You can search the whole universe and not find a single being more worthy of love than yourself. Since each and every person is so precious to themselves, let the self-respecting—meaning those who have self-respect—harm no other being.
-The Buddha
A couple of weeks ago I had to exit a NYC subway station by riding an incredibly steep escalator. As some of you may know, I have a longstanding fear of heights. This escalator was not only pitched at a dramatic incline, but it was a nearly 90 foot ride to get to street level! As soon as my feet were on the stairs and my hand had grasped the railing, I noticed my immediate impulse to get off. And yet, of course, I had to hold myself onto this slow-moving staircase. As I held myself there, I had a choice. A choice about how I was going to handle the anxiety that was bubbling up from within. Many years ago, a not-so-kind inner critic might have arisen, ridiculing me for feeling challenged by doing something that people do everyday. However, I didn’t let that inner critic in. Rather, I called on my inner nurturer, talking to myself in a soothing way, being with myself, and using all of my skills.
Talking to myself inwardly, I said things like, “I am safe. It’s only a few minutes. Breathe. Focus on your hand holding the moving railing. Notice that other people ahead are managing okay.”
This moment of having enough mindful presence to call upon the nurturing presence of my inner nurturer was the result of many years of practice. I mention practice right away because I deeply desire for all of you to develop the capability and skills to bring up your own internal, nurturing presence so you, too, will be able to call upon a kindness within—and not judgment or shame—when fear, irrational anger, grief, sadness or other difficult feelings arise.
This nurturing presence has been called many names—most usually being seen as a way to be a friend and support to yourself, or having a friendliness with yourself. Personally, I love to call it being your own “inner nurturer,” a term that was coined by psychologist, Senior Fellow of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, New York Times best-selling author and one of my favorite people doing work in this field, Dr. Rick Hanson.
The inner nurturer, which we strengthen with practice, is there to encourage and help us believe in ourselves. It’s there to support you through challenges. It’s there to celebrate your successes. It’s there to empathize with you when things aren’t going so well. And, it’s there to offer compassion when you’re in pain. Essentially, the inner nurturer is there to remind each of us that we’re doing our best, with what we have, right where we are.
The Inner Critic & Self-Hatred In The Western World
Let’s take a moment to play out the experience of me on the escalator differently. Unskilled, rather than employ my inner nurturer, I would have likely been activated by my inner critic. The inner critic is that part of the self that we all have, which “protects” us by shaming and judging us, reminding us of how we haven’t done our best job or have been weak when we should have been strong—those sorts of things.
Anyone else have that part, too?
Had I been operating from the inner critic rather than the inner nurturer, those three minutes on the escalator (and then even after that) would have been spent in an internal shame spiral. I would have been subject to thoughts, such as, “I can’t believe how ridiculous you are being.” or “I can’t believe that after all these years, and being a therapist too, that I can’t go up an escalator without fear.” or “What’s wrong with me?” Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.
It’s also likely that my fear would have increased, possibly leading to physical symptoms that could have landed me into a panic, a stumble or even a fall. In other words, had my inner experience heightened fear and exaggerated the possibility of danger, I might have actually escalated my body into more alarm that could have paralyzed my body’s ability to safely exit.
Returning to the experience of the inner critic, I want to stress that this negative self-talk is abusive. Yet, it is extremely common in our world.
The abusive inner critic reminds me of a story from when the Dalai Lama met with Western psychologists about 20 years ago. During that meeting, they all discussed how the practice of metta (being a friend to ourselves) was going in the Western world. The Western psychologists explained to His Holiness that it wasn’t going so well. In fact, it was difficult for people to practice metta. They shared that the cultural conditioning here was such that people felt that they were more motivated to change by being angry with themselves, and that most people also believed that it was arrogant to think anything but self-hating thoughts.
The word self-hatred does not translate well into the Tibetan language, and it took about 10 minutes for the translator to explain the concept to the Dalai Lama. When he was finally able to understand it, he burst out with, “But this is wrong!”
Although as a Western culture we seem to engage with self-hatred so often, doing so only brings us more suffering. And, less kindness toward ourselves brings us less freedom to express and show kindness to those around us. The antidote to self-hatred and the inner critic that fuels it is the self-love that can be strengthened through our inner nurturer. However, for many of us, being kind to ourselves feels difficult. Yet, the only way to get better at it is through practice.
Growing The Inner Nurturer Takes Practice
There are three main challenges to growing our inner nurturer.
I've already touched on one, which is the social and cultural conditioning of “no pain, no gain” that is ingrained in most of us. We are taught to believe that unless we suffer by working long hours and sacrificing our wellbeing for the sake of a goal, we are not worthy. Many—if not most of us—also turn toward self-hatred and employ the inner critic, rather than employ the inner nurturer and turn toward self-love. This conditioning may run deep.
A second challenge is that we often can’t FEEL our heart center. Or, if we do, we might think that we’re having heat stroke or, for women of a certain age, a hot flash! We need to train ourselves to welcome sensations of energy in our chest (tingling or warmth or a heaviness, for example). We need to train ourselves to welcome that we are awake enough to notice that our heart is feeling.
A third challenge is distractibility. We all know that one!
The best suggestion I have for overcoming these challenges as you work on strengthening your inner nurturer is to practice, practice, practice.
Spending five minutes a day working on activating a heartfelt sense of love can go a long way.
And, when you’re having a wonderful moment, it can be beneficial to pause and really sense how that wonderful moment feels inside of your heart.
You can also remind yourself to apply kindness wherever possible.
Truly and simply, it takes time to grow new neural pathways in your brain. It takes time to grow the connective tissue between your brain and your heart. And, it takes time to learn how to pause and feel into how those wonderful moments feel in your heart center.
A Guided Meditation To Strengthen Your Inner Nurturer
The guided meditation I created to help strengthen your inner nurturer is called Cultivating Safety. I designed it as a way for you to experiment with opening yourself to a way of being in a relationship with yourself that can include an element of being protective, being kind, invoking love and support like a kind parent, coach or mentor. The invitation is to invite in an energy—an inner presence—of care and, ideally, tenderness.
Here are a few ideas that may help you deepen into this particular practice…
Please note that the invitation here is offered gently, especially if the idea of an inner nurturer feels odd, discordant or out of reach. If so, know that that’s okay. Our Western culture does not really teach or encourage us to be kind or tender to our own selves. If this is the case for you, try as best you can to notice the pull back and perhaps view any resistance or hesitation as fertile ground for more investigation and practice. It might also be that there is an awareness of this part of self already, yet it could feel elusive and/or hard to open further. The main thing is to invite yourself to be interested in whatever comes up and to hold lightly the aspiration for inner kindness rather than striving for perfection.
Remember that your mind WILL wander and that is totally normal! When your mind does wander—at some point you’ll notice it—return again to your anchor, which traditionally means returning to focus your attention on your breath. However, in this meditation, I’ll suggest an alternative to the breath by pointing you to your hands as a way of gently resting on or near your body. If you’d like, you might try focusing on these cues, but again, this is up to you!
The third practice point is to start in a comfortable position. Try to be like Goldilocks, finding a position that’s not so comfy that you may fall asleep, and not one that’s so hard that you’ll be distracted by discomfort. If you’d rather stand, stand. If you’d rather lie down, lie down. If you’d rather walk, walk. No one is watching, so feel at ease as you make this practice your own.
In closing, I’ll leave you with these words of The Buddha.
“Like a caring mother, holding and guarding the life of her only child, so with a boundless heart of loving kindness, hold yourself and all beings as your beloved children.”
Blessings to you as you practice strengthening, being with and opening to your inner nurturer,
Karen