I’ve been sitting with the Buddha’s teaching of the two arrows. It’s a concept that feels simple until you try to live it, and I think it’s one of the most honest maps of our inner world I’ve found.
The teaching goes like this: In life, we all experience the first arrow. This is the initial, unavoidable pain—the sharp news, the loss, the physical ache, the trigger that lands. It’s the genuine hurt of being human.
But then, the Buddha said, we often shoot ourselves with a second arrow.
This second arrow is everything our mind does in response to the first. It’s the story we tell ourselves: “This is my fault,” “This will never get better,” “What’s wrong with me?” It’s the shame, the panic, the catastrophic spiral. The first arrow is the pain. The second arrow is the suffering we layer on top of it.
And this is where it gets real. On the surface, this can sound like a simple instruction: “Just stop firing the second arrow!” As if it’s a conscious choice we’re too weak to make.
Reimagining the Second Arrow: An Invitation to Compassion
But that’s not the experience I have had, or that of those who have shared their experiences with me. The “second arrow” isn’t often a choice; it’s a conditioned, automatic, and often a survival response. It’s the nervous system’s desperate, learned attempt to protect us. The hypervigilance that I’ve learned to predict danger to keep you safe. It’s the inner critic that learned to berate you into being “good enough” to avoid abandonment.
Firing that second arrow feels necessary. It feels like the very thing that has kept you alive.
So, when I hear, “be warned of the second arrow,” I don’t hear a command to “just stop.” I hear an invitation to profound compassion. It’s an invitation to notice the archer—that terrified, protective part of us that’s frantically loading the bow.
The work isn’t about stopping the pain or blaming ourselves for our reactions. The work is about slowly, over time, turning toward that part and gently asking: “I see you. You are working so hard. What are you trying to protect me from?”
It’s about teaching our nervous system that the first arrow—the genuine pain—is enough. That we don’t need to amplify it with a story of our own brokenness to be worthy of care. We can learn to tend to the original wound without creating new ones.
This isn’t about achieving a state of perfect peace. It’s about the messy, non-linear practice of noticing the second arrow in flight and, in that sliver of a moment, choosing to meet it with curiosity instead of condemnation. Some days we can. Some days we can’t. And that, too, is part of the practice.
Self-Compassion Practices to Soften the Second Arrow
Understanding the two arrows gives us a map. The practice is learning to recognize the moment after the first arrow hits, and after you feel the instinct to fire the second—the moment of awareness that we see the pattern emerging. And this isn’t about perfecting our natural reactions or stopping them entirely, but about creating space to shift from adding suffering to offering ourselves compassion.
Here are a few ways to practice finding that space.
1. The Pause and Acknowledge Practice
The shift begins when we interrupt the automatic spiral. This creates a foothold for a different response.- What to do: When you feel the shock of pain (the first arrow) and the immediate rush of fearful thoughts (the second arrow loading), consciously pause. Place a hand gently on your heart. Take a few soft breaths.
- What to say (internally): “This is incredibly difficult. The pain is here, and the fear is here. In this moment, I have a choice.” Use your own words here, naming what you are feeling.
- Why it helps: This isn’t about stopping the feeling. It’s about naming it and inserting a moment of conscious awareness. You are moving from being on autopilot to becoming the compassionate witness who can choose what happens next.
2. The Choice of Curiosity
Once you’ve paused, you can choose to engage with the panic differently—not as a truth-teller, but as a messenger.
- What to do: In that space of pause, notice the urge to catastrophize or blame. Instead of following the thought, get curious about the feeling underneath it.
- What to say (internally): “I feel this tightness, this panic. It’s trying to protect me. I can choose to listen to its fear with curiosity instead of believing its worst-case scenario.”
- Why it helps: This shifts your role from a passenger of your thoughts to an active, compassionate investigator. You are choosing to relate to your experience with curiosity, which inherently de-escalates the nervous system.
3. The Choice of Soothing
Your breath is a resource you can always turn towards. It’s a way to offer comfort to your overwhelmed system actively.
- What to do: After you pause, make a conscious choice to soothe your body. Try a “sighing breath.” Inhale slowly, then exhale through your mouth with a long, audible sigh.
- What to say (internally): “I choose to offer my body a moment of ease right now.”
- Why it helps: This is a tangible, physical act of self-compassion. You are actively choosing a regulating response over a spiraling one. It is our body’s way of communicating the need to care for our nervous system and experience.
The goal is compassionate self-awareness of our experience, a pause to offer us space to be with our experience and find choice, not perfection. Some days, the space between the arrows will feel vast, and you might easily turn towards and choose compassion. Other days, it will feel razor-thin, and you’ll only realize your choice after the second arrow has flown and sunk in. That’s both normal and okay. This is a practice, and whether we find the compassion this time or not, each time we notice, we are strengthening our ability to choose a different, more compassionate path.
Do you have a self-compassion practice that helps you? Please share it in the comments.
