#7 Be Your Kind Friend
A quick reminder about self-compassion
Like many others, I’m used to talking to myself sub-optimally. Talking myself down and attacking myself for anything that the judge within me deems negative. The blows come quick and harsh and most problematically, they build up.
Mental self-attacks can seem so normal that we don’t even bother to question them. We assume it helps us motivate ourselves to do better. After all, if we’re not holding ourselves accountable for what we didn’t do right, who will? And by berating ourselves, at least we show we realized we didn’t live up to our potential.
But does it work as a motivator? Does it help us get more done and properly?
Even if it does, the reason might be that it’s only because we’re afraid of our own harsh judgment and beating. And if I’ve learned anything from avoiding feared future situations, which I’ve done a lot, it is that fear-based avoidance does not lead you where you want to go.
Could there be another way to approach our shortcomings? Something else we could do when we realized we’ve failed, didn’t get done what we had set out to do, or were not the exemplar we strived to be for ourselves and others?
What if we were kind to ourselves, as we would be to a loved one?
As an answer to this, I’ve recently turned to practicing self-compassion by incorporating it more often in my daily meditation sessions (e.g. there’s the “Self-Compassion” course with 10 guided sessions in the Headspace app that I’ve gone through several times) and by reading more about it.
I’m currently midway into two books on the topic. One by a meditation teacher with decades of practice, and the other written by a psychologist and eminent researcher on the topic:
This Difficult Thing of Being Human: The Art of Self-Compassion by Bodhipaksa
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff
The basic idea of self-compassion is simple, at least the theoretical description is. As with anything helpful skill, it takes a lot of practice.
But let’s start with the description. According to Kristin Neff, there are three components to self-compassion:
Self-kindness: Treat yourself as you would a good friend. Be kind, warm, and patient.
Common Humanity: Realize that suffering and pain are part of our human existence. We share this with everyone around us and with everyone who came before us.
Mindfulness: Practice noticing thoughts and feelings as they arise, non-judgementally.
In short: Instead of berating ourselves with our own thoughts, we (1) train to notice and accept what we feel and think, especially accept that we’re frequently in pain and suffer, not because there’s something wrong with us, but (2) because we are humans, and that we then (3) are kind to ourselves, as we would be to a loved one.