Free Worksheet for A Self-Compassion Journal: A Mindfulness Exercise to Build Positive Habits and Cultivate Self-Love {#SimplePureWholeHabits} + VIDEO
Use This Self-Compassion Journaling Exercise and FREE WORKSHEET to Foster Mindfulness, Build Positive Habits and Cultivate Self-Love!
Plus Enter the GIVEAWAY {CLOSED} Below to Win My New Self-Compassion eWorkbook!
{#SimplePureWholeHabits}
You can find more mindfulness guidance, healthy recipes, lifestyle tips and more on my YouTube Channel!
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Self-compassion is not just about feeling good about yourself or carving out me-time. It’s a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support your physical, psychological, and spiritual growth.
Self-compassion provides you with the space to gently forgive yourself while granting you the clarity to acknowledge your strengths. Having compassion for yourself as you move through life moves you toward finding personal meaning and fulfillment.
To kick off the month of love, I want to share a practice based on the intersection of self-care, stress management, mindfulness, preventive medicine and self-compassion.
Get Your Copy of The Whole Cure!
*affiliate link
I frequently discuss the power of mindfulness here on the blog and in The Whole Cure (affiliate link) since it is the first step towards building greater ease in both the mind and body to prevent stress-related disease.
Mindfulness allows you to cultivate presence about what is happening in life with loving awareness even toward difficult experiences, thoughts, emotions, and sensations.
Self-compassion is another aspect of mindfulness. This involves bringing loving awareness to yourself.
Together, mindfulness and self-compassion comprise a state of positive, connected presence that helps to balance the physiology of the body and carry you through difficult moments in our lives.
3 Steps to Self-Compassion: A Journaling Exercise to Foster Mindfulness and Cultivate Self-Love
Self-compassion is a dynamic experience that grows with you as you change, experience life, and evolve. Being connected to what you feel, think, and want allows you to remain mindful of who you are and act on this knowledge.
Enter the Giveaway {CLOSED} to Win My Soon-to-be-Released Self-Compassion eWorkbook!
Ends 2/28/18, Must be 18 or older to enter
This Self-Compassion Journaling Exercise can help you build the habit of self-compassion. Try using this self-compassion journal daily for at least a week to begin to cultivate a greater insight and awareness into how you react towards yourself. Come back to it and revisit your self-compassion journal practice as needed to renew and strengthen your self-love!
- Start by finding a quiet, peaceful place free of distractions where you can sit with your journal and reflect.
- Think back on your day and write down anything that arises about situations in which you judged yourself, felt hurt, criticized yourself or had a difficult experience that made you angry, in pain, frustrated, embarrassed, guilty or ashamed.
- Look at each event which you listed and consider how you can bring mindfulness, a sense of common humanity and self-compassion to the experience to process it in a more loving way using the 3 step approach below.
3 Steps to Self-Compassion
Exploring Mindful Moments:
Bring awareness to your memory and emotions around this event you experienced and the painful emotions that arose due to self-doubt, self-judgment, fear, or other negative thoughts and emotions. Be present with the experience and emotions, and write about how you felt, focusing on staying in an accepting and non-judgemental mindset about the experience. Be aware not to judge, belittle or blame yourself. Think about the factors that might have contributed to the outcome, feelings and challenges you faced.
Acknowledging Your Humanity:
Consider how the experience you went through was connected to the larger human experience, and on a bigger scale, how you are part of a larger common humanity. Hold yourself in a white light of compassion (use this guided meditation!), acknowledging that human beings are naturally flawed and imperfect and that each of us goes through difficult emotions and challenging experiences.
Embracing Forgiveness and Self-Compassion:
Offer gentle self-compassion and reassurance to yourself. Write down some kind, affirming, supporting and compassionate words of comfort for yourself. Express that you care about yourself and forgive yourself.
Through this self-compassion journaling exercise, you can use mindfulness to slow down and begin to notice what you’re saying to yourself, the thoughts that you’re having and how you react to different triggers or challenges.
Reflect on how these impact your mood, health, and behavior and consider how you want to react differently in the future. This will help your self-compassion grow stronger and more automatic as part of your daily life.
You can build self-compassion through the thoughts and actions that you choose. This, in turn, will support you emotionally, physically, and spiritually. As you work on accepting and loving yourself more, you will exercise actions of self-compassion naturally.
When you become more aware and mindful of who you are, you’re more likely to act in accordance with this wisdom rather than on what you perceive others want from you.
How do you practice self-compassion?
