How often do you beat yourself up mentally over mistakes, big or small? If you’re like most people, the answer is “at least sometimes”. For some people, it’s more often. And for others, it’s all the time. The problem with this type of approach to things is that it often doesn’t do much other than make us feel worse. Self-compassion, however, can be a good alternative to this reaction to mistakes, failings, or bad things that sometimes just happen to us.
What is Self-Compassion?
In the most simple of terms, self-compassion is kindness and understanding that you extend to yourself. The type of comfort you would give to a friend, even in the face of a serious mistake, would be the same comfort you would give to yourself through self-compassion. It’s care that you give to yourself in moments of pain or suffering, or even fear through acceptance of the situation as it is.
According to Dr. Kristen Neff, an expert on self-compassion, self-compassion is made up of three main components: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.
Self-kindness involves supporting ourselves with warmth and comfort through difficult moments we may otherwise be self-critical during. We approach ourselves with a helpful mindframe instead of a cold one. This sometimes is the most difficult part of self-compassion because many of us are actively taught to be very critical of our mistakes.
Common humanity is the understanding that we are not alone and that many people in the world throughout time have dealt with these situations and feelings. Often, when something bad happens to us, we can feel as if we’re the only ones who could have such poor luck. Or that maybe no one could possibly understand how badly we feel about something. Recognizing that others suffer, too, can help us put things into perspective. This is not the same as minimizing or invalidating our feelings by saying “well, other people have it worse so I should suck it up”. It’s saying to ourselves, “other people have dealt with this, too, and I’m not alone in these feelings”.
Mindfulness encourages us to pause and look at the situation through a different perspective. It involves approaching things with acceptance and turning our pain into something more productive through this acceptance. It makes us stop and think about things without attaching moral judgements on them.
What is it NOT?
Self-compassion is not the same as being indulgent, flippant, or selfish. It does not involve just shrugging off mistakes and the harm they could be causing to ourselves and others. Self-compassion doesn’t mean refusing to feel badly about something or refusing to take accountability for it. There is a misconception that being kind to ourselves in moments of difficulty, even if we are the cause of the difficulty, will lead us to being lax and not working to fix things.
People often assume that being hard on ourselves and being super critical is how we push for change. However, that’s counterintuitive. Shame is very rarely an effective motivator for people and often has the opposite effect. We don’t want to handle issues that we’re ashamed of and we want to avoid those feelings as much as possible. Being self-critical can also make us feel much worse than the initial event did. This can make us disheartened and also cause us to lack motivation entirely.
Self-compassion, however, encourages us to take responsibility, accept that the situation is what it is, and understand that we are not failures or bad people just because we made a mistake or something bad happened. It asks that we speak to ourselves gently, like we would with a friend.
What would you say to a loved one? Often, the things we say to ourselves are things we would never say to our friends, partners, children, or anyone else we care about. So why do we think it’s okay to say them in our heads? Self-compassion encourages us to use the same approach to ourselves that we would with a loved one, even when they mess up.
How do we Practice Self-Compassion?
Accept that you make mistakes! This can be really difficult to do, but it’s the first step to really practicing self-compassion. It also makes it easier to talk to yourself in a more gentle, kind way.
Work on self-awareness of inner dialogues. A lot of the time, our responses and internal dialogue are based on deeply ingrained beliefs taught us to us by society, friends, and family. Becoming aware of what our self-talk really looks like is an important aspect of turning it into something kinder.
Work on mindfulness! It’s a big part of the process because so often, we just rush from moment to moment and thought to thought. We have a hard time living in the right now, especially if right now is hard or painful. Sitting with those feelings, however, is important. It’s also important to understand that these feelings are temporary.
Want to know more? Check out Dr. Kristen Neff’s guided practices on self-compassion! Her work into self-compassion has really broadened our understanding of it and her website is full of great resources for those looking to know more or get a starting point.
It can be hard to get started on this sort of thing on your own. If you feel your negative self-talk is having a detrimental effect on your life and you’d like to work on it, consider reaching out to a therapist. Often, they can help with gaining insight and practicing mindfulness that can help turn self-criticism into self-compassion.
Resources
https://www.mindful.org/the-transformative-effects-of-mindful-self-compassion
https://positivepsychology.com/how-to-practice-self-compassion
https://self-compassion.org/self-compassion-practices/#guided-practices