Not self-pity, or complacency or arrogance.
Self-compassion involves acknowledging your own suffering, faults, and mistakes and responding with kindness, caring, and understanding, without any judgment or evaluation.
It’s talking to and treating yourself as you would a friend. It’s seeing your troubles and screw-ups as part of being human.
To practice self-compassion involves finding a healthy balance between self-acceptance and working for self-improvement.
Self-kindness – Become aware of your negative self-talk and replace the inner critic with a kinder, gentler voice.
Common humanity – Acknowledge that suffering and personal failure are part of the universal experience of being human.
Mindfulness – Observe your negative emotions without reacting to, focusing on, or suppressing them.
Benefits Of Self-Compassion
Research shows that self-compassion has many benefits, ranging from fewer depressive and more optimistic thoughts, overall greater happiness and life satisfaction to greater social and emotional skills and improvements in physical health. Specifically, some positive effects noted by studies are:
It increases motivation.
It boosts happiness.
It improves body image.
It enhances self-worth.
It fosters resilience.
It reduces mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, and stress.
STEPS TO TRY
Comfort yourself with a physical gesture.
Kind physical gestures can have an immediate calming effect on your body by activating the soothing parasympathetic system. Giving yourself a hug or holding your own hand can also drop you into the present moment in your body and get you out of the negative chatter in your head. And as I often suggest, place a hand on your heart and/or other hand on your belly. Feel your breath... your heart... your existence.
Think about how you would support someone else.
What would you do if someone you cared about came to you after failing, getting rejected or any upsetting situation. What would you say to them? What understanding and caring advice would you give them?
Become aware of your self-talk.
You may be so used to criticizing and judging yourself harshly that you don’t even realize that you’re doing it. Pay particular attention to the words you use to speak to yourself. You may be out of practice of speaking to yourself in a gentle ,more supportive tone. Now that you realize it, lets get the practice up and find more soothing statements to say to ourselves to get us through tough and confusing times.