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Self-Compassion: The What, Why, and How

samanthahuntmsw

Updated: Apr 13, 2023


I like to start conversations with my client about self-compassion with the following story: Say I have two roommates. I come home from work late, I’m exhausted and feeling terribly down. As soon as I walk in the door roommate number 1 is there and says “there you are! You’re so lazy, you left dishes in the sink and your gross laundry probably needs to be done! What is wrong with you? How could you be so incompetent?”. The following day I come home late from work again, I’m exhausted and feeling terribly down. As soon as I walk in the door roommate number 2 is there and says “There you are! Wow, you’ve had a long day, and you seem to be distressed. Have you eaten at all today? Those dishes will still be there later, but you need to fuel yourself and take care of yourself before you can get to them.” Which roommate do you think would make my apartment a nicer place to be? Which roommate would be more sustainable to live with long term? Is that any different then creating a nicer place for us to live inside of our own heads?


First let’s start with what Self Compassion is. Dr. Kristen Neff (my favourite researcher and practitioner of self-compassion) describes self-compassion as "being kind and understanding to ourselves rather than harshly self-critical when we fail, make mistakes, or feel inadequate."


Importance

-Dr Kristen Neff’s research says that self-compassion is one of the most powerful sources of coping and resilience.

-It helps us to be resilient. Dr. Emma Seppala (2014) of the Centre for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education reported that “self-criticism makes us weaker in the face of failure, more emotional, and less likely to assimilate lessons from our failures”.

-It is helpful in overcoming trauma by having compassion for our traumatized parts (especially when we did not receive compassion during the trauma).

-It makes our head a nicer place to be.

-It helps with self-esteem and confidence.


How we can Practice Self-Compassion

There are a few different ways that we can start to cultivate the self-compassionate internal voice vs. a critical internal voice that many of us already have. The goal is to gain some distance from the self-criticism and to provide ourselves with kindness and understanding. Here are some ideas that you could try:

-Imagine speaking to yourself like a friend: “If my best friend told me this, how would I respond to them?”

-Give the critical voice in your head a funny persona: “that’s just the old grouchy man that lives in my head!”

-Thank your critical voice: “thank you for your opinion critical voice” (After all, it is just one opinion, and there are lots of other possible opinions on the matter!)

-Imagine creating an opposite voice, “instead of this criticism, how would I sound if I were kind to myself in this moment?”

-See if you can look at the bigger picture, “Does this incident fully reflect who I am?”


Like so many things we discuss in therapy, self-compassion takes practice! You may not fully feel it or believe it right away, however with practice these compassionate thoughts start to come to us easier and start to feel more real. In the beginning, it may just be that we start to balance our perspective from really self-critical to other possibilities of kindness toward ourselves as well.


Self Compassion is not:

-“Letting myself off the hook” and not taking accountability; it is being gentle and compassionate with ourselves when we do mess up so that we can take accountability and learn from our mistake. After all, we are all human, and we can learn from our mistakes!

-“Only having compassion for myself and not others”; we actually know that when we are compassionate to ourselves and we have a good sense of self-worth, we are able to create healthy boundaries that help us to respect ourself and others. By taking care of ourselves and being kind to ourselves, we may be more able to then put kindness and compassion out into the world!


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