(Me with some help from Claude)

Introduction

This post is for people who struggle to care for themselves while caring about the world. I find that lots of EAs that I meet have a hard time caring for themselves and that normal meditation practices don’t work that well. I wanted to describe a recipe that people can follow in order to learn to care for themselves that I think works a lot better than normal loving kindness practices do for EAs. 

The main reason this works is because you don’t start with yourself but you start with a younger version of you.

I'm going to cover:

• The weight we carry: Why self-compassion feels so hard in EA contexts and why it is kind of optimal to care for yourself.
• A specific practice: An age-progression loving-kindness meditation designed for when traditional metta doesn't work
• The ongoing work: How to integrate this into your life over time
• Going deeper: Resources for continued practice

This isn't about positive thinking or pretending the suffering in the world isn't real. It's about finding a way to be joyful and work for the world at the same time. That's harder than it sounds - and simpler than you'd think.

The Weight You Carry

If you're reading this, you probably already know what I'm about to describe.

There's a Peter Singer argument that lives in the back of your mind. We're all in triage. Every moment is a decision about what you prioritize. The coffee, the hobby, the weekend off - shadow costs everywhere. Someone needed help you could have provided.

This is true. I'm not going to tell you it isn't.

So the pressure builds. Never enough. Never doing enough. Rest feeling like theft. Late at night: What right do I have to be okay when so much is not okay?

I carry this too. And honestly, I don't fully know what to do about it.

I've tried the frameworks. Sustainability matters. Can't pour from an empty cup. All that. They help a little. They don't touch the core of it. People say meditation, people say therapy, people say loving-kindness practice - and you try, maybe, and it's weird. You sit there trying to wish yourself well and nothing happens. Or there's resistance. A voice: Who are you to feel good?

(If you've tried metta and bounced off it, you're not broken. The standard instructions just don't work for a lot of people. More on this below.)

So what actually helps and why should we even try to do it?

Here's one reframe that worked for me. Think about your colleagues - researchers, ops people, whoever you work with. Now imagine they all showed up tomorrow from a genuinely happier place. Less anxious. More present. Actually okay in themselves.

Would the work get worse? Or would something open up?

You know the answer. You'd want that for them.

So here's the move: if you want the people around you to be joyful, you have to become joyful. You can't model what you don't embody. Be the change - not as a bumper sticker, but as actual strategy.

This might feel instrumental. Like I'm sneaking self-care in through the back door by making it about effectiveness. Maybe I am. That's fine. Use whatever door gets you in. The practice will do the rest.

But what practice? When the normal loving-kindness stuff bounces off?

I have something specific for that.

The Age-Progression Practice

Find a quiet place. Twenty minutes minimum. You might want to have tissues nearby - not because you'll definitely cry, but because permission to cry matters.

Sit comfortably. Close your eyes. Take a few breaths to settle.

Starting Young

Go back to when you were one year old.

Picture that tiny human. Maybe you have photos you can recall. Maybe you just imagine a small body learning to exist. See them exploring the world with wide eyes. Learning to walk. Reaching for things. Not yet knowing about suffering or responsibility or the weight of the world.

Silently say to that little one: May you be happy. May you be safe. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.

Feel what arises. For most people, this is easy. Of course you wish a baby well.

Moving Forward

Now move to age three. Picture yourself then - maybe a memory, maybe an image. Running around, laughing at things, delighted by small wonders. Completely absorbed in play.

Offer the same wishes: May you be happy. May you be safe. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.

Continue forward. Five years old. Seven. Nine. Eleven. Thirteen.

At each age, take time to really see that version of yourself. What were they wearing? What did they care about? What made them laugh?

Wish each one well. Feel the warmth of wanting them to flourish.

Finding the Edge

Somewhere along the line, you'll notice a shift.

The warmth becomes harder to access. The wishes feel hollow, or forced, or met with resistance. A voice might arise: That version of me doesn't deserve this. That's when I should have known better. That's when things got serious.

For me it was fifteen. For you it might be twelve, or seventeen, or eight. There's no right answer.

This edge is not a problem. This edge is the practice.

When you find it, pause. Don't push through. Just notice:

• What happened at that age?
• What did you decide about yourself or the world?
• What part of you went into hiding?

Meeting the Younger One

Here's where it gets tender.

