When I bring up the concept of self compassion to my clients I typically get the predictable eye roll. I get it. It comes off as a “love and light” and “good vibes only” type of Pop Psychology. That’s not my vibe at all either.
So I typically ask my clients at this point…well so tell me how well shaming yourself and kicking yourself when you are down is working for you so far??
The answer. It’s not.
Self compassion is different than affirmations, in that self compassion is literally just that…being compassionate with yourself, understanding yourself as a whole person. Holding your own humanity and worthiness – even when you fail, feel embarrassed, or do things you are not proud of.
We have research that shows people who are more self compassionate are happier, and experience more self efficacy than those who are less self compassionate.
The truth is that we often have more compassion for others than we do ourselves. We typically would never think to treat someone the way we treat ourselves when we experience failure, rejection, disappointment or frustration in ourselves.
YET….we ALSO tend to project our lack of self compassion and expectations for ourselves onto what we expect of others, think others might expect of us or what others are thinking about us.
In this way, self compassion not only affects our relationship with ourselves, but also our relationship with others.
When we don’t engage in self compassion we often get stuck in shame. Shame keeps us stuck, we internalize something finite about our personhood, capability and deservedness. This in turn creates less space for us to dream, take risks and believe in ourselves. Change becomes harder when we use shame or self flagellation and change we do create is less sustainable.
So why is self compassion necessary in order to achieve your goals?
Ultimately, when we are self compassionate we are more available and have more capacity to create the changes we want. We can look closer and more objectively at the pieces we feel shame about, that typically cause us to avoid or shutdown, and find more courage and openness to make changes. We fight our expectations less and create solutions that honor our capacity and authentic selves, which creates more lasting and sustainable changes. We are more likely to take important risks (because we become more ok with failing) and less likely to stay in situations that do not support us. We feel more empowered (rather than disempowered).
Why do we cling to self flagellation?
- It feels more true (not because it is – but because it is more familiar) which can make self compassion feel disingenuous
- We feel we don’t deserve it
- We have internalized and integrated negative self perception into our identity
- We feel like being compassionate with ourselves would be letting ourselves “off the hook”
- We think we need to use self flagellation and shame to motivate ourselves
- It feels cheesy (because our society tends to promote a constant sense of deficit in order to disempower and drive consumerism)
If you are relating to this and want to know more about self compassion, where to start, and how to develop this skill you can check out Kristen Neff’s book “Self Compassion” AND/OR
