindful of is bad behavior, bad behaviors that we've learned or more unloving behaviors. I should say that we've learned they're not. Nothing is really bad. At the end of the [00:14:00] day, y'all. I know that may seem insane. But when we pull out full view, There's always a gift or a blessing in any situation, no matter what, that's the power of the Sage. That's the power of that.

[00:14:13] That essence that we bring with us into this life. When we allow ourselves to view through that lens, anything is possible.

[00:14:21] But we struggle with that and we have to work on these muscles to get to that point to where we can start to feel. That love and empathy. And so you all know if your listeners, I like to use examples. From movies and shows. And so one of the examples that I have for as an. Regarding the struggle with self compassion and empathy, maybe a little surprising.

[00:14:45] But it's Tony stark from iron man from the Marvel universe.

[00:14:51] Early on in those movies, you see him struggling with self compassion. He often punishes himself for his mistakes and shortcomings, which leads to a lot of [00:15:00] self destructive tendencies. And he keeps pushing further and pushing his own limits beyond almost. Return. And this is a component of that where very successful driven people think that being compassionate and empathetic towards themselves creates weakness, but it does the opposite.

[00:15:19] But what ends up happening is we just do more self-destructive things. That destroy our wellbeing. Because we haven't learned to be empathetic for ourselves. We think we need to be. Fear-driven pushing ourselves, all of those things because of the lies that we've been told about being compassionate towards ourselves and being empathetic and loving.

[00:15:43] We've been tricked into thinking that creates complacency and laziness all of these things, but it's the other it's not doing it is what creates those things. So Tony stark is an extreme example of that. He's a prime example of someone who's extremely successful, but doesn't know how to be [00:16:00] empathetic for himself.

[00:16:01] And he has a better sense of how to do it for the people around him. He starts evolving through the movies, obviously, as he understands what's happening. He starts to take better care of himself too. But early on in that movie and those movie series. He makes a lot of decisions that lead to destructive tendencies for himself. And that's because.

[00:16:20] So many of us struggle with compassion and empathy, especially high achievers.

[00:16:26] All right. So now looking at the importance of this.

[00:16:29] Having compassion and empathy versus selves contributes to mental health. It contributes to our wellbeing. It contributes to war. Resilience, personal growth, inner strength. I attribute. Outside of my faith. Compat. So you can ignore that if you want. I know that there's a layer of power that comes from that. A peace that comes from that that I have.

[00:16:51] But we're going to set that aside for a moment.

[00:16:54] Just compassion and empathy for ourselves. I can [00:17:00] really heal. Who we are, whether you believe in God or not, that doesn't matter because you're activating your, it does matter, but it doesn't at the same time in the sense that you can leverage these things, because these are the gifts that were given to us.

[00:17:13] And this is the power that we hold. This is the power that we have. With the skills that we have. So compassion and empathy is our own abilities that we've been gifted that we can use in our lives. And so by applying it to our lives, We fill ourselves up. We get more energy. We have more focus. We bring the good qualities of ourself to this.

[00:17:36] World. And this enables us to live. A higher quality life to be in, to have a higher sense of wellbeing. And to be the best version of ourselves.

[00:17:47] But without this, it's the opposite and we never fill up and we stay wounded. And we are unable to move forward because we haven't developed the ability to heal [00:18:00] ourselves. And this comes from compassion and empathy for who we are. That's why going back to our childhood. And viewing that child, that innocent child, that sweet child.

[00:18:09] It's we can feel the empathy growing in us because we can relate to that child. And we can remember that's who we were. And we can create space from where we are now, which may be a very judgmental critical. Uncompassionate way of living towards ourselves. And we can go back to our child and remember how powerful that is.

[00:18:30] And we can know. That being is within us. And that we can start to cultivate this and it were, it creates incredible strength inside ourselves. Y'all, it's really surprising how much force this can create and we apply empathy and compassion to ourself. And that means softening up. That means being okay. That means being okay. That we make mistakes, knowing that we're not perfect. We are imperfect beings. That's the.

[00:18:57] First component of this is recognizing that we all make mistakes [00:19:00] and that's totally okay. The child can help us get there though, because we can see ourselves knowing that's who we are.

[00:19:07] Would we judge that little child, would we be critical of that little child? Would we hold them to such a high standard. It's that space allows us to see the difference and start to create healing towards our wholeness. Because we have that capability within us. It's all possible by applying this compassion and empathetic muscle to ourselves, to our own being.

[00:19:30] And this all happens from within.

