Coming Home to Yourself: Self-Compassion as the Foundation for Healing with Lakiba Pittman

I want to start off talking a little bit about the stories that we carry. So, we hear stories, we carry stories, we tell stories, we inherit stories, and we even write our own versions of stories, like stories about who we were, stories about who we are, stories about what's possible, stories about what we deserve, stories about our worth. So, some of those stories help us grow, and some quietly teach us to become smaller than we really are. So, for example, if I look back over my life, I can recall stories about me or inferred to be about me that held a more restricted view of who I was, or who I thought I was, or who I envisioned that I could become. And I'm just making a little sidetrack comment here. I have started to keep my picture, I don't know if you can see this, of me, right, of my child self. So, I can see her, and she can see me, that I kind of went beyond some people's vision of trying to write my story for me. And I can just recall that there were moments when I felt and I knew there was something inside of me that I wanted to emerge. I was one of those kids that, yes, I can do it, yes, I can be it, but kind of, I don't know, something in society or people made me want to protect myself to kind of get smaller. So, I can recall those stories that were expansive, like stories that my elementary school teachers told about me, that you're smart, you're bright, you're creative, you can be. So, in the midst of those stories, I kind of grew, right? Yet, there were also experiences that taught me to doubt or to shrink, to play smaller than I felt my true self to be. So, I'm thinking that many of you know this feeling. Let me look at you to see a few. I see a couple of heads nodding and also in the chat. So, I want to talk a little bit about what helped me come home. And I would say I haven't gotten all the way there. It's a lifelong journey. But for me, over time, there were always moments, moments of meditation. When you meditate, you really do get in touch with the essence of who you are. It may be difficult to articulate, but you definitely get a sense, a feeling sense of who you really are, or that's what I felt. It could also be moments in nature. I know, I can remember when I was a kid and went on my first camping trip, and I was awed. I was in a sense of awe by nature. I felt a part, it was kind of, I guess today we would call kind of out of body, but it was a wonderful connection, feeling, vastness. I felt awe, struck in the midst of nature. So, that's another environment, I guess I would say, that if you get a chance to spend time there, it can help you come home to who you really are. Or it could be in music, which that's what I'm proposing and working on in my doctoral work. It could be just moments of compassion, moments where you realize that on some level you're suffering, right? And compassion is witnessing suffering on some level and wanting to help mitigate that suffering. So, sometimes it's noticing I'm suffering and then doing what I can to comfort myself. It's also, so I've said moments of meditation, moments in nature, moments in music, messages for me, moments of compassion, moments where I felt the presence of spirit. Now, that's a little harder to talk about or describe to folks. People write books about it and try to express it in settings like this, or they become artists. But I'll just let that float out there for those of you who might have an understanding of what that means, where I feel the presence of spirit. It could be moments of joy, where I'm really surprised or happy about something. It could be wonderful moments with my family, which really helped me to expand how I saw myself. First, as a mother, I was like, ooh, okay, I'm kind of more than I maybe, I'm who I hoped I could be, but more than sometimes I thought I could be. And then now as a grandmother, I feel that same inner connection, that expandedness of myself. And I would even say even seemingly random encounters and connections that have appeared at just the right time. What helped me wasn't one breakthrough moment. It was many small moments over time. And many of those moments have something in common. They invited me to relate to myself, here's where the self-compassion comes in, with greater kindness, relating to myself with greater kindness, to meet myself not with so much judgment. Maybe a little itty-bitty judgment might be okay, because it might make me follow through or do something that I'm committed for, that's little tiny judgment, not big judgment. To meet myself, not with judgment, but with compassion. And that's really what I mean by self-compassion. It's being able to recognize when I'm off or suffering in some way, and having, feeling this need to comfort myself, to offer myself compassion. And also over time, I've started to call it breadcrumbs. It's like breadcrumbs from the soul. Little reminders of who I really am. And perhaps more importantly, little reminders of who I am continuing to become, because I'm still here. So I'm still, I still, knock on wood, thank you, all the different options. I'm still here, so I still have opportunities to tap into layers of myself that may have been lying dormant for some reason. When I look back now, I can see those breadcrumbs everywhere. I can, I almost get emotional just saying this. I can feel or see or remember a teacher who believed in me, or a friend that saw something in me, a song that opened my heart, or like a conversation with a friend, like when we just