What Is Self-Compassion?
In basic terms, self-compassion means extending compassion towards yourself. It means offering yourself warmth, understanding, empathy and care. It sounds simple, but it doesn’t always come naturally. While most of us are good at showing compassion to our friends, family and loved ones, we can find it difficult to do this for ourselves. Rather than being gentle and kind like we might for other people, we find it easier to be self-critical and treat ourselves harshly.
Self-compassion is about accepting ourselves as imperfect and acknowledging our humanness. We cannot perform like robots, without ever feeling tired, or fatigued or demotivated. It means not striving for perfection or unrealistic high standards. Being self-compassionate means accepting things will go wrong sometimes. Difficult things will happen, we will make mistakes, we will let people down and sometimes we’ll let ourselves down. Self-compassion means treating ourselves with kindness and warmth even on our worst days. Especially on our worst days!
Self-compassion isn’t always about doing the soft, easy thing. Sometimes it’s being tender and gentle with yourself, but sometimes it involves making decisions, taking action, and doing things that feel hard. Going to the gym, taking a walk in the rain, or cooking a nutritious meal instead of getting a takeaway! Self-compassion isn’t always the same set of actions or the same solution. What’s self-compassionate on a Monday may be different to what’s self-compassionate on a Friday.
Which Would You Choose?
Most of us find it easier to think about compassion in relation to other people before thinking about it in relation to ourselves. For example, if someone you love was having a tough day, feeling tired, unwell and overwhelmed, how would you treat them? Chances are you would be caring, offering rest, support and kind words. Now think about how you approach yourself on tough days. Do you tend to adopt a more critical stance?
Another useful exercise is to think about the best teachers and coaches you’ve had throughout your life. They’re often people who can be firm while also offering kindness and understanding in a nurturing way that helps us learn and grow. There are also teachers and coaches who are harsh and critical. They try to motivate students by shouting at them and telling them they’re not good enough.
If you imagine someone you love was trying to learn a new skill, which teacher or coach would you want them to have? The one who’s supportive, caring and nurturing or the one who shouts and says derogatory things about them? Moreover, which coach or teacher do you think is the most effective? Which of these approaches helps people learn new things, make long-term changes, and feel confident in what they’re doing?
Self-Compassion & Trauma
Self-compassion is an antidote to suffering, making it a powerful tool for anyone who has experienced trauma. However, trauma can also make self-compassion very difficult.
We learn to show ourselves compassion by receiving compassion from other people. If you’ve experienced trauma, particularly in early life, there might have been an absence of compassion, or it might have been inconsistent or unpredictable. This can make it harder for you to learn to show yourself compassion.
People who have experienced trauma often develop beliefs about themselves that are critical or negative. They may blame themselves for what happened and see themselves as somehow defective or broken. Developing self-compassion can help change these beliefs, but their presence in the first place can make it difficult to behave in a self-compassionate way. If you believe you’re useless and not worthy of love, you’re going to find it hard to treat yourself in a kind, understanding way.
In this situation, therapy may be needed to help you learn some of the skills that are absent and work on developing a more compassionate perspective. This can be helpful on a day-to-day basis in the here and now, and it can also help you develop a different view of yourself in relation to the trauma you’ve experienced.
How to Become More Self-Compassionate
The first step is to acknowledge our common humanity. We all make mistakes, and we all mess up. The world can be a tricky place to be, and life can be hard to navigate. Next, it’s important to recognise you don’t exist in isolation with your flaws. We are all part of this common humanness. You’re not different or defective because things are difficult. We all mess up sometimes! Often, the difficulties we experience are beyond our control and not our fault.
When we begin to understand and accept these things, we can harness the compassion we so often have for others and practice turning it inward towards the self. Learning to sooth and settle the nervous system, for example with breathing exercises, can help with this process. Calming our physiology helps calm the mind so we can be more objective about ourselves and our behaviour.
It can also be helpful to adopt a mindful approach to ourselves. The simplest way to do this is to start noticing things without judgement. For example, if I notice I feel tired, it’s easy to think things like ‘I shouldn’t be tired – I had a full night’s sleep last night’ or ‘I’ve hardly done anything – I’m just being lazy’. Being more mindful means noticing the feeling of tiredness without attaching any meaning to it.
Next, practice asking yourself ‘what do I need’ and ‘what would be helpful right now?’. If we return to the example above, what do I need right now because I’m feeling tired? Do I need to push through the rest of the work on my to-do list or do I take a short break to recharge? I’ll probably do a better job if I rest first, so stepping away for 15-minutes seems like the best course of action.
Finally, remember you are a work in progress. I am a work in progress too – we all are! You would think after 20 years of working in mental health, I might have mastered self-compassion by now, but the reality is I am a human being, and I don’t always get it right. Being gentle with yourself is central to self-compassion.
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If you’re struggling and would like more support to help you heal and recover, please get in touch. I also share lots of tips and advice via Instagram.
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