Practicing Self-Compassion…the Ins and Outs

Be kind to yourself.

Show yourself compassion.

Give yourself some grace.

Take care of yourself.

Give yourself positive affirmations.

Stop that negative talk!

I hear these things all the time now from therapists, other mental health patients, friends who love me, other well-intentioned people, and society. There is definitely a movement towards self-love in our culture, but to be honest, I’ve felt left behind. If we got grades on how well we loved ourselves, I would get a resounding F.

Or at least I have in the past.

In the past, I felt frustrated when someone would tell me things like, “Just look in the mirror every day and tell yourself you’re beautiful.” Though well-intentioned, this grated so much on my nerves, because I could say nice things all day to myself until I was blue in the face, but if I didn’t believe them, then they just fell flat. Other people have told me, “You are just too hard on yourself” and “you need to take care of yourself better,” both of which I agree to. However, this whole idea of self-compassion has been frustratingly elusive, because I just can’t seem to help beating myself up. Self-compassion has seemed like a reward that I haven’t earned. A celebration of someone I often don’t recognize and someone I hate. A prize that others deserve, but not me.

There’s a small part of me that feels like self-compassion is a conspiracy our society has concocted up. Sometimes I think we all just so desperately want to feel better about ourselves, that we have to say nice things to ourselves. Other times, I think that we focus on these positive things to justify our actions and they perhaps keep us stuck from making changes we legitimately need to make. I feel like saying nice things to myself is shallow and doesn’t deal with the deeper, more complex feelings and core beliefs that I have about myself.

But, this line of thinking is not helpful. Maybe I am thinking too much about these things. It tends to be my MO. 

What would it really look like to show compassion towards myself? Is self-compassion a legitimate and necessary thing?

So, what is self-compassion?

The Cambridge Dictionary  defines compassion as “a strong feeling of sympathy and sadness for the suffering or bad luck of others and a wish to help them.” Some people mix up the idea of empathy with compassion, but the two words are different. While empathy shares in the emotional distress of someone, compassion goes a step beyond and seeks ways to ease that person’s suffering. Self-compassion goes even a step further and shows that same care and kindness to yourself and not just to others.  This idea of self-compassion has been around for thousands of years in the Buddhist faith, but it wasn’t really a thing until Dr. Kristin Neff made it her life’s work and integrated it into modern psychology in 2003.

What does self-compassion look like?

Sarah Winnig’s article, How to Practice Self Compassion, says that self-compassion looks like 5 different actions:

1. Having a Fair Attitude Toward Yourself (rather than having a critical or judgmental attitude).
2. Taking Care of Yourself (rather than denying your needs or overindulging).
3. Accepting That Struggle is Normal (rather than feeling uniquely bad).
4. Practicing Mindful Awareness (rather than getting caught up in thoughts and feelings).
5. Accepting Yourself for Who You Are (rather than trying to be someone else).

Basically, I think we need to stop being mean to ourselves. 

Delving Deeper

In my head, I combine numbers 1 and 3. Self-compassion is accepting that we are human and we will make mistakes; it also reminds us that our flaws are normal and real!  We are not uniquely good or uniquely bad. All humans err. But many of us, me included, have an unrealistic expectation of perfectionism from ourselves.  We tend to be super critical, often berating ourselves over making one mistake at work, getting reprimanded by a boss, not losing that extra pound, saying one wrong thing to a friend, being harsh to your kid when they drive you up the wall, etc.  We rehash what we said or did over and over again in our minds, judging ourselves harshly for simply being human. I have done this so much in my life!  Whether our unrealistic expectations come from our families or our religions or our society, we often create a vortex of anxiety, agony, and failure.  Self-compassion, if we exerted it in these circumstances, would be accepting what our limitations are, accepting the fact that we all make mistakes and are imperfect, and choosing to forgive ourselves and do better next time.

Self-compassion is, according to number 2, taking care of myself vs. denying or over-indulging my needs. Self-compassion is doing all those basic things for yourself that are so important for your mental and physical health: eating a nutritious meal, getting enough sleep, drinking enough fluids, exercising.  But it’s also recognizing when you need a moment to yourself, a reward for a small win, a mental health day. It’s balancing immediate needs with long-term goals. An example of denying my needs would be when I refused to allow myself to eat because I wanted to be thin. And when I bought six books instead of one would be an example of over-indulging myself. Neither of these actions are balanced or helpful. This may be a little confusing, so the self-care tips worksheet may be helpful in pinpointing ways to take care of yourself without denying or over-indulging.

Number 4 says self-compassion is choosing mindfulness vs. obsessing over our flawed thoughts and feelings. It gives us perspective and diminishes the power that our emotions have over us. It allows us to step back and recognize what we are feeling and why.  Self-compassion allows us to accept our feelings and to not dismiss them, repress them, or fall-apart from them. Self-compassion allows us to express our emotions in a healthy, productive way. Dr. Kristen Neff has some guided meditations on her website and you can also find self-compassion guided meditations on YouTube. Let me know if you find one that is especially helpful!

The most significant for me is probably number 5, the idea that self-compassion is accepting ourselves vs. trying to be someone else.

Ahhh, this is where those cognitive distortions called “should statements” come into play. Statements like,

I’m a man, so I should be strong and masculine.

I’m a mom, so I should be nurturing and I should be taking my kids to a million different activities to make sure they are well-rounded.

I have a lot of potential, so I should be living up to it.

I’m a Christian, so I should be godly.

I’m educated, so I should be successful.

There are so many ways we tell ourselves every day that we should do this or should be that and yet we often cannot measure up. 

