Book review: Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind by Kristin Neff

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Review also available on my site: https://roxannacross.com/2025/06/26/b...

This self-development audiobook, also available in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle on Amazon, is narrated by the author herself. It explores the intertwined personal baggage of her life, ranging from an extramarital affair to her son’s autistic diagnosis and how she and her partner cope with its reality, among other topics. However, the reality of Neff’s writing, for an accomplished professor and leading expert in this field, fell short of expectations. Her tone is more suitable for a group of frightened children than for an adult target audience.

The key principles Neff focuses on in the book are the three components of self-compassion
• Self-kindness
• Shared humanity
• Mindfulness

By sharing examples from her life or general ones picked from a hat, Neff explains how each component is relevant to the self-compassion process, essentially telling readers not to resort to a self-pity party every time they get hurt. However, her mellow tone and use of ‘Poor Darling’ to address her inner self are aggravating at times, as if she is dumbing down her message, which is an insult to herself and, frankly, to the reader as well.

Neff goes on to explain that self-compassion is equivalent to being gentle and understanding with oneself, rather than being harshly critical and judgmental, and to self-forgive. From pages 195 to 199, she talks about her marital affair and how she left her first husband for another man, but that man did not leave his wife and eventually died of cancer; she realizes the pain it caused everyone, but in the end, she forgave herself for her indiscretion and moved on. She uses other examples of self-forgiveness with her son and her reaction to his diagnosis, such as his non-verbal tantrums and how she deals with them. It all ends with a version of “Poor Darling, take a moment, inner monologue, self-forgiveness.” Rinse and repeat. It’s as if it’s her mantra on suffering.

This is a moment of suffering.
Suffering is part of life.
May I be kind to myself in this moment.
May I give myself the compassion I need.

Neff says we must recognize our common humanity and shares an example on page 9 of a homeless man who offers to wash your car window for $1.00 as a way to connect readers to the experience of someone else’s life rather than isolating them in their suffering. However, this basic, most common act of compassion felt like a cheap shot.

She also provides meditation exercises to help readers find their inner peace and serenity. However, these mindfulness attempts fell flat because they did not dive past the surface to the core of what meditation or mindfulness is, but remained superficial. Neff also discusses the importance of balanced awareness and how all three components of equality are necessary to achieve true self-compassion.

Throughout the book, Neff’s examples didn’t always quite hit home, leaving a vague feeling of frustration that the theme was being lost in translation. Without her personal story intertwined, this book could have easily been cut in half, and the core message more succinct, with an inner voice that doesn’t sound like it’s speaking to a five-year-old, which would help it carry more weight. Sadly, as it stands, this is a 2-star listen or read.




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