Using Triggers To Never Forget Your Self-Compassion Solutions Again

Self-Compassion Triggers

Self-Compassion solutions are your friends.  Most people can agree that self-compassion is useful, and even more people love how it can be personalized.  They just have one complaint.  They cannot seem to remember that they have self-compassion solutions available to them, and when they do remember they need to think a lot to remember what their self-compassion solutions are.

You only need one word to never forget your self-compassion solutions again.  The word is trigger.  A trigger is something that either reminds you that some thing is available or it prompts you to use that thing.  For example, the burger sign reminds you that burgers exist.  It also makes you hungry for burgers.  Need an example closer to self-compassion?  A person with their legs folded reminds people that it is possible to meditate, and their seemingly relaxed face indicates that meditation will relax you, which makes you want to do it.

So, what would be a good trigger for self-compassion solutions?  It may sound ridiculous to you, but I imagine a bear hugging an elephant.  Bears are known to be nurturing, and elephants are known to be kind and consistent in their responses to both humans and animals.  It is also fun to have a trigger that most people have famously heard never forgets. 

An elephant never forgets.  Now, neither will you.  To burn these solutions into your brain, you need but follow 2 Stages.  Stage 1: Increase Awareness of The Availability of Self-Compassion Solutions.  Stage 2: Generate A Trigger For Specific Self-Compassion Solutions.

Stage 1: Increase Awareness of The Availability of Self-Compassion Solutions

Ok, here is the hard part.  Well, it is not that hard.  You just have to will yourself to use some energy and compassion.  If you are a great artist, you may need very little of either, but if you are like me and you could not draw your way out of a wet paper bag, then you will need a little bit of each. 

Get out a blank note card, and draw the bear hugging the elephant.  Make it small enough to tape it to a notepad, computer, wallet or phone.  You want to put it somewhere that you will see it often.  The more often you see the image the more you will be aware of its connection to self-compassion, and the availability of self-compassion solutions to you.

Stage 2: Generate A Trigger For Specific Self-Compassion Solutions

If you have come this far, I am so proud of you, and you should be proud of yourself.  You now know that self-compassion solutions are available to you.  Next, you need to prime yourself for a specific self-compassion solution.  Start off easy.  Think of the simplest self-compassion solution to remember, perhaps self-compassionate breathing, and add this to your picture. 

Because I so often describe this breathing, as slowly exhaling through a straw, I have drawn a straw in my picture.  Now, every time I see this picture I not only know that self-compassion solutions are available and I want to use them, I also know that self-compassionate breathing is one such solution.  This rids me of the work of having to come up with a self-compassion solution, while I am feeling stressed. 

This is the best part because it does nothing but acknowledges, and supports our inner laziness.  You do not even need to draw a second picture to add other solutions.  Just add the symbol for this solution to your existing picture.  If it is self-compassionate writing, you can put a pen in the bear’s paw.  If it is self-compassionate phrases, you can draw a bubble by the mouth of the elephant, and in it write “May I…” 

Make It Fun

How about that?  Two simple steps, and all the self-compassion solutions you could hope for, available and ready to use.  As always, make this exercise fun.  If it feels like work, there is a strong likelihood you will not do it.  Trust your self-compassion, and make it fun.  You deserve every excuse in the world to be kind to yourself.

365 Days Of Self-Compassion.  Day 137.  In The Books.