I am just beginning to realize in my journey that my whole life I have tried to be something and someone that I am not. Growing up in a strictly conservative Christian environment made me believe that I should be sinless in a world full of sinners, that I should be blameless before a judgmental God, and that I should be perfectly good so that people (and God!) would love me.  So much of my life was struggling against the core beliefs that I was unworthy and unlovable because I could never measure up to what I should be believing and how I should be behaving. 

In addition to this, I’ve always felt like society had invisible tethers that I couldn’t help but strain against. As a female, I have to be thin in order to be beautiful. As a woman, I should be married and have a family. As an American woman, I should also have a career. As a wife, I should want children. As an American wife in the suburbs, I should have multiple children and a dog and a nice house and nice things like monogrammed bags and lululemon pants and vacation at Disney or the beach. By midlife, my kids should be involved in soccer and we should value family and moral values and wave an American flag and be upstanding citizens. As a girl growing up in the 90’s, I shouldn’t try to be smart in science or skilled in sports, and I should be seen and not heard.  As a Christian female, I should always defer to the man, always be demure, always strive to be pure. In God’s eyes and everyone else’s, I should not want sex, I should not have any sex outside of marriage, and I should deny my every sexual desire.  If I didn’t, I was a whore.

I have realized for a long time that I am none of these things. I didn’t marry until I was 30 (I was already an old maid in the culture of the deep south!), and now I’m divorced (scandalous!). I don’t have children and will never have children. I don’t have a nice house, or any house for that matter.  I’m nearly 40 and I should be settled down, but I am just now starting all over again. I don’t want/can’t keep a traditional 9-5 job.  I face challenges with my mental and my physical health that others don’t. I’m realizing I don’t necessarily want to remarry and have my own house again…or at least right now.  I want to travel to every state and go all over the world and immerse myself in the lives of people who are different from me.  I want to see the world with new eyes.  I want to be humble and I want to learn and I want to grow and I want to write and write and write.  I want to have a lot of sex and not shy away from my sexuality.

There is nothing wrong with wanting nice things and being American through and through. In some ways, I think that would make my life so much easier. But I don’t want them. At least, not in traditional ways. I am unique, and it’s ok. I am learning to finally accept my limitations (with my health) and to accept that I am a square box that just doesn’t fit the round hole that I and others have tried forcing me into my whole life.  Self-Compassion, for me, is allowing me to be me, without condemnation or criticism.  It’s accepting that I’m different and loving myself anyway.

What are the benefits of self-compassion?

Well, according to Stephanie Harrison’s article in Harvard Business Review, there’s a lot of them!

• Self-compassion reduces anxiety and depression (not surprising when you get rid of that perfectionism!)
• Self-compassion improves self-esteem and mental health.
• Self-compassion makes you more resilient and flexible.
• Self-compassion supports creativity and productivity.
• It allows you to admit and acknowledge your mistakes without succumbing to a fear of failure.

And, I would add that self-compassion empowers you to be you!

How do we actually practice self-compassion then?

Ok, now that I understand what self-compassion really is, can I practically, realistically practice it? And I say absolutely yes. Harrison’s article introduces a strategy called CARE.

• Catch yourself when you are being critical of yourself. It might be a mistake that you make at work, or it might be an ongoing stream of negative thoughts in your head. Catching them brings attention to them.  Before you can even spiral into that judgmental, unkind voice in your head, stop what you’re doing and tell yourself, “That thought was too critical.” A great worksheet to work on this is Challenging Negative Thoughts, found below.
• Acknowledge your experiences, your feelings, and your shortcomings. Most of the time when we think negative thoughts about ourselves, these thoughts stem from deeper core beliefs.  There is most likely a reason you are thinking or feeling a certain way.  Try to kindly probe yourself for what is possibly the bigger issue at hand. This takes time and can be super uncomfortable, so even if you can’t do this, remember and remind yourself that feelings of anger, sadness, frustration, and fear are all normal.  Allowing yourself to acknowledge and express them instead of stuffing them down in that dark place in yourself will serve you so much better. I promise, because I’ve done both!
• Request your own compassion.  I know this sounds silly, so let’s use an example.  Let’s say you are at work one day and you miss a deadline. You catch yourself thinking, “I never do anything right. I’m so stupid. My boss probably wants to fire me.” You stop and you acknowledge what you are feeling. You feel sad because you think you can never measure up.  You feel afraid because you don’t want your boss to fire you.  Try telling yourself out loud, “I feel sad. I feel afraid.” Expressing your emotions frees up space in your brain to see the bigger picture, to let kindness take a foothold. Ask yourself, “what would I say to a friend in this same circumstance?” Or “what would your most supportive friend say to you in this moment?” Most likely you would tell them, or they would tell you, that you are smart and capable and resilient. That you made a mistake, but you can fix it. That even if you can’t fix it and your boss does fire you, you will be ok because you can rise to the challenge.  Most importantly, you are loved and valued for yourself and not for what you do at work. Visualizing having this conversation with a friend or repeating a positive, realistic mantra like “I made a mistake, and it’s ok” are both really solid things you can do to be kind to yourself.  Taking deep breaths, placing your hand over your heart, and closing your eyes will help solidify these acts of kindness that you are giving yourself.
• Finally, Explore the next best step. The CARE strategy will help you by activating your parasympathetic nervous system which reduces your stress, allows you to show compassion to yourself, and gives you space to think of creative solutions to your problems.

Conclusion:

Like anything, self-compassion takes practice and patience, and it is something I am working hard at! I think learning to love and accept myself is the greatest act of self-compassion that I can do for myself. I would love to hear how you show yourself compassion!