{"id":22927,"date":"2023-09-20T08:53:17","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T12:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22927"},"modified":"2023-09-20T09:05:04","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T13:05:04","slug":"22927","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22927","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Andrew Peterson - Be Kind to Yourself (Official Lyric Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sYiM-sOC6nE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sacred Self-Compassion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>For psychologist and theologian Chanequa Walker-Barnes, offering ourselves self-compassion is connected to our ability to love others:&nbsp;<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There<strong> can be no self-care without self-compassion, which is compassion turned inward.<\/strong> It is the ability to connect to our feelings, to respond to our suffering with kindness, and to desire that our suffering be ameliorated. Self-compassion prompts us to treat ourselves in ways that alleviate, rather than cause or amplify, our pain and suffering. While many Christians understand compassion, mercy, and kindness to be essential in our interactions with others, we don\u2019t always see these as core values for our relationship with ourselves.<strong> We neglect our self-care, directly and indirectly contributing to our pain and suffering. We judge ourselves for our own suffering, listening to the voice of our inner critic as it rehearses our shortcomings, our errors, and our deficiencies<\/strong>. As James teaches us, it doesn\u2019t have to be this way (James 3:10).&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Implicit in Jesus\u2019s commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves is the assumption that<strong> we are&nbsp;<em>supposed&nbsp;<\/em>to love ourselves.<\/strong> <strong>We are supposed to be kind and gentle, caring and nurturing, empowering and forgiving of ourselves. If we are unable to do this, ultimately we may be unable to do it for our neighbors. And if we cannot love our neighbors, whom we can see, we cannot love God, whom we cannot see (1 John 4:20). Self-compassion, then, is not indulgence; it is a necessity for true discipleship<\/strong>. [1]&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>CAC friend and&nbsp;<\/em>Love Period<em>&nbsp;podcast host Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis emphasizes the importance of loving the particularities of ourselves:&nbsp;<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By self-love I mean a healthy delight in your true, imperfect, uniquely wonderful, particular self. I mean an unconditional appreciation for who you are, head to toe, inside and out: quirks, foibles, beauty, and blemishes\u2014all of it. I mean seeing yourself truthfully and loving what you see.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Honestly, the stories playing out in the world can make it difficult to love yourself, and therefore your neighbor. Messages from the culture that you don\u2019t matter, not just because of your race, but because of your gender, sexuality, economic status, or religion, can thwart self-love. Though her skin gives her some privilege, a white child might grow up in a context of poverty or domestic violence that can cripple her self-love. A child traveling across deserts and rivers to emigrate with his parents might lose some of his self-love in the wilderness. Even if you\u2019re born into circumstances that others consider ideal, messages in the culture can signal that you\u2019re not good enough, light enough, thin enough, smart enough, feminine or masculine enough to measure up to some ideal. The space between those ideals and your realities can make it difficult to embrace your particularities and love them.<strong> Learning to love your particularities is not just an individual project; you need your communities\u2014your posse\u2014to&nbsp;<em>see&nbsp;<\/em>those pieces of you, to accept them, and to love all the parts of you, fiercely.<\/strong> [2]&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-7-497x500.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22928\" width=\"661\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-7-497x500.png 497w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-7-298x300.png 298w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-7-150x150.png 150w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-7-768x772.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-7.png 1096w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 661px) 100vw, 661px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sacred Self-Compassion For psychologist and theologian Chanequa Walker-Barnes, offering ourselves self-compassion is connected to our ability to love others:&nbsp;&nbsp; There can be no self-care without self-compassion, which is compassion turned inward. It is the ability to connect to our feelings, to respond to our suffering with kindness, and to desire that our suffering be ameliorated. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22927"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22927"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22932,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22927\/revisions\/22932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}