3495: On Self-Compassion by Tonya Lester

Optimal Living Daily - Personal Development and Self-Improvement

Optimal Living Daily LLC

Education, Mental Health, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness

4.6 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 3495: Tonya Lester shares a heartfelt story of a timid rescue cat to illustrate how we instinctively offer patience and kindness to others but struggle to extend the same compassion to ourselves. She challenges the myth that self-criticism drives success, advocating instead for self-soothing practices that foster resilience and clarity. With a simple yet powerful exercise, she encourages us to treat ourselves with the same understanding we’d offer a frightened child or a hesitant pet. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.tonyalester.com/blog/on-self-compassion Quotes to ponder: "You can be self-compassionate and still have high standards." "Having self-compassion does not mean shirking responsibilities or lowering your standards. It is about slowing down and attending to yourself before you move on to necessary action." "There is zero evidence that beating ourselves up emotionally leads to high performance and great results." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Here's the truth about AI. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. Service Now puts AI to work for people across your business, removing friction and frustration for your employees, supercharging productivity for your developers, providing intelligent tools for your service agents to make customers happier, all built into a single platform you can
0:22.0	use right now. That's why the world works with ServiceNow. Visit ServiceNow.com
0:27.9	slash UK slash AI for people. This is Optimal Living Daily on Self-compassion by Tony
0:35.3	Lester of Tonylester.com, and I'm Justin Mollick.
0:39.3	Happy Friday, this is the award-winning podcast where I read articles to you,
0:44.1	hopefully adding a little bit of inspiration, motivation, or happiness to your day.
0:48.7	This is all with permission from the websites, by the way.
0:51.6	But I'm going to keep this intro nice and short, so let's get right to it
0:54.5	as we optimize your life. On Self-Compassion by Tony Lester of Tonylester.com
1:04.8	One very snowy January day a few years ago, my kids and I arrived home with a three-year-old rescue cat.
1:13.2	As instructed, we brought him into the bathroom before we opened up the cardboard carrier
1:18.0	we'd been given to bring him home from the shelter. The idea was to let him get used to us and our
1:23.5	home slowly, without overwhelming him by dropping him into the middle of the living room
1:28.3	surrounded by new things and new people. The cat jumped out of the carrier and crawled underneath
1:34.3	the small bathroom vanity. He then climbed into the bottom drawer on top of the bath towels,
1:39.8	which he could access from behind the sink, and he stayed right there for weeks. During those weeks,
1:47.3	we would all take turns sitting in the tiny bathroom, back against the tub, legs squished between
1:53.0	the vanity and the toilet, and talk to the cat, pet the cat, just be with the cat. We were hoping
2:00.2	that once he was used to us, he'd relax and
2:02.8	come out of the bathroom. My son would sit in the bathroom with a book, reading and absent-mindedly
2:08.2	stroking the cat. My daughter would bring in her little figurines and make up stories for the cat
2:13.6	on the edge of the bathtub. I'd even come home to see my cat-resistant husband's legs stretched
	...

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