Why Self-Compassion is a Game Changer
“Self-compassion is one of the biggest sources of strength and resilience that we have available to us.”
In my work with people experiencing stress, anxiety and burnout, self-compassion is one of the supportive skills we often work on developing.
So many of us are excellent at being compassionate towards others, yet find it difficult to offer that same compassion inwardly. This can leave us feeling stressed, ashamed and even depressed.
As a mindfulness practitioner, I find self-compassion to be closely aligned with my personal and professional experience of healing and managing psychological challenges. Research studies have also shown it to be a powerful support in developing a positive relationship with self, increasing overall wellbeing, and decreasing depression, anxiety and stress.
What is self-compassion?
Self-compassion is the practice of turning kindness and compassion inwards.
When we criticise ourselves, we activate the body’s fight, flight and freeze response (the survival response). Being in this state puts stress on the mind and body, and over the long-term, this stress can contribute to anxiety and depression.
Self-compassion helps to downgrade your survival response, and to activate other pathways in your nervous system that help your body to release happy hormones such as oxytocin and endorphins, and to experience an increased sense of overall wellbeing and safety.
Self-compassion can be a game changer, because it builds your capacity to show kindness and understanding to yourself (just as you may to someone you know and care about).
For example, when you face a challenge, or something doesn’t go to plan, rather than criticising or punishing yourself, self-compassion offers you a pathway to respond to yourself with kindness and understanding.
Leading self-compassion researcher, Dr Kristen Neff, describes self-compassion as having three key components:
Self-kindness
Common humanity, and
Mindfulness
Self-compassion can support you to move through times of extreme stress and even burnout, by helping to lessen overwhelm in the present moment, and supporting you to respond to stress from a calm and grounded place.
Let’s take a closer look.
1. Self-kindness
Self-kindness is about treating yourself with the same kindness, care and understanding that you would offer to a good friend. It involves recognising and acknowledging your suffering, and giving yourself the support and comfort you need.
2. Common humanity
Common humanity is about recognising that suffering and pain can be a part of the human experience, and that you’re not alone in your experience. This can help to decrease the feelings of isolation and shame that often arise when we face difficult circumstances or experiences.
3. Mindfulness
You may already be familiar with mindfulness. Within the context of self-compassion, mindfulness is much the same. It’s about being present and aware of your thoughts and feelings, without judging them - in order to recognise, accept, and move through your experience without trying to ignore it.
Who can benefit from self-compassion?
Self-compassion is a skill that can be practised and learnt by anyone. It can be particularly helpful if you find that you’re often hard on yourself, for example: if you tend to respond to yourself with criticism and judgement. Self-compassion can support you to respond with curiosity and kindness.
How to weave self-compassion into your life
If you’re curious to try the principles of self-compassion, here are a few exercises you can try, anytime.
How would you treat a friend
a) With a notebook and pen ready, reflect on how you respond to a friend when they’re struggling. What do you say to them? What do you do? What is your tone?
b) Then, reflect on how you respond to yourself when you’re struggling. What do you say to yourself (what is the language you use)? What do you do? What is your tone?
What would it feel like to try responding to yourself with some of the language, actions and the tone you use for a friend? It might feel uncomfortable to think about this initially - please know that that is natural, and with time and practise, self-compassion begins to feel more comfortable.
Self-compassion break
Bring to mind an interaction with someone that leaves you feeling moderately bad (this should be something that you feel mildly stressed about, but that doesn’t overwhelm you).
Whilst visualising this situation, it’s time to take a self-compassion break.
You may like to close your eyes and speak self-compassionate words to yourself, such as:
“May I be kind to myself” (you may like to also place a hand over your heart)
“This is a moment of suffering”
“May I be safe and free from suffering”.
Mindful Breathing
Take a few minutes to tune into your breathing and bring your awareness to the present moment - to the pace, the rise and fall, the sensation of your breath as you breathe in and out.
You can build on this with breathing techniques like: Box Breathing (access my script and video for Box Breathing here); Abdominal Breathing and Counted Breathing (you can find scripts and videos for these here).
Write a letter to yourself
If you enjoy writing, writing yourself a letter can be a great way to discover your compassionate inner voice. You can write a letter to yourself from the perspective (or in the words of) a dear friend who always offers you loving support; or you may like to write yourself a supportive letter in the tone and words you would say to someone you care about.
Self-compassion is one of the tools that I offer to counselling and meditation clients to support them with managing stress, anxiety, and burnout. Building our internal capacity to offer ourselves kindness and support is a game changer for deactivating the sympathetic nervous system’s fight/flight mode and can support you with focus and emotional regulation.
If you’re looking for support to manage overwhelm, stress, anxiety, depression, or any distress you’re living with, please reach out and we can talk about support options, including 1:1 counselling and mindfulness meditation. If you feel like we’re a good fit, we can work together on an individualised approach to your needs, with strategies that suit you and your lifestyle.
References
Neff, K. D. & Germer, C. (2017). Self-Compassion and Psychological Wellbeing. In J. Doty (Ed.) Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science, Chap. 27. Oxford University Press.
Dr Kristen Neff: https://self-compassion.org/