This is the second principle of the opening Community Trinity of Holly Days. This year I’ve been making a point of rereading all my previous posts on the day’s principal before I start to write. This Holly Days project has been more focused since I drove east the week after trump’s election, and I preserved only one essay on compassion from before then. Most of what I have written since has been an effort to bridge the rapidly widening political gulf. I think I’ve said as much as I can on that score, and am going to zoom out, go a little meta, and think about the principle from a more philosophical than sociological perspective.
This year I was introduced to the trendy concept of self compassion in a episode of Shankar Vedantam’s wonderful NPR show, Hidden Brain, on which Kristen Neff was a guest. I tend to be very hard on myself, I’m an intrinsically judgemental person and I often to judge myself more harshly than I allow myself to judge others. From a cognitive behavioral framework I’ve long tried to change my negative self talk in a weird recursive process where I scold myself for cussing myself out when I screw up. Pretty obvious to me that my inner voice shouting, “You idiot!!” when I strip a bolt or break a glass is not beneficial to my mental health.
I’ve wondered if a more spiritual approach, where instead of trying to manage the behavior, I try to develop this sort of self compassion that might short circuit the whole judgemental process at its root.
But this trinity is about Community, not personal well being. There’s something a bit suspect about promoting self compassion in that it feels a little self obsessed, about taking this fundamental value by which we are able to live together lovingly, and then ignoring all the others, and clutching it to ourselves. I haven’t read Ms. Neff’s books, and haven’t built any sort of effective practice of it, but the self actualization, get-all-that-you-deserve pitches that mostly accompany the idea do put me off.
The greatest love is to love oneself is more than just a pop song lyric, it’s an old saw and probably pretty valid. We all tend to project ourselves onto those around us, and if we are full of self contempt we are likely to be contemptuous in general. But guilt and shame evolved for some social function, and I know that the operant conditioning of my negative self talk drives me to do better, makes me want to get better. The Tiger Moms and Nagging Jewish Bubbies make powerful use of shame and guilt to make their progeny among the most accomplished demographics. I have to wonder if I wasn’t so judgemental if I just wouldn’t care that much about quality and meaning. We need to not only have compassion but hold each other and ourselves accountable as well.
It’s a paradox, similar to so many, where good and bad cohabit a single value, with the positive or negative vectors of the idea being determined by a delicate balance. Maybe a little self “Whoops!” will keep me honest but not undermine my self love the way that “You Idiot!!” might.
Happy Holly Days!
HOLLY DAYS 