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Hi, this is Welcome to Self ®. And I’m your host, Dr. Hayley D Quinn, fellow human, AuDHDer, business owner, and the Anti Burnout Business Coach. I’m here for service based business owners and entrepreneurs like you to help you increase your own self care and self compassion. Change the relationship you have with yourself in your business, and help you elevate your business to a new level. So you can live the full and meaningful life you desire.
We are all on a continual learning journey. So let’s learn together. Welcome to Self ® is a place where you can come and learn about the practices that will assist you as a business owner, and get tips on how to engage in your business in a way that’s sustainable for you. You will realise that you’re not alone in the ways that you struggle, because at times, we all do. And I’m happy to share with you what I’ve learned through my own struggles and my experiences of running businesses. You can join me as I chat to wonderful guests, and have your curiosity piqued about various topics. And I’ll also bring you solo bite sized business episodes that can EASILY fit into your day. This is a place to remember that you are human first, and have different tasks in your business, and different roles in your life that need your attention. And for that you need to take care of yourself in the best way you can. This is a place of nourishment, growth, and helpful information. A place where you can learn ways to assist you and your business to thrive.
Because remember if you thrive your business can too.
Hi and welcome to another bonus episode. We’ll be bringing you season 7 very soon but, in the meantime, let’s talk about compassion. For those of you that know me, you know this is a topic I love and could talk about all day, so I’ll keep myself in check.
There’s a lot of information on the internet about self-compassion, seems like everybody’s talking about it and that’s wonderful because self-compassion is a really great skill to cultivate for yourself. It can make a tremendous difference to your life and how you run your business, but self-compassion isn’t the only thing we need to be thinking about. There are three flows of compassion: compassion to others, self-compassion and compassion from others. But let’s start with what is compassion.
I use the definition from Prof Paul Gilbert, founder of Compassion Focused Therapy. Compassion is a sensitivity to suffering in ourselves and others with a commitment to alleviate and prevent the suffering.
There are many myths to what compassion is, with some people thinking it’s all about loving yourself and being kind and perhaps a bit wishy washy but trust me when I say, compassion is about strength, wisdom and courage. Yes, at times it’ll be about being kind and yes ideally, it’d be great if you love yourself, and sometimes it’s about doing the hard thing, facing the struggle you don’t want to face and taking wise, courageous action to move forward.
Why am I talking about this on a business podcast you might ask. Well in my experience, changing the relationship you have with yourself and your business through the lens of compassion is an absolute game-changer. It can allow you to make better decisions, recognise more quickly when there are problems and be willing to take action to solve what’s in front of you. It can allow you to tune in to what you really need and adopt practices and solutions that work for you and your business.
So let me tell you a bit more about the flows I mentioned.
Compassion to others is something that I know many of you will be very very good at. Many people particularly those of us in service-based businesses are really good at offering compassion to other people. Seeing the struggles of others and wanting to do whatever we can to help them. Perhaps for you, this is an area that can actually be a bit consuming. Always focusing on others and then not having enough time for the things you need to get done, leading to you feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Sound familiar?
For some people compassion to others can be tricky though, and some of the fears might be that if you are too compassionate to other people you might be taken advantage of, that being compassionate might make you an easy target or perhaps if you’re too compassionate people might drain you of your emotional energy, but generally with the women I work with and talk with compassion to others doesn’t seem to be the problem. Having compassion for your clients can help you when working together if you encounter any challenges, being able to bring understanding, empathy and wisdom to a situation can lead to better outcomes.
Another flow of compassion is self-compassion and like I said there’s so much information out there and it does seem to be the main flow of compassion that people are talking about. Some common fears of self-compassion are you feel like you don’t deserve to be compassionate to yourself, maybe you have the belief that pushing on and getting through life is about being tough not about being compassionate, or you’ve never really been compassionate to yourself so won’t know how to start.
