Each month, I receive a suggestion from a UUA curriculum site regarding a topic of interest in our current, challenging times. The offering is accompanied by a list of spiritual practices that open ways of more deeply exploring the theme. Their ideas vary widely from Building Belonging, Choosing Hope, and even Paying Attention. For the month of October, the theme is Cultivating Compassion. I’ve chosen to start the month with more deeply embracing self-compassion, using that self-befriending as the bedrock for loving others.

This past Sunday, the Reverend Barbara Cornell spoke at Cedars about mistakes. What a thought-provoking title she used! “How we respond after making a mistake is the story of our lives,” laid out as an invitation to reframe the things we wish we had done differently. As we tend toward always being our worst critic, Reverend Cornell instead brings a message of being generous with ourselves and resisting unrealistic standards for our human, imperfect behavior.

What gentleness and tenderness can we find for ourselves this month? Seeing our mistakes as opportunities for ownership and learning so that we can act differently in the future?Allowing room for grace in our actions and the actions of others? Building a more kind, loving, and caring world by starting with extending that care to ourselves? Let us embrace the wisdom of Michelle Collins, who tells us:

May we remember that we are not our worst moments. We are not the sum of our regrets. We are beloved, imperfect and worthy of the same gentle mercy we yearn to give the world. May we learn that loving ourselves is not vanity, but necessity – the deep well from which all other love must flow.