Self compassion is no longer a nice idea.
Gandhi inspires us with the words: “BE the change you wish to see in the world…I believe global peace starts at the individual level and self compassion is a means to that peace…however it is often misunderstood and not practiced enough.
This past year I have been exploring self compassion practices with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield as a means to help with difficult times. I am loving the resiliency and fresh outlook that results when I can actually do it. I notice a greater sense of well-being, connection and care for myself which in turn widens the care I can offer to others in my life.
The hardest part is the remembering and discipline to do it.
I have found that it takes courage to care —especially for my SELF and especially in a culture which fears it. The polling on self compassion revealed 5 common misunderstandings:
Pity Party. Self compassion = pity party. No one likes someone who is having a pity party.
Weak. Males especially did not like the idea of feeling weak and soft.
Self indulgence. People believed self compassion was just about being “nice” to your self and giving your self lots of pleasure and doing whatever you wanted.
Selfish. Self absorbed. Narcissistic.
The #1fear of self compassion— it will undermine your motivation. If you were compassionate to your self you would get soft and lose your drive and you would not achieve your goals. So…better to criticize your self.
As you can see it takes courage to care—especially if you identify with any of these 5 misunderstandings. The good news: Self compassion is no longer a nice idea. It is well researched with over 1200 articles of hard empirical data to show that all these fears of self compassion are false.
As I continue to explore and practice self compassion, I have noticed that it takes discipline. For example, when I am triggered by my teenager or co-worker it does not feel natural to pause and experience compassion for my predicament. I am usually hijacked by immediate feelings of bodily discomfort and a waterfall of reactive thoughts. If I manage to keep my mouth shut— I will remove, distance and distract myself from what is terribly unpleasant. I honestly don’t want to deal with it.
But when the dust settles and when I can remember to discipline myself into a quiet, compassionate moment “that difficulty” looses it’s dominion over me and I am able to see differently— myself, others, and even a bigger picture of the world to which I belong.
Instead of pushing down the unpleasantness, wearing it on my tissues and allowing it to cloak and dampen my outlook I am learning there is another way.
Self compassion can be an important coping mechanism.
In order to qualify as self compassion these 3 components must be exercised:
1. Mindfulness: being with the pain/discomfort without avoiding or getting carried away with it.
2. Kindness: treating oneself the same way one would treat a good friend. Notice the motivation “to do something about it”. This would also include supporting and protecting oneself and sometimes saying NO to things that are harmful.
3. Shared humanity: This is really important for distinguishing self-compassion from self-pity. This is the acknowledgment that the human experience is imperfect and that all people lead imperfect lives and make mistakes. All people are flawed. So “just like me" others encounter challenges and hardships. This realization helps one to stop over identifying with the situation and realize there is a greater sense of connection and belonging.
As creatures of comfort—it takes discipline to NOT resist but lean into the discomfort. Science also says that humans share a negativity bias which is why self criticism might feel more familiar then self kindness.
But here is the thing: It feels good to care—and humans evolved to care. It is what separates us from reptiles. When we give others or ourselves care/compassion (things are pretty much the same either direction)— what we're doing is tapping into the caregiving evolutionary system of our brain. A reward is felt in the body and we become our own pharmacy. It feels good because the physiology of self compassion is oxytocin and opiates while the physiology of self criticism is cortisol and adrenaline.
If you ask people how they treat themselves when they're challenged, fail or make a mistake versus how they treat their friends, most people respond that they treat themselves radically differently.
What would it be like to receive the same caring attention from yourself when you needed it most?
There's a lot of research done with veterans, people going through divorce and/or people dealing with major health issues that said their practice of self-compassion increased their strength and resiliency. It did not make them weak, soft, self absorbed nor self indulgent.
Consider this:
Your child or a child has come to you and is very upset. Would you offer this child 10 cookies, 5 bowls of ice cream and all the screen time in the world? Or would you look into their eyes and sincerely acknowledge their feelings as important and real?
Would you tell this child to go take a hike because you are too busy right now and they are being ridiculous? Or would you be kind, welcoming and even remind them that other children experience difficulty and that they are not alone.
What if this child was your inner child?
What does a self compassion practice look like?
To the degree that it is possible— turn towards where the suffering is and be willing to be touched by it.
Respond in some way with kindness and care. For some it might take the form of prayer or chanting. For others it might take the form of resourcing to the great sky, the mother, Jesus, or the buddha. The idea is to remember that it is not the small self that has to hold all the suffering. For others it might look like active service. Everyone is different—so it is important to know what works for you.
Remember the shared humanity component—you are not alone. We are all filled with unrealistic self demands and expectations and ultimately we are not perfect and we do make mistakes.
What we give is what we get back. If you give yourself compassion what you get back is more compassion for your self and others. In a world that appears to be burning, in a world of mass shootings and heart break, in a world of global unrest…compassion can and will make a difference one human at a time.
It takes courage and discipline to hack our autopilot states of reactivity and awaken our mind to new possibilities of being and doing. But with practice we can collectively learn to expand awareness, strengthen our minds and cultivate more states of resiliency and well being which again represents the inner light we all value.
It is never too late in life to learn and apply something new. The ground under our feet is our shared humanity. Earth needs us more than ever to find the courage to care, while invoking receptivity and patience towards ourselves and the ones we call “others”—because in the end we are all in this together.
Looking to know more or view the science on Self Compassion?
Dr. Kristin Neff—take a survey—how compassionate are YOU really?
https://self-compassion.org
Radical Compassion by: Tara Brach
written by: Jennifer Reuter