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Summary of the Caring for SELF and others tool

This tool is a simple way of doing what is known as kindness-based mindfulness. This is where you focus on creating feelings of kindness towards yourself and others. Research has shown that self-criticism and a lack of self-compassion is implicated in psychological problems. At the same time, generating feelings of care and kindness towards others is associated with increased positive feelings for people who do this. In the case of this tool, kindness-based mindfulness is done by silently repeating a simple saying based on the acronym SELF.

The Caring for SELF and Others Tool

In life we can think and feel positive or negative things about ourselves and others. The Caring for the SELF and Others Tool is designed to help you think positively about yourself and other people. It is based on an approach used in a number of different mindfulness meditation traditions. As noted above, this type of approach is called kindness-based mindfulness or meditation and it has been the subject of a number of research projects. So far, this research has shown evidence that using this sort of approach improves positive emotions in those who do it. In addition, self-criticism and a lack of self-compassion have been shown to be related to depression.

This tool is a simple version of such a kindness-based approach and it consists of silently repeating a saying based on the letters in the word SELF. You can use this approach as part of a daily mindfulness meditation session or at any other time when you are feeling critical of yourself or others.

You can also use it to practice forgiveness of others. If you find that you are brooding about something that someone else has done, you can just repeat the saying to yourself and direct it at them. Using the tool can help to reduce the negative emotional charge that you may have about another person. We are all familiar with the idea that people’s personalities can be distorted by their negativity, if not hatred, towards another person. Usually all that negative brooding about someone else eats away at the person who is doing it while not really influencing the way that the target of the brooding is behaving. This is captured in sayings such as: ‘If you end up being eaten up by hatred for him or her, they will have won’.

You can even use the Caring for the SELF and Others Tool to focus on your feelings about public figures whom you have never met, but who irritate you. The tool has been constructed so that it does not imply that sending positivity towards the other person endorses how they are behaving. It is designed so that you are just sending them positivity rather than negativity.

Focusing care on yourself

The SELF saying is below. You can use it in regard to yourself or others by repeating it to yourself multiple times.

S Let me be Safe and Well
E Let me be at Ease and peaceful
L Let me Look for the positive and be happy
F Let me be Filled with caring for myself and others.

Focusing care on others

When used to focus on others, the tool can be used in the following way. Start out by using the saying in regard to yourself, then about someone you feel generally positive about while projecting positivity out to that person. Then move onto someone who you feel reasonably neutral about. Then onto someone you feel slightly negative about. And finally, target the saying onto one or more people that you are currently feel quite negative about.

Another option that you can use is to start with the saying being focused on yourself and then move out to other groups from there. For instance use it next about your immediate family, then about your friendship circle, then about your work colleagues, then about people in your locality, then about people in your region, then about people in your country, your continent, your hemisphere and then the whole world. For both of these approaches you can use the version of the saying set out below.

S Let _____ Safe and well
E Let _____ be at Ease and peaceful
L Let _____ Look for the positive and be happy
F Let _____ be Filled with kindness for themselves and others.

Please note that when you are dealing with issues around child rearing, relationships, dealing with stress of any type or doing psychological or self-development work, if you find yourself feeling overwhelming emotions, troubling thoughts or actions, you need to talk to a health professional.