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Embrace the beauty of your accent in this self-compassion meditation that guides you in a reflection of your history, heritage, and connection to your ancestors.
How To Do This Practice:
- Find a Comfortable Position: Sit in a relaxed yet alert posture, either on a cushion or chair. Gently lower your gaze or close your eyes if that feels comfortable.
- Focus on Your Breath: Take a deep breath in and slowly exhale. Allow yourself to transition from your daily activities into this moment of reflection.
- Acknowledge Your Accent: Bring awareness to the way you speak, recognizing that your voice carries your history, culture, and personal journey.
- Repeat Self-Compassion Phrases: Silently or aloud, repeat affirmations such as, “my accent makes me unique,” “my accent carries my story,” “my accent connects me to my ancestors.”
- Place a Hand on Your Heart: If it feels right, gently place a hand on your heart, offering yourself warmth and kindness as you continue to breathe deeply.
- Close with Gratitude: Take a final deep breath, sending appreciation to yourself, your ancestors, and the uniqueness of your voice before gently opening your eyes.
Today’s Happiness Break host:
CRISS CUERVO is a mindfulness and meditation teacher, Bridging Differences Coordinator at the Greater Good Science Center, and author of PERTENÆCER: Eight-Week Mindfulness and Meditation Training and Practices for Latinx Immigrants in the United.
Learn more about Criss Cuervo here: https://tinyurl.com/4npjwn6m
Read her book here: https://tinyurl.com/3byby84b
Related Happiness Break episodes:
A Meditation on Original Love: https://tinyurl.com/5u298cv4
Loving Kindness Meditation: https://tinyurl.com/2kr4fjz5
Where Did You Come From: https://tinyurl.com/2y9uyjj6
Related Science of Happiness episodes:
How to Show Up For Yourself: https://tinyurl.com/56ktb9xc
How to Tune Out The Noise: https://tinyurl.com/4hhekjuh
How to Feel Better About Yourself: https://tinyurl.com/42fn62a2
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Transcription:
DACHER KELTNER: Hi, I’m Dacher Keltner, and welcome to Happiness Break, where we take a moment to pause, breathe, and reconnect with ourselves.
The way we speak—our voice, our accents—carries our history, culture, and journey. Yet for many, it can also bring feelings of self-consciousness or shame.
So today, we’re practicing self-compassion—accepting and celebrating the way we sound, reflecting on our heritage, and connecting to those who came before us.
Research on self-compassion shows that treating ourselves with kindness in these moments can reduce stress, build resilience, and strengthen our sense of belonging.
Guiding us is Criss Cuervo, a mindfulness and meditation teacher, Bridging Differences Coordinator at the Greater Good Science Center, and author of PERTENÆCER, a mindfulness and meditation guide for Latinx immigrants in the United States.
Here’s Criss.
CRISS CUERVO: Hi, my name is Criss. This accent that you hear is a mix of being born and raised in Venezuela from Colombian parents and calling the U.S. home for 26 years. In this self-compassion meditation, we will work with embracing, accepting, and loving the way we sound and speak in the world. My invitation is to help us connect with our ancestry, heritage, and love for ourselves.
Find a comfortable position, perhaps sitting on your meditation cushion, any position that allows you to be alert yet relax.
As we begin the meditation, I invite you to just relax the gaze down, or perhaps close the eyes. Whatever is comfortable for you at this time. And if it helps, we can take a deep breath together.
Breathing in, and breathing out.
And just for a moment, I invite you to sit here with your breath as you transition from whatever you were doing before into this meditation.
Our accents are a unique part of us. They are like stamps. They make us unique in this world. They carry our history, our heritage, our ancestry. So, it is normal at times to feel ashamed. And have some fear of being judged because of the way that we sound. During this self-compassion meditation, I'm inviting you to offer love and acceptance and a new perspective so we can care for ourselves. At any time, if it feels good for you, I invite you to place your hand on your heart.
Acknowledging our experience with this way of talking that we carry with us everywhere we go. The nationalities, the travel, the history, the location, where we live. So my invitation is to repeat phrases that cultivate acceptance and compassion for the way we sound.
I invite you to repeat these with me in silence to yourself.
"My accent makes me unique." Connect with each of these words. "My accent makes me unique." Really mean what you're saying, feeling how unique can be a positive thing. "My accent makes me unique."
"My accent carries my story." Again, repeat and give meaning to each word. "My accent carries my story." This story that is connected to all of the people that we have loved, that we have met, and haven't met, but we're grateful that we're here today because of them.
Remember to breathe. And allow whatever arises to just be there. No need to resist anything.
And if you get distracted, it's completely normal. Just try to come back to the phrases in connection to the meaning of the words.
"My accent makes me unique."
"My accent carries my story."
Let's try another one. "My accent carries my history and my heritage."
"My accent carries my history, and my heritage."
Can you visualize, even if it's not very clear, this history and this heritage? Perhaps some emotions start to arise. Pride. Gratitude. Warmth. Belonging. Perhaps not, and that's okay.
Remember to breathe.My accent makes me unique. Feel that, feel that uniqueness. My accent carries my story. My accent connects me and unites me with my ancestors.
I invite you to now return to your breath, put your attention on your breath as we close this meditation. Breathing in, breathing out. And just remember that our ancestors traveled many distances and did so many things for you and for me, so we can be here today. And for a moment I invite you to send love to them, and also to yourself. Love and acceptance, because this is a unique part of you that you carry with you everywhere you go. Thank you for meditating here with me today.
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