connect, or we laugh, or we feel joy, or we seem to get expansive when we're together. Or like I said, a moment in nature that made me feel something new, yet familiar. Reminded me of something that I didn't even know I forgot. Reminded me that I belong. That moment of stillness that helped me hear my own voice again. And each breadcrumb, going with the analogy, led me closer home. I actually titled a book, a little booklet, I guess I'll call it, that I self-published of my art and poetry. And I call the book Breadcrumbs from the Soul. Initially it was something that I wrote to leave for my grandchildren, because I wanted them to know about me, because I realized I wish I knew the stories of my mother's life, and my father's life, and my grandparents' life. We share some things with people, but we don't often share our stories. And so, I wish I knew my mother's stories. I wish I knew my grandma's stories. I knew them, of course, but now that I've become somewhat of a storyteller myself, not make up stories, like really telling my real story, I wish I knew their stories. So, I share in my little booklet. I'm working on a second edition. So, I share my art, my poetry, and I share stories from my life. Places where I was stuck, and places where I grew, all connected to these breadcrumbs that would always guide me back home to my senses, back home to my heart, back home when I felt lost. If I could follow the breadcrumb, I could make my way back to remembering, oh, yes. Yes, I am special. Yes, I am capable. Yes, I am loved. Yes, I can do it. And I'm thinking that maybe some of you can resonate with what I'm talking about. I see a few heads. Thank you for those people that are online that I can see. So, for a long time, I thought coming home to myself meant arriving somewhere, like being fully healed, fully confident, fully wise. And that's a good dream and vision and good direction to head into. But now I think it's more like a house with many rooms. And every once in a while, life invites me or invites us to open another door. And when I've done that, behind one door, I might discover joy. And behind another door, I might discover creativity. And behind another, courage, and another humor, and another grief. Because that's still there too, right? Things that have happened over my life. There are grief breadcrumbs, if you will. Behind another, it could be awe. And I see things coming in the chat. And I'm going to kind of finish my spiel. And then I'm going to look in the chat. Because it looks like lots of... I'm feeling the chat without being able to read it. I'm feeling the energy from the chat. So, I do want to get over there. I'd say, when I've opened those doors, and sometimes, I'll be honest, sometimes there's some fear involved. I'm kind of scared to open the door, because I still tap back into that little girl who was doubted. And so, I'm sometimes scared to open the door. But whenever I find that I'm able to open the door, that's when I discover all these wonderful gifts. Even the grief is a form of gift. Because of a gift, because when I encounter it, I allow myself to cry, release it. You know, this did happen. This did hurt me. I do feel some grief, you know, to say yes, to acknowledge myself. Yes, I suffered there. And then also, in the midst of it, there's also wonder and awe. And sometimes I open a door, and I discover a part of myself I didn't even know was waiting for me. And I will say, let me knock on wood and do all of the things that you do. I am in a part of my life's journey where popcorn is popping. It's like things are happening. Even me being here, to be honest with you, even me being here is a door that I, is an experience and an opportunity that I never would have thought I would have had. And yet, here I am, invited. How'd that happen? You know what I mean? So, that's what coming home to yourself or oneself has begun to feel like for me. And it's not just arriving. It's discovering. It's remembering. It feels somewhat familiar and somewhat scary and somewhat spooky. It's welcoming home the parts of myself that were there all along, maybe needing to be seen or to be nurtured, to be coaxed out, to be affirmed. I realized that before I belong anywhere else, I belong to myself, not instead of my family, not instead of community, not instead of service, but alongside them. So, some questions I want you to consider before I go into the chat and start engaging there is what doorway is waiting for you? And maybe you're already aware that you can kind of, I'm using this as a metaphor, but that you can open doorways to new, renewed parts of yourself that are just waiting for you to just open the door. What part of yourself is waiting to be welcomed home? And what might happen if you met that part of yourself with compassion? Think about it. What might you discover? I love the comment, there's comfort. I totally agree. There's comfort knowing that hundreds of us are meditating in our own way at the same time. It is really amazing to connect at this level. Sparkling things. I love that. I know we're not supposed to do sparkling things during, it's distracting to people, but I'm kind of doing it anyway. Okay. It's important to remember that everyone we meet were once innocent little helpless babies. That's true. That just wanted to be loved. That's compassion. Remembering our innocence, that's compassion. Not being loved by a primary guardian. Yes, it does. Takes a lifetime of healing and development. That's a good point because not just that though, all of the harmful things that have happened, don't