[00:19:34] And it's cool because in this program, He talks about it to Shahzad. Does. It's a transformative power. It's counter to what we think. It's going, it changes us dynamically in powerful ways that we can't even imagine. And you can only experience it by applying it, but it is absolutely transformative. I've experienced it in my life. I see it.

[00:19:57] And my friends and family and people that I've helped. [00:20:00] Like with some of these things, by talking about these things, by sharing these ideas, now they do the work. That's the power of it. You have to do the work, but you can do it. You have the potential to do it. You have the capacity to do it.

[00:20:12] It's just understanding the dynamic of it and how it works.

[00:20:17] A good example from another movie is will hunting from Goodwill hunting. We'll transforms once he learns to empathize with his past. His past self and the challenges that he went through and except his own suffering. And through that becomes a transformative power of self-compassion and you see his transformation in the movie. He becomes a happier, healthy, more balanced person, a young person who has the world at his helm. He has a relationship that he's excited about. He has friends.

[00:20:51] He's making progress. He has that mentor relationship with the professor in the university. So it becomes transformative. Once he [00:21:00] starts to accept who he is, that's the, and his work with Robin Williams character in the movie is working through and helping him empathize with his past self and accept his own suffering.

[00:21:12] But that's the transformative example of what can happen when we do apply. Compassion and empathy towards ourselves. And then finally looking at some strategies. Now I talk a lot about this.

[00:21:24] Practical strategies for cultivating self-compassionate and empathy. A lot of the things I talk about. Work towards this, that all ties together. It's not isolated. But mindfulness being mindful of our child. I think being. Thoughtful of our child. Thinking of our essence as a child. Applying that mindfulness to who we are.

[00:21:47] Thinking about the things that we love, thinking about the things that we enjoy and it could be past likings. Enjoys. Having the picture of our child. Looking at variety of pictures of [00:22:00] ourselves as kids can help cultivate this and bring this stuff out, bring out. The things that we used to do, help activate our mindfulness by being aware of things that we used to believe in things that we used to care about.

[00:22:14] That's the key piece.

[00:22:18] Is mindfulness allows us it's the light into our own being. That's what mindfulness allows us to do. It allows to shine a light into ourselves. And as we become mindful of who we are, and we reflect on our childhood on reflect on ourselves as children, and we see that child. We can start to develop kindness for ourselves. We can start to develop appreciation for our qualities and our being and who we are. We can start to really, truly enjoy our own essence and being.

[00:22:47] That's what happens when we apply this? So think about it. Like you're meeting a friend or you have a child for the first time and you're going back and you're establishing a relationship with that child. [00:23:00] It's a relationship with yourself. Start dating yourself. Start to explore who you are. That's the approach we want to take. What would you do if it was a child, what would you do if it was a new date, how would you approach the situation? We have to think about ourselves like that.

[00:23:15] And then finally, like there's a piece of. Acknowledging our shared humanity. Between all of us that can help soften this up too. Because this critical component, the fear that can take us over. It can be really hard to let go of sometimes. And it can be so loud. But I think recognizing first and foremost, that none of us are perfect. All of us make mistakes.

[00:23:40] This is a part of life. It's how we grow is actually a good thing. There is no bad so to speak, right? There's things that we can learn from now. People do terrible things. I'm not saying that that doesn't happen. Terrible things happen in this world is very unfortunate. People lose themselves.

[00:23:58] They surrender their humanity. They [00:24:00] surrender all that is good within them. And they become animals and monsters. That happens. It's sad. It's tragic. This is the consequence of freewill.

[00:24:12] We have choice. We can decide.

[00:24:17] So recognizing our shared humanity though, and understanding that even those people, they, the people that are most lost, the people that have surrendered, all the humanity that lives within them. They.

[00:24:28] They are suffering. So know that if we know that about our shared humanity, that we all make mistakes that no, one's perfect. That all of us are suffering in some way. And all of us are trying to make it work. Some of us make huge mistakes and we lose ourselves. And we're lost. But know that those people are often miserable. That's the thing too. So recognizing our shared humanity, recognizing the commonality.

[00:24:57] And life as humans. Can go a [00:25:00] long way too. But the biggest part about this episode and this specific. Piece of this is doing the work with your child. And your photo. And looking at that photo, closing your eyes and reinvisioning moments with that child. Reinvisioning yourself interacting with that.

[00:25:18] Child and the things that you love to do, imagine what would happen if you reframe that relationship? And created. A loving, compassionate approach to yourself then to your five-year-old self, to your seven-year-old self, whatever it is, but imagine what that can do for you. So that picture can help you bridge that gap. So using that picture, talking to yourself, maybe it's finding.

