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

by Kristin Neff

This kind of compulsive concern with “I, me, and mine” isn’t the same as loving ourselves . . . Loving ourselves points us to capacities of resilience, compassion, and understanding within that are simply part of being alive. —SHARON SALZBERG, The Force of Kindness

Continually feeding our need for positive self-evaluation is a bit like stuffing ourselves with candy. We get a brief sugar high, then a crash.

And no matter how well we do, someone else always seems to be doing it better. The result of this line of thinking is sobering: millions of people need to take pharmaceuticals every day just to cope with daily life. Insecurity, anxiety, and depression are incredibly common in our society, and much of this is due to self-judgment, to beating ourselves up when we feel we aren’t winning in the game of life.

before you can really care about other people. If you are continually judging and criticizing yourself while trying to be kind to others, you are drawing artificial boundaries and distinctions that only lead to feelings of separation and isolation.

wasn’t owning up to many things because I was so afraid of the self-hate that would follow if I admitted the truth.

Let’s say you really do experience compassion for the homeless man’s misfortune. How does it feel? Actually, it feels pretty good. It’s wonderful when your heart opens—you immediately feel more connected, alive, present.

Compassion is not only relevant to those who are blameless victims, but also to those whose suffering stems from failures, personal weakness, or bad decisions. You know, the kind you and I make every day. Compassion, then, involves the recognition and clear seeing of suffering. It also involves feelings of kindness for people who are suffering, so that the desire to help—to ameliorate suffering—emerges. Finally, compassion involves recognizing our shared human condition, flawed and fragile as it is.

As you’ll come to see, self-compassion involves wanting health and well-being for oneself and leads to proactive behavior to better one’s situation, rather than passivity. And self-compassion doesn’t mean that I think my problems are more important than yours, it just means I think that my problems are also important and worthy of being attended to.

By giving ourselves unconditional kindness and comfort while embracing the human experience, difficult as it is, we avoid destructive patterns of fear, negativity, and isolation.

You can’t always have high self-esteem and your life will continue to be flawed and imperfect—but self-compassion will always be there, waiting for you, a safe haven.

Ninety-four percent of college faculty members think they’re better teachers than their colleagues, and 90 percent of drivers think they’re more skilled than their road mates. Even people who’ve recently caused a car accident think they’re superior drivers! Research shows that people tend to think they’re funnier, more logical, more popular, better looking, nicer, more trustworthy, wiser, and more intelligent than others. Ironically, most people also think they’re above average in the ability to view themselves objectively.

In more collectivistic Asian cultures, where conceit is frowned upon, aren’t people more modest? The answer is yes, most Asians think they’re more modest than others. Research suggests that all people self-enhance, but only on those traits valued by their culture. Whereas Americans tend to think they’re more independent, self-reliant, original, and leader-like than the average American, Asians tend to think they’re more cooperative, self-sacrificing, respectful, and humble than their peers.

Many people think they’re above average on personal traits that society values—like being friendlier, smarter, more attractive than average. This tendency helps us to feel good about ourselves, but it also can lead us to feel more separate and cut off from others.

If we look more deeply, we see that harsh self-criticism is often used as a cover for something else: the desire for control.

There is a difference, however, between healthy self-deprecating humor and unhealthy self-disparagement. The first indicates that someone is self-confident enough to poke fun at him- or herself. The second reveals deep-seated insecurities about personal worth and value.

research shows that highly self-critical people tend to be dissatisfied in their romantic relationships because they assume their partners are judging them as harshly as they judge themselves. The misperception of even fairly neutral statements as disparaging often leads to oversensitive reactions and unnecessary conflicts. This means that self-critics often undermine the closeness and supportiveness in relationships that they so desperately seek.

This!!!!

So now you know why you—or your wonderful, successful friend—keep picking the wrong guy or gal. Self-critics are often attracted to judgmental romantic partners who confirm their feelings of worthlessness. The certainty of rejection feels safer than not knowing what to expect next. It’s the devil they know.

Almost every single one of my boyfriends ended up dumping me eventually, which surprised me at the time but makes sense given what I know now. I was simply re-creating situations that validated my sense of self as an unlovable girl who would always be abandoned.

who wants to be stuck in a box labeled “good” anyway? Isn’t it more interesting to revel in the full range of human experience? Instead of trying to control ourselves and our lives to obtain a perfectionistic ideal, why not embrace life as it is—both the light and the shadow? What adventures might follow if we free ourselves in this way? Happiness is found when we go with the flow of life, not when we rail against it, and self-compassion can help us navigate these turbulent rapids with a wise, accepting heart.

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.

AS I’VE DEFINED IT, SELF-COMPASSION ENTAILS THREE CORE COMPONENTS. First, it requires self-kindness, that we be gentle and understanding with ourselves rather than harshly critical and judgmental. Second, it requires recognition of our common humanity, feeling connected with others in the experience of life rather than feeling isolated and alienated by our suffering. Third, it requires mindfulness—that we hold our experience in balanced awareness, rather than ignoring our pain or exaggerating it.

Our brains and bodies have the innate capacity to both give and receive care. It’s part of our genetic inheritance. Not only does survival depend on the fight-or-flight instinct, it also depends on the “tend and befriend” instinct.

