Compassionate Willpower

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" 

Mary Oliver, 1935-2019, Exquisite American Poet

Dear Head & Heart Community,

My hope with this post is to share ways to practice Intentional Living. Skills to find motivation when it matters. An interesting concept I am playing with is compassionate willpower: making difficult choices in the service of our unique, individualized values. Compassionate willpower allows you to be conscious and intentional about, "your one wild and precious life." 

First let's learn a little about decision making. What we know about the evolution of the brain is that our primal, animal-like instincts are still there, despite being the highly sophisticated humans we are :). They are neatly stacked underneath the modern, decision making part of our brain (pre-frontal cortex). So please don't be fooled that willpower is mind over matter.You have an impulsive toddler in there! Let's take sugar for example. When you see that chocolate cake, the ancient animal system is going to LIGHT UP. You may begin to salivate, and your thoughts justify the need to consume. This makes sense given sugar, on the Serengeti Desert, was pure gold. Or let's take social media. Given we are a social species, we crave the dopamine hit (the feel-good hormone), that we get from social interactions. So, we reach for our phone without thinking. Our primal instincts override our ability to discern what modern day survival looks like (less sugar and less screen time).

Okay, now you know that it's not your fault when you struggle with healthy choices. That willpower is much more complex than "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps". So, what is compassionate willpower? This includes holding your experience with kindness and understanding, while also digging into the strength to choose what is best for your mind, body and spirit. Compassion is fierce and boundaried, it is not about being "nice" or letting yourself off the hook. Add a good dose of willpower, and healthy decisions become about protecting yourself from harm.  For example, if you feel sick when you eat too much sugar, compassionate willpower offers tenderness in the moment, understanding that it's not easy to stop, AND protects you from getting sick by eating in moderation. Compassionate willpower helps us move towards our values driven, compassion based goals.

I'm sure this all sounds lovely, yet just about now you may be wondering "how do we actually DO this." Neuroscience is discovering that willpower is like a muscle. It can be strengthened with mindfulness practices. I'd like to introduce you to a mindfulness strategy called SOBER. SOBER comes from Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention, a program designed at University of Washington. Practicing this will help you build the physiological ability to respond rather than react. In order to access our willpower, we must slow down, connect to ourselves, and get in touch with what truly matters. What matters to us, our values, help us determine our response. matters. It might be helpful to journal about your values, the way you want to show up and act in the world. Values are like directions on a compass, goals are the towns along the way. We can call on these values when we are in the midst of making decisions.


SOBER:
Stop
Observe
Breathe
Expand
Respond

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO SOBER: (Guided mediation here)

Stop: Wherever you are, whatever you are doing stop. This may be literally stop your body from moving, or inside the mind/body. JUST PAUSE.

Observe: Practice mindfulness. Observe your physical sensations, thoughts, feelings. Be present with kindness. 

Breathe: Take a deep inhale, and a long slow exhale. Pour the air out of you and then resume breathing at a normal rate and rhythm, paying attention to the in breath and out breath. This brings you into your body. 

Expand: Shift from an internal awareness to an expansive awareness. Connect to your values. What do you care about, what choice is most in line with your values.

Respond: Choose how you want to respond. 

I have found this practice to be profoundly helpful. To truly integrate this skill, try my free audio guided meditation here. After a few times listening to the meditation, you can practice on your own anytime, anyplace. 

With Compassion,
Ellen Slater, LICSW, RYT
Founder