[00:25:42] Something from your childhood or something related like a Teddy bear or something like that, that can put you in the vibes of your child. It's all about connecting with that child energy within us. And reestablishing a loving and empathetic relationship. Treating it like you would, [00:26:00] as if you had a child of your own or what would you do if you saw a child on the street?

[00:26:05] That's the kind of compassion that we want to learn. And apply to ourselves. And if you notice yourself judging yourself,

[00:26:14] Acknowledge it. Say, oh, there's the judge look at that my judge is being mean right now. It's being critical of my photo. Notice those things, call them out. But just acknowledge them. If you notice that when you're observing your photo, And that judge is working. It's criticizing you or saying that you're naive or whatever, recognize it. The key is to recognize it and call it out. That's how we start to neutralize it.

[00:26:41] Because it's not true. Those things that we're being told are often not true. Challenge them. Challenge those thoughts. But you see them and call them out. That's the first step. And then get back to love and compassion for yourself. That's the step that we're going back to. It's just. [00:27:00] Doing a little bit at a time and then resetting doing a little bit at a time and then resetting.

[00:27:05] But the big component is going to be disarming that judge by calling it out, recognizing it. And then using your childhood photo and revisioning, and envisioning that relationship that you're building with yourself again. I'm telling you, it may seem silly, but this stuff really is transformative.

[00:27:22] And then we're going to use one final character.

[00:27:26] Theater or Twombly from her is a third example here, Theodore. Often wallows and self-pity. Learns to cultivate self compassion and empathy. And he was able to navigate his emotions and build a healthier relationship with themselves. So he was, he had this very unhealthy relationship. He was connected to the AI and the intelligence that he was working with. But over time, he come to realize oh, this is this, isn't a healthy relationship. And I need to cultivate a better relationship with myself. And he learned to do that by accepting who he was.

[00:27:59] Being [00:28:00] compassionate towards who he is and empathizing with themselves, empathizing with his struggles empathizing with the pain. That he experienced in his life. That's the thing that we have to do. We have to acknowledge those deep feelings, those dark feelings, that pain that we have may have experienced and be there. That's okay. It's okay. That we were upset or angry or sad, or that we had hard things happen in our life.

[00:28:22] Being there now can help the healing begin. But it's a journey, right? Embrace, all those things embrace the nerdiness, the weirdness, whatever it is, lean into that child. Remember that child and love that child. That's how we can work on cultivating compassion for ourselves and empathy. In the moment.

[00:28:43] In today and growing from there bit by bit, I'm telling you all, this is such a fun process and it's so transformative when we lean into it.

[00:28:51] So I'm gonna wrap the episode. I think we've talked about it quite a bit, but it's odd to me. That power [00:29:00] that's potential. That's there for this process as practices. Insane. I can't explain. I can't say it enough. I really hope you're going to try it and work on these things because I'm telling you it can change your life. If you do.

[00:29:12] And ways that you can't fathom cause this inner feeling and peace that you can experience is possible. And it's such a wonderful thing, everyone. He deserves to experience that love and compassion for themselves. It's not perfect. We're going to mess up. We're going to make mistakes, but man, it's phenomenal when we start practicing it.

[00:29:31] And the way that it can take. Take. Hold in our life and calls, inspiration and action from it. Is it's really unthinkable. And I know that this is how we unleash our potential. So there's selfish motivations for me. I want you to do this work so that you can bring your breasts best self to life. We need you at your best.

[00:29:54] The world needs brilliant people. Creative people. Strong courageous people. [00:30:00] We need that now. So that's what this work enables. That's what this work allows us to experience is a capacity for power, strength, and compassion. And it all comes from. Loving and building empathy and compassion within ourselves.

[00:30:16] So I hope you find this information helpful. I hope you're enjoying the podcast. If you're a repeat listener, if you're a first time listener, I hope you'll come back and stick around. I do appreciate y'all's time. Time is the most valuable asset that we have. So if you're sharing it with me, It's a great honor, and I appreciate that and I hope that you're finding value in it. And then I'm giving you some fuel and fire and techniques to change and transform your life to create that order within.

[00:30:42] If you all want to hit me, I'm on Twitter at Brandon Lee ward. I'm on LinkedIn as well at Brandon L. Ward. I've got a website, Brandon Lee, war.com. If you want to reach me. Make your move I'm around. I'm accessible. So I appreciate y'all's time. I hope you're enjoying the show. And until next time y'all.[00:31:00]

[00:31:00] Thank you for listening to Order Within. If you found the episode helpful, please consider sharing, rating and subscribing. New episodes will be released every Thursday at 11:00 AM Eastern Standard time. Until next time y'all.