Let's Talk about Self-Compassion
How Self-Compassion has Transformed my Healing Journey
During my years in and out of residential, inpatient, partial hospital programs, intensive outpatient programs, and various group therapy sessions, there have been a few things that have really made a difference in my life, that have allowed me to start to heal and break the never ending cycle of going in and out of treatment. I still see a therapist and psychiatrist to monitor my mental health, but I am on the longest stretch of being out higher levels of treatment than I’ve ever been. One of the things I think highly contributed to this was learning to have self-compassion.
What is Self-Compassion?
According to Cambridge dictionary, compassion is defined as: “feeling or showing sympathy and sadness for the suffering or bad luck of others, and wanting to help them.” For many people it is easy to look at another person in a similar situation to ours and extend compassion, but when we see our own situation we blame and shame ourselves. Self-compassion is the opposite of blaming and shaming ourselves. It’s offering ourselves the same kindness, empathy, and understanding we would provide another human being. Self-compassion is an act of genuinely caring about yourself as a human being.
3 Elements of Self-Compassion
Kristen Neff is a researcher whose entire career is dedicated to studying self-compassion. Her TEDTalk is what really changed the way I view self-compassion for myself and hope maybe it can make a difference for you also. On her website she talks about 3 elements of self-compassion they are self-kindness vs self-judgement, common humanity vs isolation, and mindfulness vs over-identification. What do these mean? Let’s dive in a bit more.
Self-kindness vs Judgement
Self-kindness refers to being warm and understanding of our shortcomings, whether we failed at something, are suffering in some way or feel inadequate. When we meet these shortcomings with self-criticism we don’t do ourselves any favors. When has harsh criticism ever motivated you to do better? Criticism is more likely than not to leave us feeling defeated and stuck in our situation. Rather, when we meet the shortcomings with compassion, we can look at our experiences with a sense of curiosity and we have the opportunity to learn and grow.
Common Humanity vs Isolation
Common humanity just means recognizing that we are human just like everyone else. That just as we don’t expect others to be perfect, expecting ourselves to be perfect would be expecting ourselves to be superhuman, which can be isolating because no one is superhuman. Neff says “self-compassion involves recognizing that suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience–something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to ‘me’ alone.”
Mindfulness vs Overidentifying
In order to practice self-compassion, having a balanced approach to negative emotions and feelings is incredibly important. We don’t want to suppress nor exaggerate our feelings, but allow them to exist in a way that is balanced and honoring that they exist for a reason. Mindfulness of our experiences allows ourselves to experience our emotions and current state in a way that is non-judgmental so that we can observe our negative thoughts with openness and clarity. Mindfulness helps prevent us from over-identifying with our negative feelings, so that we are not swept away in negative reactivity!”
What does self-compassion have to do with trauma?
Many times people with trauma in their history struggle with self-compassion. We often believe that we are defective or that we don’t deserve compassion even from ourselves, usually because we have not been treated with compassion for much of at least a portion of our lives. Sometimes for trauma survivors, the idea of self-compassion can be so overwhelming and triggering because it goes against everything you’ve ever known.
The reason I am so convinced that self-compassion changed my life is because the moment I realized that I didn’t deserve all of the bad stuff that happened to me, I actually started fighting for a better life for myself. I’m still not where I want to be, but I’m fighting for myself in ways I never have before. I set boundaries with people that aren’t good for me, I don’t allow people to make me feel inadequate or inferior because I realize that I’m human, just like everyone else, and the things I used to think and believe about myself I would NEVER say to another human, so why should I say them to myself.
Click this link to access the TedTalk that introduced me to the understanding of self-compassion I have now
What are your thoughts on self-compassion?
Do you see ways in your life you could practice self-compassion?
Perhaps you are a self-compassion pro and can share some tips with the rest of us who would like to learn to be more compassionate toward ourselves.
@InvaderStitch
@positivePumpkin22
Thank you so much for engaging in discussion about self-compassion. Self-compassion is a really tough skill to develop and to master, especially when you’ve had trauma. Not that I’m glad you had to have similar realizations, I’m glad that you were able to start learning and practicing self-compassion because you definitely deserve to be kind to yourself!
I think being okay with the person we are can be so hard, but it’s so important, and loving yourself for who you are can be even harder, but it is possible! I found that once I realized that no human deserves some of the trauma I experienced, it helped me have compassion for myself because I am also human, meaning I didn’t deserve it either.
I love your plan for continuing to practice self-compassion. You’re right, having self-compassion is a journey. It’s an exciting journey that provides us an opportunity to bloom into the person we truly are and tear down some of the walls trauma built around even accepting ourselves.
@InvaderStitch
Thank you for writing this amazing informative post =)
Self compassion can be really tricky when we've got trauma as a co-pilot.
We have to, in a way, allow ourselves to find the acceptance in giving ourselves the love, the care and trust that we perhaps lacked in some points in our lives.
And when we're giving ourselves self compassion, I feel like it's giving ourselves the chance to hope.
What are your thoughts on self-compassion?
I think that self-compassion is a very important part of a healing journey. Because we're learning in a way, to be around ourselves in a positive way. Using compassion towards others can be very easy and we can be very understanding of others, but when it's related to ourselves, it can be so difficult. We can be very hard on ourselves, sometimes because we believe we should know/do/be better and when we start to give ourselves time to think on it, often we don't know where the origin of that thought comes from. But we firmly believe that we aren't doing enough or aren't good enough. And having all that negative thinking is continuing the trauma. So by allowing ourselves to show ourselves compassion and the understanding and the forgiveness we'd give to others so easily, we're giving ourselves the permission to heal.
