Self-Compassion, Concepts from Jody Moore

I’m excited about what I have to share! I hope it’s something that can change your life! As with most of the things I share, these things have changed my life!

Today’s resource is Jody Moore. I talk about her often! She shares so many good things! She has a podcast called Better Than Happy. She also has a group coaching program and does a lot with thought work and empowering members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and beyond to take responsibility for their story, for their life. She teaches so many good things that help people to do that. Today I’m going to share 2. And these aren’t little things I’m going to share. These are BIG things! 

The first one I call “tip the ladder.” I don’t remember if she calls it that or if that’s just me. :) So picture a giant ladder leaning up against a giant house or a giant tree. We’re in the middle of this ladder. We can look up and see people above us on the ladder. Quite a few people up there. We can look down and we see a few people down there too. Looking at the people above us can be motivating but often makes us feel behind or inadequate. Looking at the people below us makes us feel better about our progress or where we are. We feel okay with where we are in relation to them. At least we’re not at the bottom. At least there are people below me. The people above us are the people we admire. The people we aspire to be someday. The people who sometimes make us feel small and like we’ll never reach where they are. The people we feel are better than us or ahead of us in life in some way. The people below us are people we feel ahead of in life somehow. The people we feel haven’t made it to where we are yet and maybe they never will. Now I want you to think- is this ladder helpful? Does it help us to see people above us to motivate us and use people below us to feel good about ourselves and like we’ve made some progress? It SEEMS helpful sometimes. Let me share something that is MORE helpful! So I kinda gave it away in the title, but we’re going to gently-since there’s people on the ladder-, we’re going to gently tip the ladder so it’s resting on the ground. Maybe it’s up off the ground a little so the people can stand inside the squares.

Can you picture it? This ladder extends forever! There are people in every square as far as the eye can see. We all have our little space and we’re all level with each other! We’re all on the same level. There’s no one ahead or behind. We’re all equal. Our worth is constant. Our worth came with us. There is nothing we can do to increase or decrease our place on the ladder. We can’t lose our spot. We were born. We are human. We have immense worth! Every single person. You. Me. The people you placed ahead or behind you. Your family members. The people in the criminal justice system. The people without a home. The people without a job. The people making millions. We are all equal. We all have immense worth. We are human. We are divine. We are loved. We are redeemed.

So what do you think? Are you buying into this? Some people have a really hard time accepting that they are equal with everyone else in the ladder. What about all the hard work I’ve put in? They may ask. What about all the mistakes I’ve made? Someone else might ask. What about how I’m a contributing member of society and and and.. It CAN be a hard concept. But it is a BEAUTIFUL concept. I still remember exactly where I was when I heard this from Jody Moore. It was in a podcast episode and I was getting off the freeway coming home from somewhere in Tucson. I was struck! My worth is constant! There is no one ahead of me or behind me. We all have immense worth! The things we do may change our experience in this life- getting a college degree allows me to more easily get a job and provide the things I need for my home and family. If someone makes a lot of mistakes, it will make THEIR experience more difficult. So we can do things to change our experience or how life is for us, but no mistake and no accomplishment can touch our immense worth. It is constant. Now if that doesn’t help you with your self-compassion, I’m not sure what could!! I just love that. Tip the ladder my friends!!

The next one, which can be equally powerful is the 50/50 concept. Some of you are familiar with Jody Moore already so hopefully you are familiar with this concept. It was another concept that really changed my perspective. The 50/50 concept teaches that life has balance. Everything tends to come into balance in life. The good, the bad. The opportunities, the disappointments. The times we show up exactly how we want to, the times we don’t. We expect things to be wonderful probably 95% of the time. This differs for different people of course- perfectionists expect 100% OR MORE, pessimists might expect much less. But generally, we have a very unrealistic view of how well things should be or how often we should be amazing and our lives filled with the amazing! The reality is around 50% of the time. Right? This is a gospel principle- opposition in all things. We experience the bad so we can know and appreciate the good. We’re here to learn about opposites. So what happens when we are expecting things to be wonderful 95% of the time and they are in reality good about 50% of the time? ……

Do you think you’ll be feeling a lot of disappointment in life and maybe in yourself and your capabilities? It might sound like Why can’t I say the right thing? Why do I get so upset? Why do I make mistakes? Why do my relationships fall apart? 

Do you think you’ll be feeling disappointment in others if you’re expecting 95% and getting closer to 50? This might sound like Why can’t they show up on time? Why did they say that? Why don’t they answer? How could they forget? 

What about disappointment or dissatisfaction with God? This could sound like, Why isn’t he blessing me like he should? Why isn’t he answering my prayers? Why are so many bad things happening to me? Where is he?

So having a more realistic view- reigning in our expectations a bit, can be really useful! If we recognize life is going to have a balance, we don’t have to be so surprised when the bad or less than ideal things continue to pop up. A way Jody Moore says this when something not ideal happens is “Well there’s one for THAT 50!” I’ve tried to use this myself- “There’s one for that 50” and then hope the next thing will be on the positive side of the 50/50. 

So in my mind, we’d want our positive expectations to be in the 75-80% range. We expect things to go well 75-80% of the time. We don’t want to expect that life is going to be horrible half the time. But we don’t want to be so surprised IF IT DOES go wrong 50% of the time. We want to understand there’s a balance. So HOPE for good and WORK for good and then understand that there’s usually balance. 

So how do these two things aid us in using self-compassion? 

Tip the ladder shows us our worth is constant and nothing we do can touch that. It shows us that our experience in the moment may be impacted but that we are still a valid and valuable individual. It takes away that element of comparison and needing people above or below us on the imaginary ladder. Can you imagine a life without comparison? It can be SO freeing my friends!! If we can let go of judging ourselves, we’re so much more successful in letting go of judging others. We are all innately AMAZING. God has created us and we’re amazing! Can we be compassionate with ourselves? Can we give ourselves a break? Can we support ourselves through the tough times of our experience?

The 50/50 principle teaches us that half the time we may make mistakes. Half the time we may go through the hard moments. It teaches us that we can reduce or let go of unrealistic expectations. This sure helps me be more compassionate with myself. Half the time I’m going to need to be supportive and loving of myself. I’m sure going to get a lot of practice going through this life! 

Let’s be there for ourselves. God is always there for us but sometimes it’s hard to feel Him. WE are our constant companion so there’s no one better to be our support and cheerleader.

Jody Moore, life coach and graduate of the Life Coach School with Brooke Castillo has several helpful tools and resources that can help us be more compassionate with ourselves. You can find her at jodymoore.com or check out her podcast, Better Than Happy.

We’re amazing! We’re divine! The things we do may influence our experience or our opportunities, but never our worth!

I hope you’ll continue to work on improving your self-compassion long after this month and this episode are over. 

Love you my friends! You’re amazing and your worth is constant!