ARROW Framework for Compassionte Accountability

What if holding ourselves accountable, while essential for personal growth, could also be done with compassion and understanding?

For me, compassionate accountability is about living with accountability to align my choices with my integrity. AND it’s about living with the self-dignity of compassion.

Before we dive deeper, I want to remind you that this blog post is intended for informational purposes to support our well-being only. It is not here to provide or substitute for clinical treatment, diagnosis, or clinical recommendations of any kind.

Ok, so let’s keep going here:

What if compassionate accountability is courage and strength with a heart?

What if it’s about recognizing my mistakes and my shortcomings with empathy and kindness – with an inherent belief in my goodness within - rather than harsh self-criticism and an immediate jump into shame.

Compassionate accountability, from my perspective, can be the courage to face my mistakes, the hurt I’ve caused, or the misstep I’ve experienced with honesty and forthrightness.

As in, “Yep, I sure did this. I caused hurt, no excuses and no if ands or buts.” While ALSO being my own best friend, recognizing the beautiful beating heart inside of me, and knowing that whatever choice I made doesn’t mean I’m now a rotten human.

For me, it’s also about holding my intention with compassion. For example, if I want to set an intention for myself to not act on my reactivity, I can do so with compassionate accountability.

So, how do we hold ourselves compassionately accountable anyway?

I’ve got a framework for you – I tried to keep it simple.

I’m going to use the acronym ARROW with each letter indicating a step. We can think of these as ARROWS in the direction of our intention.

Here we go:

Step One: Acknowledge what you want to hold as your intention.

In this example, I want to not act on my reactivity.

Step Two: Recognize the times when you are most vulnerable to not doing the habit or choice you’re wanting to implement.

For example,

Step Three: Reconnect with your “why” or purpose

In my example, my purpose is to put things in perspective for myself much more often. I’d like to notice when I feel pulled in 5 directions and ask myself, “how big of a deal is this in the scheme of life?”

Sometimes if I’m trying to make dinner, get one of my kids moving in the direction of getting their things to move out the door for one of their activities right after dinner, do a load of laundry, and answer a phone call – all of those things might feel absolutely overwhelming and BIG in the moment because I’m feeling the stress and pressure of all of it, all at once.

And yet, even one week from now, how important will it be to get dinner all set just right? Not important. To get the kids ready for their activity to arrive on time after dinner? Not that big of a deal. Getting the load of laundry done that moment? Not anything I’ll remember later as super important. And answering a phone call – I mean, unless it’s a very significant call (which is probably isn’t) that I’ll remember for years to come… it’s probably pretty small potatoes.

I’m not trying to deny that keeping a household running is a huge feat. It is. I think we don’t give ourselves nearly enough credit for all that we do in a day. These small things all add up to a very big deal of having a stable, reliable, and functioning home.

But are they a big enough deal for me on a given day to lose my temper in the direction of another person? Yeah… probably not a big enough deal for that.

Ok, so I’ve established my why. It is important to me to set this intention for myself because, when it’s all said and done, I don’t need to get my nervous system all activated over such small stuff. And I really don’t want to have to feel the reactivity in my body AND the guilt of losing my temper.

Step 4: Open the door to a new way.

Think about a feasible small step you could take that wouldn’t be a huge change in lifestyle, but would be big enough that you could feel a shift.

In my example, I might think about using a mantra like “Breathe”. This could help me remember to calm my nervous system, especially during those more hectic times, and then that would be coupled with actually taking deeper breaths and releasing on a long exhale to let go of any extra tension I’m holding. This is a feasible step that, if I hold myself compassionately accountable to, will make a huge difference in my reactivity over time.

Step 5: Warmth and Kindness in Practice.

Consider ways to honor your struggles AND hold yourself accountable. Imagine you are your own ally or best friend. As you’re trying to this new way of being or implementing something new in your lifestyle, how can you both be that true friend of keeping you on track for your own wellbeing and be kind and compassionate when you inevitably make mistakes, fall off the wagon, or struggle?

Can you lift yourself up rather than beat yourself up, like you’d long for a best friend to do? Can you support that relationship within yourself?

In my example, I’m probably going to feel frazzled again and have a short snappy response when I’m feeling super stressed. I’m human, right? It’ll happen.

Can I, though, recognize when I’ve done that and hold myself accountable – as in, “hey, girl, you did that. It was your reactivity you just put on someone else.”

AND be kind – “…and I’m really feeling stressed right now, and I need to take a few minutes to breathe.”

I apologize first and foremost to myself because I left my breath with all the things I was doing (none of which are as important as breathing – of course), and then I apologize to whoever it was I snapped at. I let them know that I’m working on calming myself down and it’s a work in progress. I’m sorry they got the brunt of my stress. It didn’t belong to them. I can offer myself a reminder to return to my breath, get back on track with my intention and my why, and move on with love in my heart.

As Brene brown remind us:

"Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love."

Ok, everyone, what if we give it a try?

Practice our Arrows.

Live with integrity.

Honor our dignity.

Knowing that we all are going to stumble and fall and hurt and be hurt.

And practicing, when that happens, talking to ourselves, like someone dear that we deeply love.