I Am.

There is one school of thought that is noticing and accepting our present moment experience. Which is important for a deep sense of self acceptance and letting go of resisting or pushing down due to fear of facing our truth or past hurts. We must face it, welcome and embrace it in order to move through, transform and integrate. Ex. The exiled parts of our personality, behaviors we beat ourselves up over, or an external experience that brings up fear, anger, etc. 

This contrasts with the powerful spiritual method of believing how you desire to feel and what you want to experience is already your reality. So you wouldn’t necessarily do a self-compassion exercise bc in this you are stating: I am not perfect and make mistakes and this is okay. Rather, you only declare what you want to feel, letting go of any old beliefs or thought patterns that no longer serve you or the greater good. Ex: I am perfect health. I am happy. I am accepting of my whole self.

My approach combines both of these traditions. When the inner work has been done to the point of an ingrained sense of unconditional love and kindness towards yourself and others, you know you are love and the self-compassion practice is a constant stream. So less need to focus on it in a practice. The inner work is completed. And you can then just uplevel into I AM phrases. But - true healing must be done first either way and sometimes we take a very long time.