A big one I come across with high achieving women is the fear that if they become too compassionate to themselves, they’ll lose that edge. They won’t achieve at the level that they have been achieving. Now what we know from the research is that self-compassion is actually more motivating than self-criticism so I would say give it a go see if being more compassionate to yourself does actually have a negative impact on your output. Or what you might find as I did in my life and business that the more self-compassionate you are, the more you can actually do and achieve in your life, and perhaps the things that you’re doing and achieving are going to be more in line with what you actually want to be doing.
There’ll be less sense of obligation, less people pleasing and less blindly doing what you think is expected of you. Next time you’re facing something difficult in your business or in your general life, try talking to yourself with a friendly voice tone and acknowledging what you’re facing is hard and perhaps remind yourself that you’re doing the best you can, under the circumstances you’re in, with the skills, knowledge and resources you currently have. It sure beats telling yourself you’re a loser who won’t succeed or whatever choice words you say to yourself when you’re having a hard time. Think about how you’d speak to a loved one and offer that to yourself.
The other flow of compassion that I think is really important to talk about is receiving compassion from others and I know that this can be very hard for lots of people, it was for me, until I recognised this and increased my practice. If we can get ourselves to a place where we practice this and we can receive this compassion from other people, we can have the help and support in our life that we wouldn’t otherwise have and as a business owner this can be really beneficial. Many women that I work with get stuck in this belief that they should be able to do everything themselves, they should be able to manage, they should know the answers (even if it’s something they’ve never learned) and that they shouldn’t have to ask for help. At the end of the day, they’re shoulding all over themselves which just isn’t helpful, and activates your threat system.
If we can acknowledge that we are social beings, we are designed for connection with others and we don’t need to do everything ourselves, in fact how could we possibly be able to do everything ourselves? If we can get to a place where we’re more comfortable with that, then we can learn to tune in, recognise what we need, ask for help and receive that help.
Some of the fears that can show up when thinking about receiving compassion from others is that people may see you as weak, or that people maybe won’t be as kind and understanding as you hope, or you might feel embarrassed about receiving help, or perhaps you fear that people are only being nice because they want something. Lots of these things can show up for many people, in fact Professor Paul Gilbert and colleagues developed a scale called the Fears of Compassion Scale and this outlines some of the fears of expressing compassion to others, extending compassion to self and receiving compassion from others, and I always think you know when there’s a measurement or a scale that’s been developed, it’s because many many people experience the same thing. So, if you find that you’re having some fears around compassion whether that’s about expressing it, giving it to yourself or receiving it, just know that you’re not alone. There are other people that share those same fears. I certainly did and it was through practice and reflection that I developed a compassionate mind that is now one of my greatest assets in my business and life. Like many things in life, developing a compassionate mind is a practice, and in my experience, it is a practice well worth engaging in.
If you’re a woman running a service-based business and you’d like to learn more about the power of compassion for your business, reach out and find out more about my 1:1 business coaching and our upcoming Welcome to Self®: Time to Thrive Group Business Coaching.
Go well and go gently with yourself
and remember
If you thrive your business will too!
I thank you for sharing this time with me today. I hope our time together has been helpful and supportive. If there has been something in this episode that you have found helpful. I invite you to share it with another person you think might benefit. If you’ve benefited in any way from the podcast, please do me a favor and show my pod some love by giving it a five star rating and review ratings, reviews and shares really help to increase awareness and reach of the podcast, allowing this helpful information to be spread more widely.
All Reviews are welcome and much appreciated. And if you do share on socials, remember to tag me so I can see who’s listening, because you never really know over here in podcast land, and I can reach out personally to say thank you. If you’d like to be notified when the next episode airs, please use the link in the show notes to join our mailing list. If you have any particular topics you’d like to learn more about, or guests you’d like to hear from, please reach out and let me know. I’d love to hear from you.
Music and editing by Nyssa Ray, thanks, Nyssa. I wish you all well in your relationship with yourself and your business. Us, may you go well and go gently and remember if you thrive, your business will too you.
Links to Dr Hayley D Quinn Resources
Website https://drhayleydquinn.com
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