Self-Compassion: How to Stop Being so Hard on Yourself

Every time I have a session with my therapist and we work through my latest grievance, mishap, or conundrum, the topic of conversation usually ends up on self-compassion. At first, I found it difficult to understand why my therapist would continue to come back to the question “Do you think you have been practicing self-compassion in this situation?” and why this was so important.

When I started putting self-compassion into practice, I got my answers. I noticed that I could sit with my suffering and feel more connected to others in moments of struggle.

Self-Compassion Means to Extend Generosity and Kindness to Yourself, Especially When Times Are Tough

To understand self-compassion, we must first understand the meaning of compassion. Compassion means to ‘suffer with’ another person. When confronted with someone else’s struggles, compassion is wanting to ease that person’s pain.

Consider a time when someone close to you has gone through a painful experience, such as a relationship breakup or losing their job. You may have experienced a powerful warmth, protectiveness, and desire to help this person. As a response, you may have comforted them and let them know that what they feel is okay and normal. That the pain is temporary, and that this is part of the human experience.

Now imagine that you are the person who is suffering and you extend this same attitude of acceptance, kindness, and non-judgment, towards yourself. This is self-compassion! Extensive research by Dr Kristin Neff, a leading researcher in this field, has identified three parts to self-compassion: self-kindness, shared humanity, and mindfulness.

Three Steps to Practicing Self-Compassion

1. Self-Kindness vs. Self-Criticism

The core of self-compassion is practicing kindness towards yourself. Similar to when we practice kindness to others when they suffer, mess up, or feel inadequate, self-kindness is being gentle and nurturing towards ourselves when we are in pain or struggling.

The opposite of self-kindness is self-criticism and judgment, which if present can make it not only difficult to practice self-kindness, but can also exacerbate our suffering: it creates a kind of layering effect.

We may already feel disappointed, embarrassed, sad, or frustrated about what has happened. If we then begin criticising ourselves for making the mistake, having the feeling, or not coping “better”, rather than helping us recover, this extra layer of criticism can intensify the original distress.

One way to practice self-kindness is to imagine that you are talking to your childhood self. While starting out, it may be useful to find a childhood photo of yourself and use this as a prompt. For me, I use a photo that was taken on my first day of prep. I am wearing a long, crisp school dress and holding my older brother’s hand. This person is still alive in me, and I find that by picturing myself as her, I can access kindness easily rather than the harsh, judgmental words I would impose on my adult self.

However, if speaking to yourself with warmth feels too difficult or unnatural at first, you do not have to leap straight from criticism to kindness. A more neutral response can also be useful. For example, instead of “I’m such an idiot”, you might try “I made a mistake, and I feel disappointed about it”. Sometimes neutral self-talk creates enough space for compassion to become more accessible later.

2. Shared Humanity

In an ideal world, we would each get everything our heart desires. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the real world. Thus, the human experience is filled with a range of experiences including doubt, pain, vulnerability, imperfection, suffering, dissatisfaction, error, or the discomfort of uncertainty.

When we feel the pain of these experiences, we often feel isolated in our suffering. However, an essential part of self-compassion is acknowledging that these difficult experiences are part of being human, and, rather than being alone in our suffering, we are actually united in it. As the saying goes, to err is human.

Acknowledging this fact allows you to feel more connected with others, which can make the moment easier to bear (e.g., “Pain is part of the human experience” compared to “I am the only person to have experienced this pain”).

3. Mindfulness

Mindfulness is about being aware of our experience in the present moment without judgment, criticism, or opinions. To practice self-compassion, we first need to be aware of our experiences to then be able to implement self-kindness and shared humanity. Mindfulness allows you to bring a sense of calm and neutrality to your emotional experience.

You can practice mindfulness by imagining your thoughts and feelings like clouds moving across your mind. You don’t want to grab onto them, move them, or push them away. Instead, just watch and observe them float by and eventually out of sight. If you do feel the need to pick up and observe the thoughts, do so with a gentle touch that is light and curious.

Barriers to Practising Self-Compassion

A pathway of denial, avoidance or harsh self-talk is often the way people manage their discomfort and pain. These ways of coping can be one of the barriers to practicing self-compassion.

Another barrier is people’s misbeliefs about self-compassion. I often hear people say that self-compassion is selfish, that it will decrease motivation. That it is just feeling sorry for yourself, or it means you’re letting yourself off the hook. However, all of these things are untrue!

Self-compassion actually:

• Provides us with more resources, so in turn, we are able to be more present, supportive, and giving in our relationships with others.
• Is a more powerful motivator because a supportive mindset allows us to learn from our experiences, especially when things don’t go to plan. Being very harsh on ourselves rarely feels truly motivating.
• Can help increase our perspective and decrease unhelpful self-focus. For example, self-compassion acknowledges that no one is perfect. Rather than getting stuck fixating on negatives, self-compassion allows you to view yourself as a whole. Flaws, strengths, and all.
• Allows us to have safety within ourselves to admit our mistakes, take responsibility, and work towards addressing these.
• Has been associated with a range of positive wellbeing outcomes, including lower levels of anxiety and depression, and greater resilience and life satisfaction.

Crucially, self-compassion isn’t about pretending that something difficult hasn’t happened, or trying to make uncomfortable feelings disappear. Some discomfort when things go wrong is useful: it alerts us that something matters, encourages us to reflect on what happened, and helps us decide what we may want to do differently next time.

Like Any New Skill, Self-Compassion Takes Effort and Practice

Every time my therapist explains self-compassion to me, I nod along and find it makes a lot of sense. I notice I feel more relaxed, clear-minded, and optimistic about how I sit with my suffering. However, it only takes an hour for this clarity to go out the window, and I can easily lose sight of what the meaning and practice of self-compassion looks like. This is where I end up reverting to my natural self-critical trajectory.

There are several exercises you can do to build up your self-compassion skills. In Harvard psychologist Christopher Germer’s book, The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion, he proposes the following tasks are best for fostering self-compassion in moments of personal doubt, inadequacy, and pain:

• Comfort your body: Do something healthy that will immediately deliver comfort and calm to your physical body. This could be eating something, getting horizontal, stretching out in child’s pose, taking a bath or practicing another form of self-soothing.
• Write the situation down: This helps by moving the situation from your mind and into an objective situation for you to observe on the page. It is easier to pick apart and disprove the unfair criticism this way.
• Use verbal self-compassion: Say to yourself exactly what you would say to a friend, and pay attention to how you say it. Try using the same gentle tone, facial expression, and body language you might use to comfort someone you care about. Softening your voice or relaxing your shoulders can help reinforce a sense of care rather than criticism.
• Practice mindfulness: Remember nothing is good, nor bad, it just is. I like to use the Headspace App to help me access mindfulness. When worked up about something, it is the best way to create space and lower the stakes.

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If you are feeling motivated to jumping into learning more about self-compassion, the Centre for Clinical Interventions has an excellent set of self-compassion modules you can work through at your own pace. Sarah Blondin on Insight Timer also has some lovely self-compassion recordings you can listen to. However, if these seem too overwhelming, you can reach out today and our psychologists would be happy to explore self-compassion with you further!