A lack of compassion for oneself and others is a major cause of inner and relationship unhappiness. In terms of personal growth, if you were to just focus on making compassion your highest priority – both for yourself and for others – you would find yourself progressing toward happiness, peace and joy more rapidly than you can imagine.

We move into compassion for ourselves when we know that we have very good reasons for our feelings and behavior, and into compassion for others when we know that others also have very good reasons for their feelings and behavior. These good reasons are fears and false beliefs that we have absorbed from our growing up years that create our painful feelings and our defensive behavior.

Moving into compassion is a process that takes time and practice:

1. Moving into compassion for yourself starts with noticing your self-judgment. Judgment is opposite of compassion. When you judge yourself, you are telling yourself that you are wrong or bad for your feelings or behavior, rather than that you have good reasons. Each time you realize that you are judging yourself, consciously open your heart to compassion for yourself. When your intention is to be compassionate rather than judgmental, you will discover that it is not as hard as you think to shift from judgment to compassion.

2. Moving into compassion for others is similar. Begin to notice your anger, irritation, judgment, resentment, or resistance toward others. These negative feelings are opposite of compassion. Once you notice these feelings, you have choice to open to caring, understanding – to compassion.

3. Each time you find yourself in judgment for yourself or others, instead of judging yourself for judging, move into compassion for judgmental part of you. If you judge yourself for judging yourself or others, you will stay stuck. If you embrace with compassion judgmental part of yourself, you will find yourself gradually becoming less judgmental and more compassionate.

Each time you are compassionate with yourself and others, it becomes easier next time. You will discover that focusing on compassion for both yourself and others will move you toward peace and joy you are seeking. It all comes from your intent – to protect against pain with your controlling behaviors, such as anger, blame and judgment, or to learn about loving yourself and others. When your deepest desire is to become a loving human being, opening to compassion is a powerful doorway to that path.

It’s indeed a vicious cycle of thinking that is common to all of us. Fortunately, once you know how, you can think your way out of these situations as quickly as you got in.

So where do you start?

First, flag such have-to, must, need-to statements in your head. Then replace needs, musts and have-tos with preferences, desires, and wants.

Then when something doesn’t go according to your desires, reduce awfuls and terribles to simply, bad. Then rest-assure yourself that you can stand it.

What if you don’t make it to bank? What if you’re late picking up kids?? Well, it’s not what you wanted, it may indeed even have consequences which may be bad, but in overall scheme of things it isn’t awful and you CAN stand it.

A great deal of stress is caused from within by this “I-can’t-stand-it-it is.”

Remember: whenever you hear yourself saying “need-to, have-to, got-to, etc” replace it with want-to or would like to. Substitute needs with desires; musts with preferences.

And remind yourself that awful things will not happen if your desires are not met. You may not like results if things don’t go your way, but you can indeed stand feelings. It may not be good if things don’t fall into place like you want, but world will continue to spin and you will be able to handle it.

It takes some practice. Don’t expect it to happen for you like magic. Pay attention to your self-talk, listen for what-if statements, flag must and need statements. Dispute them with wants and desires. Do it vigorously. With time it will become second nature, and you’ll notice lack of stress in your life.