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

by Kristin Neff

to my website—www.self-compassion.org—and click on the “How Self-Compassionate Are You?” link. After filling out a series of questions, your level of self-compassion will be calculated for you.

Once we fall into the trap of believing that things are “supposed” to go well, we tend to think something has gone terribly amiss when they suddenly don’t.

By seeing things in black-and-white terms—either I’m perfect or I’m worthless—perfectionists are continually dissatisfied with themselves.

As the seventeenth-century French philosopher Montaigne once said, “My life has been filled with terrible misfortune, most of which never happened.”

“our brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones.” We tend to take the positive for granted while focusing on the negative as if our life depended on it.

Remember that rumination on negative thoughts and emotions stems from the underlying desire to be safe.

For some reason I often wake up at about four A.M. in a negative, anxious mind-state. While I lie there in bed my mind swirls with fear and dissatisfaction, focusing in on everything that’s wrong in my life. Because it happens so regularly, I’ve learned to envision this mood quite literally as a storm passing in the night. Rather than getting caught up in my thoughts, I try to imagine dark clouds passing overhead, complete with violent lightning and thunder.

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.

being aware of your feelings without being hijacked by them, so that you can make wise choices.

This is because as children, the same people who gave them care and nurturance—their parents—also betrayed their trust by harming them. Feelings of warmth thus became jumbled together with feelings of fear, making the foray into self-compassion rather complicated.

They are then instructed to create an ideal image of a caring and compassionate figure. Especially for people who have a hard time having feelings of compassion for themselves, their compassionate image can be used as a proxy source of soothing.

“Contingent self-worth” is a term psychologists use to refer to a sense of self-esteem that depends on success or failure, on approval or disapproval.