Mindfulness education and practice is a big part of the Simple Pure Whole Solution! Here are a few resources that can support your mindfulness practice during times of uncertainty, anxiety, fear and calm:
Mindfulness Resources for Self-Healing:
- Download your free chapters and wellness prescriptions now and get started incorporating a more mindful approach into your life and building resiliency. You can also get your copy of The Whole Cure in paperback or Kindle edition from Amazon.
- My Mindfulness Resources for Crisis and Self-Healing Package provides you with professionally-designed worksheets, handouts and workbooks for creating habits and practicing tools that support optimal stress management, resilience and coping with difficulty.
- Guided meditations and relaxation exercises from my Breathe CD.
Mindfulness Resources for Health Care Practitioners:
- If you are a health coach or other health care professional, I heard from many of you requesting done-for-you content and tools for easy-to-incorporate mindfulness practices that you could use with your clients and patients. To address this need, I want to offer my Done-for-You Package of Mindfulness Resources for Crisis and Calm which provides professional mindfulness resources for coaching and sharing self-healing tools and practices to empower you to teach others how to disconnect from panic, fear and anxiety and build inner peace.
- My newest done-for-you workshop package Rest, Restore & Rejuvenate to Mindfully Manage Stress is the perfect way to offer support for stressful times and everyday optimal health. You can use this completely done-for-you workshop package with your clients or for a virtual teleworkshop or series of sessions. You get everything done for you, from a complete word-for-word script to handouts for your clients to a guided exercise to a complete instruction guide so you are ready to confidently share this guidance with people right away.
I would love to have you in my Insider’s Community! Join for free and receive your FREE Chapters from The Whole Cure: 52 Essential Prescriptions to Overcome Overwhelm, Reclaim Balance and Reconnect with a Life You Love! You can pick up a full paperback or Kindle copy on Amazon (affiliate links) for a wealth of insights, exercises and complete toolkit to help you uncover your true passions, authentic purpose and calm confidence as well!
To stay on track and build your self-care toolkit, take the next step today to commit to a life you truly love and feel fully alive!
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Pick up a copy of The Whole Cure (affiliate link) to build resilience and manage stress in a way that makes life flow with greater ease and joy!
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Access guided relaxation exercises utilizing the power of the breath and mind here.
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Join my next online group Whole Cure Lifestyle Transformation Programs to build more powerful coping strategies and skills for meaningful stress management and a calmer life! Contact me to form your own guided online group or register for the next scheduled online program!
Medical Disclaimer: Information provided in this post and related resources are for informational purposes only. Jennifer Weinberg is not providing medical advice, diagnosis or treatment information. The information is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice provided by your physician or other healthcare professional. Every body is unique so be sure to check with your healthcare professional before making any dietary or lifestyle changes taking any medication or nutritional supplement or using any treatment for a health issue. Do not use this information provided for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease. If you suspect you have a medical problem please contact your healthcare provider promptly and do not disregard professional medical advice based on anything on this website. This website and related resources are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease and do not create a doctor-patient relationship between you and Jennifer Weinberg. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
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Comments
Leo
I am not great honestly at practicing self-compassion. I can see the value and will start slowly paying attention to this more.
Dr. Jennifer L. Weinberg, MD, MPH, MBE
Thank you Leo! I agree that I have found that habits like this can often get pushed aside, but make such a big difference when I commit to practicing them regularly.
Cassandra Schmigotzki
Self-compassion can be a tough nut to crack. Often the thing we can’t forgive ourselves for is locked in the subconscious so it’s difficult to handle.
Dr. Jennifer L. Weinberg, MD, MPH, MBE
I agree, Cassandra. Self-compassion is not a simple, straightforward concept and is often a life-long practice. Our subconscious minds can be so powerful. Thank you for pointing out this important aspect!
Linda
Self-compassion is something I really want to work on. I am going to print out the worksheet and make it a part of my daily journaling practice this week.
Dr. Jennifer L. Weinberg, MD, MPH, MBE
Thank you Linda! I hope the worksheet is useful for you.
Chloe
I am really looking forward to your new eworkbook! Thank you for this journaling exercise.
Dr. Jennifer L. Weinberg, MD, MPH, MBE
Thank you Chloe! I really hope you find the eworkbook valuable. <3
Lin
I love your self-compassion mediation on YouTube and can’t wait to try this journal exercise! Thank you!
Dr. Jennifer L. Weinberg, MD, MPH, MBE
That means so much to me Lin, thank you! Wishing you a wonderful week <3