The Heart Path Won’t Save You
Until you put some self-compassion in that helmet
A couple decades ago (and a million years) I learned how to ride a motorcycle. I attended a state required course and we met several times to practice and then take the test. I was one of two women out of twenty people in attendance.
It wasn’t an easy course for those of us who’d never driven a motorcycle before. Many of us were learning the hard way, making mistakes while everyone stood around watching. And the most egregious mistake you could make was to “dump” your bike, which means losing control of it and falling over. If you dumped your bike twice, you had to drop out and try the course again another time.
On the first day the other woman dumped her bike twice and was sent home. As the only woman remaining, I felt enormous pressure to finish successfully. Then I dumped my bike, too. I was surrounded by men watching me and my confidence was shaky, so I decided to get tough. I was going to pass the course or die trying.
Come on you stupid bitch. Just fucking do it. Like an evil coach I muttered abusive demands to myself under my breath. But I had my helmet on and I figured no one could hear me. At the end of one particularly hard obstacle course the instructor looked up from his notes.
“Nice job, “ he said, “but for godsake stop talking to yourself like that.” I was mortified he’d heard me. And I realized what I’d been doing. Was I as abusive to myself inside my head as I was inside my helmet? I was too young and it was too difficult to face the truth. I passed the course and put the experience aside. And I never rode a motorcycle again.
Twenty years later when I was burning out from ministry and showing signs of extreme stress, I found myself once again trapped inside that helmet. After all I had been through over the years—all I had accomplished and overcome—I refused to accept I’d hit a wall. For me, ministry was a calling from God and I believed God would save me. I truly believed that a miracle would happen, that with the power of Love on my side, I could be more than human. I could be superhuman. Superwoman. I could transcend the limits of my body and mind. As long as I was coming from a place of love, and choosing a path of the heart, anything was possible.
Oh the heartbreak when I realized this was not true. The heartbreak when I realized that while love may not be self-seeking, it is self-compassionate. When I finally stopped and listened to myself, the pain was excruciating. I’d been beating myself up for years and not even realizing it. And I was slowly breaking my own heart.
The heart space in which I had tried to dwell had been almost entirely absent of self-compassion. I had done “self-care”, taken the actions and ticked the boxes. I had rested and prayed and eaten my vegetables and meditated. But I hadn’t offered myself compassion. Instead, I’d been beating myself up for every tiny mistake. While being called to serve and offer love and compassion to others, I held myself to an impossible standard. I had not met myself in that heart space I so carefully cultivated for others.
If we withhold Love from any corner, we are withholding it from everywhere. Conditional love cannot be sustained, particularly when the condition is our own self-hatred. This sort of love, for all its high ideals, will break us down and wear us out. The path of the heart becomes a path of resentment and anger and grief. Everything looks great outside the helmet. But inside we are miserable.
To follow a path of the heart means to trust and follow the call of Love even when it says to lay down and take a nap. It means to confront the voice of anger we direct at ourselves with love and care. It means when we screw up we give ourselves a break. In order to truly see the Holy in others we have to hold compassion for the Holy that resides inside ourselves. And it needs nurture and care. It needs our love and kindness. This is the Love that transcends. This is the Love that heals, the Love that illuminates, the Love that sustains.
Self-compassion is Love calling us back to ourselves. It does not put oneself higher but it doesn’t lower oneself. It claims itself, fully and completely and honestly. With self-compassion we cherish ourselves, we value ourselves, and inside that helmet we counter hate with love. To keep our helmet head a loving place requires practice, of course, just like everything on a path of the heart. We set our intentions and we do our best.
And though the phrase “path of the heart” might sound a bit like sunshine on a forest floor, it really is not easy. Love calls us to some imperfect places in really imperfect ways. Life resists being packaged and tied up into a bow. We often must make do with what is. Some things are left unfinished. Some promises broken. Sometimes the amount of compassion we are called to offer, to ourselves and others, is truly beyond our capacity. We fall into grief at the state of the world, acutely aware of the brokenness and pain that exists always and everywhere. We become frozen with despair.
When this happens, when we have exhausted ourselves physically and emotionally in caring for others, we need to rest. We’ve got to take the nap, take the break, set aside the demanding task, turn off the TV, and tend to what is going on inside our helmet. More often than not, we need some words of tender care.
I have learned the hard way to give myself a break. I have learned to intentionally speak kindness to myself, to love myself with the same words that I hear myself giving to others. Because while the body may break down, the field of love is eternal. And when I open my heart to it, the love I’ve put out returns to me. This is the real miracle. And none of us can do it alone.
Blessings this week as you move along a path of the heart, a path of Love, offering compassion to yourself and all those around you. May we all offer this love freely, knowing it is infinite. And may we have the courage to listen to how we speak to ourselves, inside the helmet of our head, and practice speaking words of love and care. And when we feel ready, to get back to the joy of offering this Love to others.