What Compassion Actually Looks Like (for Me)

On a quiet morning in Mexico City, after a week of intensive preparation for an art event — a dining experience curated with many collaborators, including three chefs, a musician, and more generous help.

I caught myself reaching for my laptop instead of letting my body rest.

It was the very next morning.

The table still held the residue of last night’s celebration.

My hands were scrubbing the floor, cleaning the aftermath before my body had fully recovered — right after two early Zoom calls, taken at the very edge of the messy table.

Out of habit, I asked:

What do I need to finish before I can take a break?

And then something inside me gently asked back:

Why must rest be earned?

That’s when I realized —

I’ve been practicing compassion as a concept, but not as a natural tempo.

As a foreign feeling, not as a relationship with myself.

Not yet.

What Compassion Actually Looks Like in Practice

It’s easy to speak about compassion but much harder to live it without condition.

But lately, I’m learning to notice the micro-moments where self-love quietly lives.

Where compassion stops being a theory and becomes a way of being.

Here’s what that looks like for me right now:

Letting myself rest without earning it

No checklists. No mental negotiations. Just rest, because I am not a machine.

Saying no without over-explaining

Not cold. Not avoidant. Just clear. A full-hearted no from a place of alignment, not guilt.

Not forcing clarity when I’m in process

Letting the fog stay fog. Letting the answers arrive in their own time, not mine.

Letting my feelings move without labeling them “too much”

No judgment. No shaming the sadness, the rage, the softness, the ache. Just noticing and staying.

Speaking to myself the way I speak to my daughter

Would I rush her through grief? Would I tell her she has to be strong all the time? Never.

So why would I do that to myself?

Letting myself be messy, uncertain, mid-transformation

Not yet figured out. Not yet polished. Still becoming. Still enough.

Allowing myself to enjoy pure joy

No overthinking. Welcoming joy as it comes. Dancing in the moment — without needing a reason.

Gifting myself boundaries in relationships

Putting my mental and physical wellbeing above all. Choosing not to betray my needs to preserve comfort for others.

Trusting that I know what I need — and that I can ask for it

Not shrinking. Not apologizing. Letting myself want what I want, and trusting I am allowed to claim it.

Why Compassion Matters

For most of my career, I performed competence.

As a C-level exec, a consultant, a founder, an artist, a mother —

I became fluent in holding everything together.

But compassion asks me to soften.

To surrender the performance.

To let myself be held — by time, by breath, by trust.

Because if I only ever give grace to myself when I’m winning, producing, or proving something…

That’s not compassion.

That’s a transaction.

Compassion is presence without proof.

It’s an act of self-love.

A Reflection for You

If you’re walking through change,

holding multiple identities,

or feeling like you're somewhere between versions of yourself —

You don’t need to figure it all out right now.

You don’t need to optimize this season.

You don’t need to arrive before you can belong.

You can start with this question:

👉 What would love do for me today — not the productive me, or the polished me, but the real, breathing me?

That answer — gentle, honest, human — might be your next act of courage.

If you’re standing at that threshold — shedding old rules, sensing a new way of being — I’d love to explore it with you.

Coaching begins with a simple chemistry call: a moment of listening to what your whole self already knows.

— Jay