Caverly Morgan & Dr. Kristin Neff on Insights at the Edge:
Self-Compassion as a Lifeboat Home

Who is the self in self-compassion? How can self-compassion serve as a vessel to the remembrance of the heart of who we are?

In this Insights at the Edge conversation with Tami Simon, Caverly Morgan and self-compassion researcher Dr. Kristin Neff explore how self-compassion offers us a lifeboat home—a refuge we can return to when we're drowning in self-criticism or striving to be enough. 

They reveal why many of us struggle with self-compassion: we're trying to offer it from a limited sense of self that feels fundamentally inadequate. When we access the loving awareness that's our true nature, self-compassion becomes less about fixing ourselves and more about remembering we're already held.

If you've ever felt like you should be better at being kind to yourself, this conversation offers a gentler way home. The way of remembrance.

Sounds True: Insights at the
Edge Podcast

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Picture a circle on a large piece of paper.  Inside the circle, imagine all the contents of experience—thoughts, perceptions; all the activity of the conditioned mind.  The illusion of a self that is separate from life lives inside the circle, as does the perception of scarcity and lack. 

Outside the circle is not simply the opposite of what’s in the circle. It’s the whole page. This magical page, however, has no edges. It is infinite. This represents your aware being—our shared being. Loving presence. When we get identified with the conditioned mind, we feel cut off from loving presence (though in truth we are not.) 

Everything in the circle is arising in presence. Self-compassion is a lifeboat to what’s beyond the circle —our true nature— though not separate from it. 

When we are identified with a sense of a limited self, practicing unconditionally loving reassurances can return us to the direct experience of aware being. We’re starting with the self we thought we were. 

Self-compassion is a lifeboat home. 

What is the Connection Between Non-duality and Self-Compassion?

How can self-compassion serve as more than a band-aid? How can it be used as a tool for the remembrance of what’s beyond a limited self, rather than a reification of the illusion of a separate self?

These audio practices, taken from the Connecting with the Source of Compassion retreat with Kristin and Caverly at the Whidbey Institute, guide you back to the loving awareness that's always here.