Gratitude, Self compassion, Acceptance, and Self Cherishing

Change, even small ones, even change that we welcome, is unsettling to us.  To human beings. We like to believe that we are in charge of our own destiny.  Even if we are in charge of some decision making about where we live and what we are doing with our lives, we cannot control all the details all the time.  I try to be grateful for each day, that I wake up and can get out of bed and consider what I might be able to do that day.  I try not to complain about the weather, or about the commitments I have made. I try not to feel sad about realities I can not control, or anxious about what may or may not happen that day or week.  I try not to fear others or the future.  I try to make the most of every day.

I recently went to a Buddhist monastery for a few day sojourn.  I was introduced to the concept of "self cherishing".  This would be different than self acceptance, and to my surprise one can be very self critical and self cherishing at the same time!  Acceptance of a situation, of weaknesses, strengths,styles, characteristics of oneself and others is at the heart of gratitude.  Self cherishing is the feeling that in all situations or most situations things should follow my (or a particular)  value system, go the way that is right and noble, and if they don't well.... I have a right to be angry or upset, or hurt. 

My guess is that all of us feel this in certain situations.  I think we all feel not only self critical but also self cherishing because it is in our DNA.  We survived as a species because of these very strong wants that border on instinct.  In order to survive, we needed to live in communities, and with groups of people there need to be some values, rules, guiding principles, of how we will behave.  Neuro-psychologists have found that our self critical function comes out of this survival instinct.  We needed to learn how to be in community, so we needed a self-editing function, we needed to develop what Freud would call a "Super-ego".  Trouble is, even though that function is still very much needed, it is on overdrive for many of us, and we don't really have the wiring in our brains for self-compassion. We can build that wiring into our brains, but it has to be intentional because it is not there originally.  I believe self cherishing also comes out of our survival instinct.  We want to preserve ourselves, this is different from self-compassion because it doesn't come out of acceptance; it is selfish.  It is in a word, anti-preservation of the species.  We are worried about ourselves, our feelings, our values to the exclusion of other people, feelings, values. 

I bought some CD's in the Kadampa meditation style, one CD has three meditations based on the concept of compassion. In other words, learning to love the ones who try your patience, make you angry, are perhaps outright aggressive with you. The meditation tries to teach that someone else's desire for happiness, a desire all of us share, is just as important as your own.

This feels like another step along the journey to what the Buddhists would call "enlightenment".  First give up your own self critical function and be kind to yourself, accept who you are, your strengths and your weaknesses. Make friends with yourself, support yourself.  Then begin to understand  and accept others. Be patient with everyone, start with your family, and extend it into the community and then even farther. Know that others often will not and don't have to live by your "light", by what you think is right and true.  They have  lights of their own to live by and their light is just as important as your own.  Part of what has to happen is a letting go, a detachment, not from our dreams of what our lives can be, but the expectations of how those dreams might be realized, and a detachment of expectations about what others do in response to us or in their own lives.