5 Ways Practicing Self-Compassion Heals

We know that being kind to ourselves is something we should do, but many of us don’t choose it as our knee jerk reaction to tough times.

In fact, compassion is such a hard thing for many of us to choose, I wrote a whole book about it.

Many of us were taught that beating ourselves up is a great way to self-motivate and we’ve confused the kind act of encouraging ourselves with judgement and harshness. There’s also a group of us who are simply repeating the same harsh words others have said to us without realizing how much damage it’s doing.

Self-compassion helps us extend ourselves grace when tough times arrive. It’s choosing to say to yourself “you did the best you can, it’ll be okay” versus “how could you do that, what’s wrong with you?”

It’s can be a tough, long road as we learn to change the way we talk to ourselves, I know for myself I’m still on that journey. Sometimes, in the thick of a mistake I’ve made that I’m beating myself up for, I don’t catch that I’m tearing myself up until I’m right in the middle of it. And that can be hard, because it makes you feel like it will never get better, but that’s not true.

The good news is that even in those moments of treating ourselves unkindly, we can learn to stop and give ourselves love. We learn to forgive ourselves for the harsh words. We’re able to come back to ourselves and say “Okay, I made a mistake and now I’m beating myself up for the mistake, but I’m human. It’s okay. Let’s slow down and see what I need.” I’ve accepted for myself, I might not be able to eliminate these moments of tearing myself up all together, but being able to stop it in it’s tracks and show myself well-deserved love is a HUGE win! We don’t have to take an all or nothing approach to healing.

Here are 5 Ways to Practice Self- Compassion

Write Letters of Forgiveness to Yourself

Talk candidly with yourself about how you always come from the best intentions and even in moments where you were hard on yourself, you thought you were doing your best. Forgive yourself for the ways that things didn’t work out the way you hoped they would.

Write Reminders to Yourself (where you can see them)

Those post-it notes on our mirror are more powerful than we think! Write a couple of reminders where you will see them everyday at work on in your bathroom. And a tip that works for me is changing them out often, because if I see the same one too many times, I start ignoring it.

Celebrate Yourself Often (even the little things)

Have a cup of tea in the middle of the day and drink it while people watching. Take the long walk home. Take a nap if you find the space or, buy your fancy pens! Yesterday a friend asked me to go on a mini field trip as a celebration to herself, and we went to a pen store and had THE BEST TIME. I don’t think we need to reward ourselves to enjoy life but why not turn some of the things you love into a reason to celebrate yourself? It really feels so good.

Treat Mistakes Like a Regular Occurrence.

Even though mistakes happen often, when they come up we stare at them in shock and disbelief. I believe this is what makes it so hard to accept, forgive and move on from the mistake itself, because we’re caught in the shock of “ how did I do this?” I think it’s fine to have our normal human reaction to things that suck, but I also think it’s important to ask ourselves what our lives could be like if we treated mistakes like they happened all the time because they do. And when we accept this part of life, I know for me, it lessened the shock value and thus lessened my tendency to act like all was failing and over.

Phone a Friend

Honestly thank goodness for our friends because they’re willing to remind us of who we are when we forget. Remembering that we don’t have to do healing alone has been the most important part for me. Calling a friend who then shares their mistakes, and reminds you that you are not alone is vulnerability and empathy at it’s best.

There are only 3 weeks until Wisdom of the Path is here and I know this book is going to remind so many of you, as it did me while writing it, to be kind to yourselves.

I really mean it when I say that I wrote the book that I needed for all of us! These past few months (and years actually) have had some BIG learning moments (that I talk about in the book), and I’ve been practicing what I preach y’all! It hasn’t been easy but I truly see the benefits in my life and relationships and I want this for all of us.

We’ve got this friends x

Chat soon,

Yasmine

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