Imagine the current you - the one carrying all the responsibility, all the pressure to help the world - sitting down with that younger self. The one right before the edge. The one who was still allowed to be soft.

You don't have to say anything at first. Just be with them.

Then, if it feels right, let a conversation happen. You might ask them:

• What do you need?
• What are you afraid of?
• What did you have to put away?

And listen. Really listen. Not to fix, but to understand.

You might feel something like porcelain about to break. Something fragile. Something that has been hiding from the big monsters of the world. That's okay. That fragility is not weakness - it's the tender part of you that still knows how to feel.

What Might Arise

This practice can bring up unexpected things:

• Grief for the innocence that got buried
• Anger at what happened
• A fierce protectiveness toward your younger self
• Relief at finally being seen
• Nothing at all (and that's okay too - sometimes the soil needs time)

Whatever arises, try to meet it the way you'd meet a scared child. With patience. With gentleness. Without demanding it be different.

Closing

Before you finish, offer one more round of wishes - to all the versions of you, from birth to now:

May you be happy. May you be safe. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.

Then sit quietly for a minute. Feel your body. Notice what's different.

The Ongoing Work

This is not a one-off practice. This is going to need work.

The first time you do this, you might touch something. You might find the edge and glimpse what's there. But integration takes time. The patterns you're working with have been running for years, maybe decades. They don't unwind in a single sitting.

Here's what I recommend:

The Sit-Write-Walk Cycle

After each session:

1. Sit with the practice (20+ minutes)
2. Write down what showed up - images, feelings, memories, resistances. Don't censor. Just capture.
3. Walk to process the emotions. Movement helps the body integrate what the mind has touched. No podcasts. No phone. Just walking and feeling.

This cycle respects that insight arrives in the sitting, gets clarified in the writing, and settles in the body through movement.

Frequency

I'd suggest trying this practice once a week to start. More often if something feels alive and wants attention. Less often if you're overwhelmed and need to stabilize.

Accountability

Better yet - find someone to do this with. Set up a shared document or regular check-in. Say to someone in your community: "Let's work on the self-compassion thing together."

Be the change you want to see. Take it step by step.

Going Deeper: Embracing What Arises

If you want to go further into the emotions that surface, I recommend Yoga Nidra.

There's a series by Jayasara (Non-Sleep Deep Rest / NSDR) that works particularly well for this. Yoga Nidra creates a state of deep relaxation where you can meet difficult feelings without being overwhelmed by them. It's almost like surrendering into the emotion - letting it be fully present while your nervous system stays regulated. (I use waking up for this, specifically the deep rest, easing the nervous system, working with challenging emotions and compassionate awareness series. Here are some free online sessions on youtube if you don’t wanna pay for the waking up app.)

When something big comes up in the age-progression practice - grief, fear, the porcelain-fragility of meeting your younger self - Yoga Nidra can be a way to return to that feeling safely and let it move through you.

The Way Through

At some point in this practice, a voice will show up. It goes: But while I'm sitting here feeling my feelings, someone is dying.

Yeah. And while you're sitting there suffering, someone is dying too.

Your suffering isn't a tribute. It's not helping anyone. It's just suffering.

(This took me a while to actually believe. There's something almost addictive about the heroic suffering narrative - like if I'm miserable enough, at least I'm taking it seriously. But that's not how it works. The world doesn't need your misery. It needs you functional.)

Here's what I think is actually happening: we hide the tender part of ourselves - the part that knew how to be joyful - because there are big monsters out here. We find meaning through avoiding that vulnerability. We tell ourselves a story about sacrifice instead of just... being alive and helping at the same time.

But that's the simpler solution. Be joyful and work for the world. Both. Simultaneously.

Simple doesn't mean easy. It just means simple.

There's a quote I carry with me, from one of Jayasara’s guided meditations (paraphrasing): It's only when you feel the depths of loss and sorrow that you learn the only way through is joy and compassion. For where else is there to go?

We all feel the deep scary parts. The weight of it. And by actually meeting them - not avoiding, not suffering heroically at them, but genuinely meeting them with presence - that's been the only way for me to become more deeply okay. To accept the world for all its scariness. To trust that working on myself actually helps.

If you turn to face your deepest fears, you may never have to meet them.

You don't have to suffer in order to help the world. The world should be colorful. And so should you. It's okay to feel vibrancy. It's okay to feel alive. It helps. It doesn't hurt. It's part of you.