Everyone can feel inadequate, incompetent or not enough from time to time. Accepting this side of our humanity can be quite painful and distressing. We can  embrace these features through self-compassion, however, this journey can be intimate yet terrifying. To understand self-compassion better, we can try to understand what compassion is generally. 

Compassion

We can describe compassion as “the feeling that we experience when we see another person suffering, which creates a  motivation for us to want to help them.”  We must embrace the suffering as much as we can in order to experience compassion, as uncomfortable as it might be. To be able to practise it, first we should learn what self-compassion is. Simply put: It concerns the way how we relate to ourselves when we fail, feel inadequate, or suffer.

When aimed at self-acceptance or soothing negative emotions, self-compassion can take a nurturing, tender form. However, when it is aimed at self-protection, it can take a fierce,  powerful form and motivate change. According to Dr. Kristin Neff there are three core components of self-compassion: mindfulness, self-kindness, and common humanity. I am going to be briefly explaining these elements in the next paragraphs. These elements can be practised separately, however it is best to not forget that they mutually impact each other.

Mindfulness is a practice of focusing and being aware of the “now”, present moment, whether it is discomforting or not. We can not show ourselves compassion if we do not  acknowledge that we are in pain. If we fight and try to resist the fact that we are in pain, we might feel too absorbed by the pain. This can cause us to forget to adapt to the perspective of caring for ourselves. We might start to say things like “I am a failure” rather than “I failed”, not only that we are “having a bad day” but we are “having a bad life”.  This type of narration can lower our self-worth and impact our mental health. With mindfulness we can recognize these negative thoughts and understand that they are just that, thoughts, not facts.

As for self-kindness, we can often tend to be very critical of ourselves, saying judgemental and harsh things that we would never say to our friends or close ones. With self-kindness we  acknowledge our faults and imperfections and still care for ourselves regardless. We do not do this  because we are inadequate as we are, but because we care deeply. 

Common humanity is another core part of self-compassion. It helps us to experience the connection between others and us, and makes us feel less isolated. After all, humans are creatures that are prone to make mistakes, however we might sometimes forget this and irrationally feel like everyone else is doing just fine and we are the only ones that are making mistakes along the way. When we remember our common humanity we can remember that everyone suffers once in a while or more and that is totally fine. Practising self-compassion helps with negative mental states such as anxiety, stress, and depression as well. It enhances positive mindsets and lessens the negative ones. 

Self-Esteem

Although self-esteem and self-compassion might seem similar, they are distinctly different. Self-esteem concerns how much one likes and values the self based on their personal standards or comparisons with other people. High self-esteem stems from standing out: being above average, to feel special.  Excessive amounts of high self-esteem can lead to narcissistic tendencies or narcissism, unrealistic and absurd self-views, prejudice, and maybe bullying behaviours. Self-esteem can be unstable and change according to our latest achievements, while self-compassion usually stays stable and concerns our connection with ourselves, our approach to mistakes, and makes us feel okay with not being okay.

Self-compassion is not an inherent skill nor a fixed personality trait, it is a skill that can be practised and learned. The most known form of its adaptation is therapy. Helping patients to have a less critical or judgemental approach to the bad incidents in their lives is one of the key mechanisms and possibly the core goal of therapy.

Now that we have learned about the idea of self-compassion we should also understand that it is not just a “good idea”, it is something that one can do. And it is not rocket science either. It just requires practice and consistency, taking the skill that we have learned over the years about being a compassionate person to others and doing a U-turn with it. We should not forget the fact that we are imperfect as much as everyone else, and that it is okay to be human.

Cansu Cömert

Sources: 

Annual Review of Psychology Self-Compassion: Theory, Method, Research, and Intervention – Kristen D. Neff