How to Practice Self-Compassion
A three step guide to cultivating a better relationship with yourself.
One of the often-missed aspects to healing is paying attention to the relationship you’ve developed with yourself. The concept of having a relationship with yourself can seem strange at first - it’s not like there’s two of you that interact and have meaningful conversations or interactions. However, if you think about it, you do relate to yourself in a particular way. This can often be identified in the way that you think about yourself, feel about yourself, and act toward yourself (such as self-care or lack thereof).
How to Assess Your Relationship with Yourself
Let’s take a moment to assess the state of your relationship with yourself right now.
If you were to pause and think about your most fond relationship, what would you say about how you relate to them? What do you think about them? How do you feel about them? How do you treat them?
Now consider your most challenging relationship. What would you say about how you relate to them? What do you think about them? How do you feel about them? How do you treat them?
When you think about yourself, how would you answer those same questions? On the spectrum of your most fond to your most challenging relationship, where does your relationship with yourself land?
Here are a few signs that you have a negative relationship with yourself:
You often judge yourself for how unproductive you are
You often view yourself as less capable than others
You ignore your feelings much of the time which leads to
Struggling to say no
Overcommitting
Reaching burnout
Difficulty expressing needs or boundaries
Avoiding conflict
You have a toxic sense of responsibility and blame yourself for things outside your control
You don’t allow yourself to take breaks or ask for help
Your physical health is declining
You have poor eating, sleeping, and general hygiene
You struggle with decision-making and generally don’t trust yourself
Conversely, here are a few signs that you have a positive relationship with yourself:
You set achievable goals that fit with your values
You take breaks
You have a regular but not rigid routine for self-care including:
Regular eating to fullness and satiation with variety
Regular movement that feels good in your body
Regular and adequate sleep
Regular time in solitude
Regular time in community
You address issues in relationships promptly
You value your feelings and see them as information and not the enemy
You trust yourself
You allow yourself to ask others for support
When you are struggling, you meet yourself with compassion
What is Compassion?
Compassion means to “suffer with.” If you have compassion for someone, it means that you notice they’re in pain, you recognize their pain matters, and you feel inclined to offer support and connection. Compassion for a friend might be hearing them out on how their transition into motherhood is more challenging than they anticipated, validating that their feelings make sense, acknowledging that transition is often marked with a lot of challenge, and reminding them that they’re not alone in it.
Compassion toward yourself is similarly like “suffering with” your own internal pain, rather than dismissing or denying it. Based on your early life experiences, you learned how to manage pain. If you had a compassionate and available caregiver, self-compassion might sound very familiar and even second-nature to you. If you had a caregiver who was emotionally distant, cold, overwhelmed, or demanding, self-compassion could sound very foreign. Instead, these might sound more familiar:
“Pick yourself up!”
“Stop complaining or I’ll give you something to complain about.”
“Others have it worse.”
If you were to say those things to your friend, the friendship would likely end - for good reason! We have friends because friendship enriches our lives and creates opportunities for connection and growth. A friend who is not compassionate doesn’t create room for safe connection or growth. In the same way, if you relate to yourself in a non-compassionate way, your inner world will likely suffer.
How to Practice Self-Compassion
According to Kristen Neff, a research psychologist and pioneer in the realm of self-compassion, instructs that there are three components to self-compassion:
Self-kindness instead of self-judgement
Common humanity instead of isolation
Mindfulness instead of over-identification
Self-compassion starts with having a posture of kindness toward yourself and your struggles rather than placing judgement. Calling yourself weak or lazy for procrastinating would sound like judgement, whereas calling yourself tired and worn out comes from a place of kindness and understanding. Does self-compassion mean that you don’t hold yourself accountable for failures? Not at all, it simply means that you’re not using judgement and self-shaming as a strategy for motivation (which, by the way, doesn’t actually work long-term).
Practicing common humanity is reminding yourself that others are also experiencing suffering in the world and that you are not alone despite how you might feel. Self-compassion is believing that you are connected to others and deserve belonging rather than being alone and isolated. Part of practicing self-compassion with common humanity is acknowledging that inherent in being human is the reality that we are vulnerable, imperfect, and dependent on others.
Mindfulness is a practice of noticing your experience without labelling it or attaching meaning to it. For example, let’s say your boss doesn’t grant you the project you were hoping for. Mindfulness is noticing a feeling of disappointment whereas over-identification would look like taking that situation to mean that you’re never going to be chosen for anything you want because everyone is better than you.
Additional Resources
Self-compassion is a mindset and a practice. Many find it useful to translate their internal dialogue into journaling - it’s much easier to catch non-compassionate thoughts when they’re written right in front of you! For journaling prompts, check out Kristen Neff’s work here.
It can also be helpful to use guided meditations which help you to learn the language of self-compassion so that it naturally translates. You can also find valuable guided meditations from Kristen Neff for free here.
A Reminder About Trauma
For those that find self-compassion especially challenging, this can be a sign that there’s some deep rooted trauma that may be blocking your ability to love yourself in this way. You deserve healing! Reach out today for a free consultation for therapy - we’ll see if we’re a good fit for what you’re needing to unlock the impact of trauma and transform your relationship with yourself!
