What Self-Compassion Means and Why It’s Important
Self-compassion has been an incredibly helpful and important tool in my personal life, as well as the lives of many of my clients. Self-compassion means what you may guess it means: being kind to yourself. If that sounds like a foreign concept, you are not alone; however, there are many benefits to learning about self-compassion and how you can start practicing it in your own life.
Reducing Self-Criticism
One of the main benefits of self-compassion is that it helps reduce self-critical thoughts. By being intentional about being kind to yourself and learning ways to implement it into your daily life, you can fight back against the self-criticism that many people experience so frequently. It is important that your self-talk is healthy and not berating, criticizing, or judgmental. Unfortunately, being self-critical or hard on yourself is a very common occurrence.
Motivation
Some of us are even taught that being hard on ourselves is the way to motivate us to do things better or differently. This is actually incorrect. Self-compassion is a more powerful motivator because it is based in love and kindness, whereas self-criticism is based in fear and judgment. Research has found that motivating with self-criticism can actually lead to a fear of failure. This is one of many helpful insights that Kristin Neff has discovered through her research and shares with us in her book Self-Compassion.
Emotional Resilience
She also shares that self-compassion helps us build emotional resilience and that it is more stable and helpful than self-esteem. She describes self-esteem as a "fair weather" friend because it is highly dependent on comparison to others, and it is there for us when we are doing well but decreases when we are not doing so well. Meanwhile, self-compassion is more consistent because it is not based on comparison to others. It is a way of being our own best friend, sticking by our side through the good and hard times. Kristin has identified three components to self-compassion, including common humanity (we are not alone in our suffering), self-kindness (being kind to yourself), and mindfulness (acknowledging our suffering without judgement).
Compassion for Others
With self-compassion can also come an increase in the compassion you have for others, which can help improve the relationships and connections in your life.
This all sounds great, right? How come we’re not all practicing self-compassion every chance we get? If you’re having difficulty understanding and implementing self-compassion skills and exercises, you are not alone and you might relate to the next section of this blog.
Because self-criticism is a common and persistent occurrence in many of our lives, self-compassion can be a difficult concept to begin implementing. It can even feel quite uncomfortable at first because it is so unfamiliar to be kind to yourself.
How to Get Started
When I work with clients, I suggest starting small and increasing your practice as you begin to feel more comfortable with it. You may find it helpful to begin with self-compassion journaling prompts or short, self-compassion-related meditations.
Another helpful practice is to think about how you would help a friend who is going through a difficult situation you are experiencing. Often, we are more lenient and kind to friends who have made a mistake or are going through a difficult time than we are to ourselves. It can be helpful to treat ourselves as we would a friend or other loved one.
Personally, I also find it helpful to engage with content about self-compassion in any way that I can - via books, podcasts, or videos - to become familiar with the concepts and learn various exercises to help build my self-compassion skills. This was especially helpful when I was first learning the concepts and practices, but it continues to be helpful to engage with the content. Kristin Neff, among others, has great resources (see below), including books, a website with exercises, YouTube videos, and more.
Resources