just go away. I'm a witness. At the same time, even with that, let's say that's a weight on the shoulder. Even with that, that I carry through my life, I still get to open a door and there's joy there. It doesn't erase for me the initial harm. People do harm people, people are harmed. Self-compassion is a way to care for yourself in the midst of everything that's going on. I wasn't going to get into it, but when I come back into July, I'm going to talk about how to, well today I'm talking about self and next time I'll be talking more about external compassion, how to spread compassion and be a part of the healing, if you will. Yes, our young spirit, exactly. Why Buddhism doesn't mention nature? That's a good question that I can't answer, but interesting that you said that because I would say all of my schooling, teachings, different things related to Buddhism, I don't know if nature has or hasn't specifically been mentioned, but somehow the teachings have contributed to my enjoyment of nature. Somehow that has happened, whether it's specifically mentioned in the Dharma, good question. You all would know that better than I. Okay, someone's speaking about doing inner work. Yeah, it takes time. I like that. When I realized in my soul who I am, my essence, yes. Yes, that's so funny. I feel that every year I realize how little I knew myself the year before. Isn't that the truth? That's why we need those breadcrumbs. Those breadcrumbs remind you of who you are. Okay, Gina had to go. Nature makes me emotional. Exactly. I open the window, whatever the season. I've grown to feel real love for what this tree teaches. This is off comment, but kind of on comment. I went through this morning altar certification, which reconnects you with nature and trees and birds and plants and all kinds of things. It's a wonderful program, morning altars, how to create altars outdoors. Look that up or you can ask me about it later. My humanity is a constant self-overcoming. Reminders pointing back at an essential truth. In the meditation, I realized I had judgments of my younger self. Okay, as we do, I was surprised. Yay, an epiphany came through and decided to promptly let go of them, have compassion for her. Yay. Oh, I got goosebumps. Okay, that was good. Powerful insight. It's great. Oh, someone recommended a book. Love the title. Okay, good, good. Oh, how do you open the doors? Well, that's interesting. In the meditation, you have a choice to open the door or not to open the door. I would say in the meditation, you can do magical things in the meditation. In the meditation, you could physically open the door, the door could blow open. You have options in the meditation. If you're just out in life and thinking about it, it's being aware that there are doors and that sometimes just continuing to walk forward, continuing to listen, continuing to tap into your intuition, for me, led me to doors that I could open. It's kind of almost like a prayer or meditation, like before you go to sleep, I am open to being in a situation where I encounter the doors in my life. May I have the compassion and courage to open them? Say that tonight before you go to sleep. Because I would say, this is a great question. I would say that for me, it was an internal longing almost to experience something I dreamed of, I visioned, a world I visioned, almost like a prayer. It's almost like every day I was praying, please open up the world to me. Although I wasn't really doing that, but on some level, I was asking. On some level, I was asking and I would say, over time, as I asked, as I was more compassionate to myself, as I spent more time caring for myself, caring for others, those doors started opening. It kind of just has started happening. If I'm honest with you, every single day, I'm grateful for it. I'm so grateful to be here, to be talking in this way. I would say five years ago, 10 years ago, I would be talking this way to myself. I mean, I was the same person 10 years ago with the ability to speak from my own spiritual heart, but I was stuck in perceptions about me that I couldn't do that. I couldn't be that. I can't do that. I think that compassion for others and compassion for myself, which was kind of novel and new in the beginning, helped everything shift. My life has changed because of it, if I'm honest. That's the truth. Thank you for the energetic comment. I have so many rooms. Okay. Okay. All feelings are gifts, yes, and we learn from accepting them. Even if they don't know what to do, they trust, oh, I like that, that there is an eventual purpose. Not only an eventual purpose, maybe they're not thinking of it in this way, eventual purpose and almost an eventual gift. That's what I found, like when I least expected. Okay. Thank you for saying you appreciate teaching about yourself, because when I first talked to Rick about doing this, since I'm also a professor, where you have to have your pedagogy and you got to be in kind of a different mind a little bit, I started thinking, oh gosh, I've got to restudy Buddhism. I've got to know the ... Anyway, I was driving myself crazy, because I started creating all these credentials and the knowledge that I have to have in order to speak before you wonderful people. I started to doubt my ability to do it. I started to think I am not ... Who am I? I got really small. Who am I to go before these people who are studying Buddhism and have been in this for decades? Some people ... I mean, I had a moment of I was like this and then Rick sent me the email and I got real little, but thankfully some self-compassion