“In the meditation hall, everyone sits together, and each person has a chance to learn how to look at his or her own cosmos quietly and practice deep listening and loving speech with oneself; this is the foundation for speaking and listening compassionately to another person.” — Sister Dang Nghiem 

When we sit in prayer before Mass, when we kneel before the Eucharist in Adoration, when we close our eyes in bed and mouth a final benediction upon the day, are we asking for something or are we looking at our own inner cosmos?

The notion that self-care is selfish is incorrect. Taking care of yourself is the most other-oriented thing you can do, for when we suffer poorly, we hurt others greatly, but when we suffer well, we help others even more greatly.

Our prayer can be petitions. Our prayer can be gratitude. Our prayer can be silence and contemplation. But our prayer can also be the practice of looking deeply into our own minds, accompanied by the Holy Spirit, at the collection of hurts and scripting and storylines we’ve been telling ourselves since the beginning. When we unpack the complexity of our inner cosmos, and apply self-compassion towards our hurts, our inner lotus flower blossoms and we are capable of generating nourishment for all those around us.

When we love ourselves we become capable of loving others much much better.