Evolution ensured that mammals could both give and receive nurturance, so that parents wouldn’t abandon their children after birth and children wouldn’t wander off alone into the dangerous wild. The emotion of care comes naturally to us, because without it our species would not be able to survive. This means that the capacity to feel affection and interconnection is part of our biological nature. Our brains are actually designed to care.

Yes, I hurt. But I also feel care and concern. I am both the comforter and the one in need of comfort. There is more to me than the pain I am feeling right now, I am also the heartfelt response to that pain.

A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

One of the saddest consequences of social comparison is how we distance ourselves from people whose success makes us feel bad about ourselves.

The sad irony is that the very reason we want to succeed in the first place is because we want to feel accepted and worthy, to be close to others, to feel that we belong.

Fortunately, psychologists have discovered that when our sense of belonging extends to the whole human community rather than stopping at the boundaries of our own social groups, conflict is dramatically lessened.

The study had two conditions—either the Holocaust was described as an event in which Germans behaved aggressively toward Jews, or as an event in which humans behaved aggressively toward other humans. The Jewish participants were more willing to forgive modern-day Germans when the event was described as occurring between humans rather than distinct social groups, and they also saw Germans as more similar to themselves in this condition. By simply shifting our frame of reference from distinctiveness to similarity with others, we can dramatically alter our perceptions and emotional reactions.

So does perfectionism have an upside? The positive aspect of perfectionism has to do with the determination to do your best. Striving to achieve and setting high standards for yourself can be a productive and healthy trait. But when your entire sense of self-worth is based on being productive and successful, when failure is simply not allowed, then the striving to achieve becomes tyrannical. And counterproductive. Research indicates that perfectionists are at much greater risk for eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and a whole host of other psychological problems.

When we judge ourselves for our inadequacies, we typically assume that there is in fact a separate, clearly bounded entity called “me” that can be blamed for failing. But is this really true? Who we are, how we think, and what we do is inextricably interwoven with other people and events, which makes the assignment of blame quite ambiguous.

A hurricane is an impermanent, ever-changing phenomenon arising out of a particular set of interacting conditions—air pressure, ground temperature, humidity, wind, and so on. The same applies to us: we aren’t self-contained units either. Like weather patterns, we are also an impermanent, ever-changing phenomenon arising out of a particular set of interacting conditions. Without food, water, air, and shelter, we’d be dead. Without our genes, family, friends, social history, and culture, we wouldn’t act or feel as we do.

Judgment defines people as bad versus good and tries to capture their essential nature with simplistic labels. Discriminating wisdom recognizes complexity and ambiguity.

Exercise One Letting Go of Our Self-Definitions by Identifying Our Interconnectedness

Check this out! Deidentifying with traits

“It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch each other, and find sympathy. It is in our follies that we are one.” In recognizing the shared nature of our imperfection, self-compassion provides the sense of connectedness needed to truly thrive and reach our full potential. Instead

I freely admit that at times, the experience pushed me into self-pity. When at the park with Rowan, for instance, watching other moms with their “normal” kids, I would start to feel very sorry for myself. Why can’t I have a normal child?

Instead of feeling “poor me,” I would try to open my heart to all parents everywhere who were trying to do their best in challenging circumstances. What about the millions of parents in developing countries whose children didn’t even have enough to eat? I certainly wasn’t the only one having a hard time.

And what is “normal” anyway? Maybe Rowan had difficulty expressing himself with language, or engaging in appropriate social interactions, but he was a loving, happy kid. Being human is not about being any one particular way; it is about being as life creates you—with your own particular strengths and weaknesses, gifts and challenges, quirks and oddities. By accepting and embracing the human condition, I could better accept and embrace Rowan and also my role as the mother of an autistic child.

This!!!!

“My life has been filled with terrible misfortune, most of which never happened.”

Quote yes!

The past doesn’t exist except in our memories, and the future doesn’t exist except in our imagination.

We can’t be defined by what we are thinking and feeling when our consciousness is aware that we are thinking and feeling: otherwise, who is it that is being aware of our thoughts and feelings?

Mindfulness provides incredible freedom, because it means we don’t have to believe every passing thought or emotion as real and true.

The real treasure offered by mindfulness—its most amazing gift—is that mindfulness provides us with the opportunity to respond rather than simply react.

We need to be able to ask ourselves—what is really happening right here, right now? Is the danger real, or am I only having thoughts of danger, like pixels of light dancing on a screen? What is the actual situation that needs to be responded to? This is how we gain the freedom needed to make wise choices.

Suffering stems from a single source—comparing our reality to our ideals. When reality matches our wants and desires, we’re happy and satisfied. When reality doesn’t match our wants and desires, we suffer.

In the West we are raised to be knowledgeable, to work hard, and to be productive members of society, but no one teaches us how to deal productively with our own emotions, especially the difficult ones.

You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation . . . and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts,nothing else.

Rumination about negative events in the past leads to depression, while rumination about potentially negative events in the future leads to anxiety. This is why depression and anxiety so often go hand in hand; they both stem from the underlying tendency to ruminate.

This may seem like an unfamiliar concept, but all emotions can be felt in the body. Anger is often experienced as a tight clenching in the jaw or gut, sadness as heaviness around the eyes, fear as a gripping sensation in one’s throat. The physical manifestation of emotions will be experienced differently by different people and will shift and change over time, but still they can be tracked in the body if we pay close attention.

Suffering = Pain x Resistance).