came in there. Little by little, something told me, tell your own story. Don't teach Buddhism like you're teaching your college students. Try to tie the concepts, which are classic concepts, right? But I can't teach classic Buddhism. I can teach classic Lakiba. You know what I mean? I can be me. I can be me through those doctrines, through those learning. Once I decided that, I felt so much better, because I thought it's okay. It's okay to just be you. Be you and you'll get through, right? You may not say the right ... I don't know. I might not know the terminology. I mean, I've made some mistakes, which I've allowed. I didn't do the meditation as long as it was supposed to go, and I think my lecture part was supposed to go longer, and I'm kind of doing it in the moment by going to the chat. But I think that is self-compassion, right? I have my life to share, my evolution, and I'm still learning and evolving. Behind this, I'm kind of crying because I'm feeling kind of sensitive through this whole talk, because I think this ... I got goosebumps. I think this might be one of the first times where I really am just talking from my own self. You know what I mean? I mean, I brought in some concepts, of course, and I've studied, and I have that too. But for this, for some reason, where I was starting to get intimidated ... I mean, Rick, after all, I've taken his classes. You know what I mean? It's not easy to come subbed for Rick, Hanson, doctor. You know what I'm saying? So I felt a little something, but I thought, teach what you're learning about compassion. Teach from my own life. So nobody can teach from my life better than me, I felt. Even Rick, right? Can't teach from my life. And so I want to thank you, especially those of you that I can see, and all of those that I can feel, for kind of accepting me here, and allowing me to just ... I am a storyteller of a kind, so. Oh, someone found my little book on there. That's so cute. Catherine Caldwell has a rather provocative question. She says, I read an article last week that talked about self-care and compassion for self is sometimes used as an excuse to detach from others. What do you think about that? I think I saw someone post that article, but I haven't read it yet. But just from the take of it that you just said, I would say two sides of it. Sometimes you maybe need to break from the other people for yourself, right? Sometimes it's like we live kind of in a society of, this is something that I teach my students, of people are on the grind, right? And high tech and finance, and all my students are trying to graduate and get a job. There's this grind mentality, and I think that has ... I mean, as a consequence of people being on the grind, we have benefits of that, right? We have houses, and electricity, and phones. So there can be a purpose in an individual striving for something for their own benefit. And so if someone does self-care, well, I would say if they do self-care, this is going to sound funny, but if they do self-care in a holy way, or meaning they're doing self-care because they really need it, they need a nap, they need a break, they need a respite, they need to take care of themselves, then I think that's wonderful. If they're kind of doing self-care to manipulate someone, it doesn't have a good motive to it, then I think it's kind of maybe moving in the direction that that article was. Can you read me that again, Bill? Just one more time so I'm sitting right on it and not off in the sky somewhere. Catherine Caldwell asked the question with respect to self-care and self-compassion, whether or not sometimes that might be used as an excuse to detach from others, and what you thought about that? Okay, so I kind of answered, but one more thing in refreshing of the question, I would say self-care, self-compassion, I'd say at its essence helps you to care for others. We're going to talk about that in July at the next one, but I could see how someone could selfishly go off and just care for themselves and not care about others. That wouldn't be a goal that I would promote, right? It's the airplane, put the oxygen mask on yourself first and then help others. I'm more in that lane, right? Not in the lane of self-care to withhold or to hold myself up higher than others who may be in need. That's just me personally, though. How about everybody else? I know there are things in the chat, but anyone want to say something? Anybody who'd like to do that, raise your hand and we'll unmute you so you can speak. What do you think about all of this that I've been talking about? Well, listen, Lakeba, I hope you save the chat and bathe in all of the complimentary remarks that have been posted because they go on and on forever. So people have well appreciated your presentation of yourself tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate it because I was kind of getting anxious. Don't be. We do have one person who's raised their hand and that's Nicole. Hi, Nicole. Hello. I think your talk is beautiful. It's bringing me back way back when I was 30 years old and I started to open doors accompanied by a psychologist through a depression, and I think it's wonderful. I was hiding before and once you start opening doors, then stuff come out. So I have been doing it since I'm 30 years old, actually, and now I'm 77. Still doing it. I like the discovery. Right? Of myself. Yes. That's it. Yeah. I like that you said it that way, discovery of myself, because, you know, that's what it is. Yeah. The discovery of myself. Yeah. And I keep discovering. Me too. I love it. Yeah. Okay.