🔼: [[⭐️ Self-Becoming]] ##### ☀️ Self-Compassion >"*If your compassion doesn't extend to yourself, it's incomplete.*" > — [[👤 Jack Kornfield]] Self-Compassion researcher [[👤 Kristin Neff|Dr. Kristin Neff]] defines Self-Compassion as “treating yourself with the same kindness, care, and understanding that you would show to a close friend.”[^1] It’s recognizing that we’re experiencing something challenging and responding with kindness, without judgement, and a desire to relieve suffering. It’s a state of loving, connected presence with ourself. Self-Compassion is strongly linked to overall well-being. It’s linked with reductions in [[💡 Depression|depression]], [[💡 Stress|stress]], [[🛡️ Perfectionism|Perfectionism]], [[💡 Shame|shame]], performance anxiety, [[Body Shame]], [[🛡️ Eating Disorders|disordered eating]], and even [[💡 Chronic Pain|chronic pain]]. It’s also linked to increases in life satisfaction, happiness, self-confidence, hope, body appreciation, and healthy immune system function. Self-Compassion is foundational to our [[⭐️ Self-Becoming]]. Without Self-Compassion, *whatever else we build cannot stand*. We are the home we will always return to. If the home is not loving, or on its way to being loving, we can’t fully thrive. ![[🔑 Self-Compassion is the better alternative to Self-Esteem]] %% ###### Self-Compassion and Parts Work When we’re [[🕯️ Part-Tending]], Self-Compassion looks like [[☀️ Compassion]] from our [[💡 Presence|Self]] to the [[💡 Parts|parts of us]] who’re struggling. Self-compassion cures [[💡 Shame|shame]] and can help us release [[💡 Burdens 🪨|burdens]] with time. The more we learn about ourselves and [[🔑 We are all blameless|🔑 how blameless we are]] for what's happened to us, including the ways trauma has spread to others through our own behaviors, the more we hear our [[💡 Parts|Parts]] secret histories, the easier Self-Compassion becomes as our [[💡 Protector Parts|Protectors]] start to understand each other. %% --- Neff suggests there are three main elements which must all be present for it to be true Self-Compassion:[^1] 1. **[[🕯️ Mindfulness]]**: to help us become aware we’re struggling instead of being lost in or [[💡 Blending|blended with]] it. It helps us turn toward our suffering in a balanced way ([[☀️ Equanimity]]). 2. **Kindness**: instead of responding with harsh self-judgment, we are understanding and supportive. Most of us tend to be judgmental and cruel to ourselves - especially when our suffering comes from failure, mistakes, feeling inadequate. This includes taking [[Loving Action|compassionate action]] to relieve our suffering. 3. **Common Humanity**: [[🔑 The near-enemy of compassion is pity]]. Common humanity is about remembering that everyone is imperfect, everyone makes mistakes, everyone experiences misfortune. It’s easy to feel as if we’re uniquely troubled or that something shouldn’t be happening. We feel isolated, abnormal, and cut off from others when we’re struggling, as if other people’s lives and relationships are going perfectly or are uncomplicated, and so there must be something uniquely wrong with us. Common Humanity is about reminding ourselves that [[🔑 pain and difficulty cannot be avoided|🔑 everyone experiences pain and difficulty]], and we are all in this together. --- ###### The Two Wings of Self-Compassion[^1] 1. “Being With,” to be a source of soothing comfort, validation, and care for ourselves. We’re kind and supportive—what some might call self-mothering. - [[🕯️ Letters from Love]] - [[🕯️ Loving Touch]] - It’s okay - I’ve got you - You Belong - I’m here for you - I’m going to love myself through this - Of course you're struggling - [[🕯️ Start Again]] - Taking a few (or more) feel-good breaths - Going for a walk in nature 2. Taking [[Loving Action]] in the world. Protecting, providing, motivating ourselves to make changes. (What some might call self-fathering, or being a “momma bear”). - Compassion is not complacency, indifference, or resignation. [[🔑 Equanimity is not passivity or resignation]]. Sometimes Self-Compassion is the recognition that we need to set [[🕯️ Boundaries]] and make changes to alleviate suffering—to advocate and act for ourselves. We are not meant to just compassion our feelings away. Our unpleasant emotions exist to motivate change. - [[💡 Emotional Regulation#Discerning when to regulate emotions and when to take action|Discerning when to regulate emotions and when to take action]] ###### Myths About Self-Compassion[^1] 1. Self-Compassion is Weak. - Self-Compassion doesn’t lead to us losing our edge or motivation, it’s one of our most powerful sources of strength and resilience—it even makes us less likely to develop PTSD after a potentially traumatic experience. 