Compassion Muscle

I've been reading Sharon Salzburg's book Real Love. She talks about the compassion muscle, which is a muscle we exercise when we treat ourselves with compassion. Treating ourselves with self-compassion changes our mental and physical chemistry, whereas self-criticism triggers a cascade of responses in the body that result in the flight-or-fight response.

I love Sharon's simple starting place, which is mindfulness. Simply sitting quietly and focusing on the breath is going to create the space for you to relate to yourself with compassion.

We can read books, but have to put these practices into place. A yoga practice gives us many opportunities to flex our compassion muscle.