And that alone is a step forwards in our journey of healing.
Do you see ways in your life you could practice self-compassion?
By allowing myself to feel the emotions I'm feeling and giving myself the time to identify them. To accept my feelings is something that is a big step in my healing journey due to my trauma and I have already come far, so when I do that, I'm taking a step forward every time =)
Thank you for being amazing Stitch =)
@AnnaSilverberg
I like how you bring up having to allow ourselves to find the acceptance and give ourselves the love and understanding that we may have lacked at other points in our lives. That is 100% the hardest part of self-compassion I feel like. When we’ve lacked compassion and love and care for a portion of our lives, especially formative years it’s hard to 1) know what compassion even looks like and 2) to feel like we even deserve compassion from anyone, including ourselves. I also like the idea that self-compassion can give ourselves hope, which at the end of the day is something most trauma survivors long for, but also fear at the same time, I think the fear is more that hope can be taken away, but self-compassion is something that once becomes second nature is something no one can take away from you because it’s something you give yourself (yes, situations may make it harder to be self-compassionate at times, but you still have a choice to be kind to yourself, and once you practice self-compassion for a while it does become easier).
I agree that self-compassion is an important part of allowing ourselves to heal. It’s so hard to heal with the negative thoughts are going and going. I think the not good enough thoughts are a good example to apply the “common humanity vs isolation” component to. Would you tell someone in a similar situation that they’re not good enough? No? Why not? Because they’re human and humans aren’t perfect.
Your plan for continued self-compassion is awesome. Allowing yourself to feel the emotions and giving yourself time to identify them is so healing. The saying “what you resist persists” is so true when it comes to emotions. If you are always ignoring your emotions you’re just pushing them aside and they’re going to come up and come out at some point and it seems like the longer you suppress them the more intense or extreme they feel when they resurface. Doing this and accepting your feelings is so hard, and while I don’t know your journey, I’m proud of you for continuing to take steps forward in your healing!
What are your thoughts on self-compassion?
Thank you for sharing such a great post with us. I believe that self-compassion is one of the components of self-love. If we love ourselves, self-compassion would come naturally to us. However, if we are lacking that self-love in ourselves, we would find ourselves struggling with self-compassion too.
Do you see ways in your life you could practice self-compassion?
To be frank, there are many ways such as:
-Being gentle by avoiding being harsh on yourself.
-Celebrating yourself every single day.
-Celebrating your victory (no matter how small) by taking yourself on a lunch date or even a dessert break!
Perhaps you are a self-compassion pro and can share some tips with the rest of us who would like to learn to be more compassionate toward ourselves.
-Set goals but don't k.ill yourself if you were unable to meet them. You are a human and it is okay to extend that time limit you allotted to yourself at first. Give yourself extensions whenever required :)
-Love yourself to the core: Don't belittle yourself or your achievements. Remember, from the day when you started this journey to date, you were with yourself constantly. Many people may have come, stayed, or left but you were your constant supporter. Continue supporting yourself with that self-love as there ain't self-compassion without self-love ❤️
Love,
-Angel 💜
@InvaderStitch
@lyricalAngel70
I definitely see the relationship between self-compassion and self-love. It almost feels like a chicken-and-the-egg thing. I’ve always felt like self-compassion helped me learn to love myself, but I also see where you’re saying that self-love makes self-compassion easier. It has me thinking “maybe I loved myself enough, even if I didn’t recognize it, and that self-love has helped me develop self-compassion practices”. It’s an interesting perspective, but I definitely think you’re right, self-compassion does get easier when you can learn to love yourself and realize that you deserve self-compassion.
I love the ways you mention to practice self-compassion. Being harsh on ourselves rarely works. Actually research shows that harsh criticism can actually be counter productive and demotivating. This differs from constructive feedback that allows you to learn from mistakes and do better in the future. I definitely haven’t gotten great at celebrating myself (as a person), but I have gotten so much better at celebrating the little victories and being able to do this makes me more motivated to do hard things because if I do a hard thing and I succeed I get to celebrate, and if I don’t succeed I get curious about what was in my way and I’m kind and understanding with my human self.
I like the feedback to give yourself time and extensions as needed. I think that’s a huge thing, especially for young adults. I remember most of my 20s I felt like I wasn’t where I was supposed to be in my life because my friends were getting married, having kids, and buying homes and I’ve been single since 2015, working on my mental health and struggling to maintain employment to keep a roof over my head. It wasn’t until I learned the self-compassion for myself that I realized I’d been through a lot of trauma with very little support, and it makes sense that I’ve struggled so much in life. Struggle has been my story for much of life, but it doesn’t have to be the whole story. With self-compassion and self-love I can learn to thrive, and I believe this to be true for everyone, though much easier said than done.
I also like how you point out that we are the only one that is with ourselves from beginning to end. Others come and go from our lives, so it’s important to be our own biggest fan.
Thanks for your insights!
I am not a self-compassion pro and it's probably why I'm here and probably why I get depressed at times. Being here is one way to help. These reminders to be good to myself really help. I used to think that was selfish and narcissistic. I find my depression is under control until about this time of evening when I realize all the things I didn't get done that I planned to during the day. I start telling myself how lazy I am or useless. So getting on here this time of night is especially helpful to me.