2. Leads to a lack of motivation. - It actually increases our motivation, because we’re less afraid of failure when we know we’re going to be accepted regardless of the outcome. We have less fear of trying, less performance anxiety, and when we make mistakes or don’t succeed we’re better able to pick ourselves up and try again. [[🔑 There is no such thing as failure]]. It allies with a [[💡 Growth Mindset|Growth Mindset]]. - [[🔑 Self-Compassion doesn’t let us off the hook]] 3. Leads to self-indulgence - It actually leads to healthier behaviors. Self-compassionate people take better care of themselves, exercise more, more often go to the doctor when they need to, are more likely to practice safe-sex, to eat better. Self-compassionate is a form of Self-Respect. 4. It’s selfish - Self-Compassion leads to better relationships. People with higher self-compassion are described by their partners as more caring, more intimate, more loving, less controlling, more healthily compromising. Thanks to our [[Mirror Neurons]], other people can pick up on our sense of shame and inadequacy or [[🛡️ Blaming#Self-Blame|self-blame]], and sometimes it can spread—but so can Self-Compassion. Our kindness to ourselves is by extension kind to others. %% - Reduces procrastination and performance anxiety. %% ###### Keys - The goal of Self-Compassion practice is to be compassionate. We’re allowed to be an imperfect mess with a mix of feelings and mistakes. - Compassion isn't doing whatever we want or being super indulgent. Tending to our health and guiding ourselves toward wise choices is compassionate. - Self-Compassion is not weak. We become weak when we don't nurture ourselves. Our muscles deteriorate when we don't eat or move. %% - It's not true that you have to love yourself before you can love someone else. [[🔑 We can only love someone's parts as much as we love similar parts of ourselves]]. But it does fill up your cup so we don't have boundary issues or build up resentments. %% - [[🔑 We have a right and responsibility to say No]] - [[🔑 Plants need repotting]]. - [[🛠️ Repair]] Self-Compassion is foundational to compassion for others, and the unveiling of Self-Compassion gives us access to a kind of [[🕯️ Love]] that is something close to divine. [[⭐️ Self-Love]], the ability to love the unlovable, can be turned outward onto others and [[Cosmos|All-That-Is]]. When we have discovered that the so-called bad parts of us are lovable and worthy of love, when we’re able to separate our need for [[🕯️ Boundaries]] and our ability to love others we set boundaries with, a radical shift in our experience of life occurs. In our [[⭐️ Relationships]], many of us (especially those with [[🛡️ People-Pleasing]]) have more compassion for others than we do for ourselves, we take care of their feelings to the detriment of our well-being to an extent that makes no sense at all from the outside. But it isn’t Self-Compassionate to not consider our own feelings, our own [[⭐️ Needs]]. We want to be [[Self-Inclusive|Self-Inclusive]]. [[💡 Presence|Presence]] is an inexhaustible fountain of compassion. [[💡 Presence|Presence]] is nurturing and can hold space and support our [[💡 Parts|Parts]] through pain. Our [[💡 Parts|Parts]] can recognize this, and it helps them feel safe and cared for and want to [[☀️ Connection|☀️ connect]] with us. When we're [[🕯️ Unblending|unblended]], we genuinely care about and want to support struggling [[💡 Parts|Parts]], people, and other beings. [[💡 Presence|Presence]] has compassion even for [[💡 Parts|Parts]] who have disrupted or complicated our lives. Similar Qualities: Kindness, [[🕯️ Love]], Care, Presence, Patience, Acceptance, Warmth, Forgiveness, Open-heartedness, Heartfulness, Friendliness ###### Resources - Kristin Neff - Books - www.SelfCompassion.org; take the Self-Compassion scale. - Christopher K. Germer - Tara Brach - [[🛡️ Criticizing#Working with Inner-Critics|🦮 Working with Inner Critics]] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0309051 ###### Related - Remember: [[🔑 We need each other]]. - [[🔑 Don’t strive for self-worth]] [^1]: Kristin Neff: [Stop Chasing Self-Esteem & Just Be Self-Compassionate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEyJ_H1U5SQ)