You may have heard about this concept a lot but what is actually self-compassion and how we can be more caring about ourselves?
Self-compassion is the ability of being caring and sensitive to one’s own feelings and sufferings. It’s the ability to be nonjudgmental and understanding when you face failure or make a mistake. Dr. Kristin Neff, educational psychology professor at University of Texas Austin defines three important components to self-compassion: Self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.
Mindfulness is simply bringing awareness to your pain and suffering, accepting it without judgment and not making it over dramatic. Without full awareness, it is not possible to offer true kindness to ourselves and manage judgmental thoughts and self-criticism.
Be your own best friend
To understand self-compassion better, imagine a situation when your close friend is suffering from a difficult life condition. How do you provide care to your friend? In order to be compassionate and supportive for your friend, you first notice their suffering, connect with them, and are willing to help them in some way. Practicing self-compassion literally means that you treat yourself as you treat your best friend.
So take a moment and think what kind of friend you are to yourself? We are really good at caring about others, treat them with respect, care about their difficulties, notice their skills and build them up. However, when it comes to ourselves, doubt, criticism, harsh judgments, and negative self-talk are bold. So how can we be a better friend to ourselves?
Research by Kristin Neff and others shows that self-compassion directly links to self-confidence and resilience. It helps people to bounce back in face of adversity and be more optimistic and ambitious about the future, trust themselves better, and develop a sense of self-worth. Both providing compassion, and receiving it are very rewarding and beneficial and self-compassion has both of these rewards together.
With all these benefits, it is still challenging to practice self-compassion in all situations. The following practices can help you to become stronger in this trait.
A mindfulness self-compassion practice:
Bring in mind a situation that you were caring about a child, or and ederly in pain, or a pet. Try to sense how it feels in your body, in your heart, and in your facial expression. Feel the warmth and kindness in your heart, realize how non-judgmental you are. Now, imagine a situation where you were cared for by another person, a mentor, a close friend, a guardian, or a spiritual figure. Feel how being supported and protected feels like. It seems that you are in a refuge, safe and secure. Now with knowing exactly how compassion feels like, bring this attitude to yourself. If there are places in your body that hurts, bring this attitude to those areas. Stay with this experience for a while and if it helps, you can rest your hands on your chest or extend your arms and hug yourself. If judgmental thoughts (such as the thought that you do not deserve it or it’s simply silly to continue this practice) comes up, notice them and bring your attention back to the caring sensations.
Create a self-compassion journal
Journaling has been shown to be an effective way for expressing emotions and feelings. It was found that journaling enhances your physical and emotional wellbeing. If you go through any difficult emotions or experiences throughout your day, take some time to write about it in your self-compassion journal during evenings or any time of the day that you wish. For instance, if you messed up with a task at work or had an argument with a roommate or partner, write it down in your journal. As you write about any judgmental thoughts, try to accept them and not hold to them. Try not to make it overly dramatic. Then remind yourself that being human involves making mistakes, or experiencing these feelings and all people have similar sorts of experiences. If you wish, you can also write down some underlying issues that caused your frustration.
Afterwards, offer yourself some kind and understanding words that you would offer to a friend in the same situation. For instance, you could tell yourself: It’s not the end of the world. IT will be resolved soon. It’s okay to make a mess sometimes.
Following self-compassion journaling helps you to organize your thoughts and cope with your emotions. It also boosts your self-compassion skills if you practice it regularly.
Give yourself a supportive touch
How it felt like, when you received a kind hug from a friend when you were in pain, last time?
Giving yourself a supportive touch or hug, when you feel unsupported is an easy way to care and comfort yourself. Research has shown that touch activates the parasympathetic nervous system and helps you to calm down. Also, it releases oxytocin , a hormone that gives your body a sense of security, and reduces cardiovascular stress. You can simply put your hands on your heart and take a couple of deep satisfying breaths in this posture. Feel the warmth of your hands on your chest and tune into the natural rise and fall of your chest while you are breathing. You can try crossing your arms and giving yourself a gentle hug or putting your hands on your cheeks.
Gratitude practice
In the evenings, take a couple of minutes to review your day. Think about your day from the moment you opened your eyes in the morning. Then grab a journal and write three kind actions you did for yourself on that particular day. It could be enjoying your afternoon tea or coffee in front of TV, going for a short walk in the woods, giving yourself a kind massage, standing on your own side when you made a mistake. Try to make it part of your evening or night routine.
Continuing this simple task helps you to become better in practicing self-compassion. The other benefit of it is that reviewing your writings in difficult situations will help you to feel strong and supported. Also, it will remind you to be kind to yourself especially in difficult circumstances.
To conclude:
Self-compassion is a great skill that helps you during difficult experiences. It is simply being your own best friend and supporting yourself. To upskill yourself, you can start from simple practices such as:
- Self compassion mindfulness practice
- Supportive touch
- Develop a self-compassion journal
- Gratitude practice
I hope that these practices can help you wherever you are in your life journey.
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