With twilight descending, I entered the fray of Austin, Texas. Rows of cars streamed around me, headlights zipping along the highway. So many cars. So many people. My journey almost complete, tears began to fall. I already missed my small New England city filled with trees and surrounded by farmland.
It’s okay, Melissa. Of course you’re scared and sad. Of course you’re feeling uncertain and overwhelmed. You’re changing up your life once again. You’re brave, and I’m proud of you. Things are going to be okay.
Alone in my car filled with suitcases and boxes, crying in the dark, I practiced one of the most important things I’ve learned in life: self-compassion.
5 Benefits of Self-Compassion
1// Self-compassion protects against anxiety and depression.
Too much time thinking about past negative events leads to depression, and spiraling thoughts about a potentially negative future leads to anxiety. Self-compassion helps you break out of these negative thought patterns, and it also keeps you from feeling bad about having these thoughts in the first place— which is just as, if not more, important.
2// Self-compassion decreases negative emotions.
When negative emotions arise— such as fear, irritability, hostility, or distress— they aren’t as frequent, long lasting, or persistent because self-compassion helps you disrupt the negative thought pattern.
Self-compassion wraps your painful feelings in a warm hug— and when negative emotions are seen and validated, they tend to disappear.
3// Self-compassion increases accomplishment.
Self-criticism tends to undermine your confidence, often doing more harm than help. In comparison, the positive and reassuring messages found in self-compassion create a mindset that fosters determination and perseverance, and motivates you to work toward your potential. You do your best when you feel calm, safe, and confident.
4// Self-compassion supports personal growth.
Self-compassion allows you to respond to failure with gentle understanding and support. When failures don’t lead to harsh self-criticism and attack, you can move forward with confidence. This opens the door to challenge yourself much more than if you were focused on staying safe in your comfort zone.
5// Self-compassion increases life satisfaction.
Life satisfaction is an overall contentment with your life, a belief that it has meaning and value. When you treat your failures and disappointments with self-compassion, you’re accepting sorrow as a part of the human experience and increasing your contentment with life.
“Self-compassion inspires us to pursue our dreams and creates the brave, confident, curious, and resilient mindset that allows us to actually achieve them.”
—Kristin Neff
The 3 Paths to Self-Compassion
1// Kindness
Basically, kindness is treating yourself as someone who’s worthy of love and respect. It’s treating yourself as a friend, not an enemy. It’s recognizing that you deserve care and support.
Be kind to yourself:
- Interrupt self-judgment and self-criticism with kind, accepting words.
- Soothe your troubled thoughts with warmth, tenderness, and empathy.
- Forgive yourself for making a mistake, failing, or not doing your best.
- Seek to care for and understand your pain. Pause to acknowledge that you’re going through something difficult, and ask yourself how you can care for and comfort the hurt part of you.
3 Self-Kindness Practices
Give yourself a hug. Seriously! A gentle hug releases oxytocin (a feel-good chemical), provides a sense of security, soothes distressing emotions, and calms cardiovascular stress. And it works just as well when the hug comes from YOU and not someone else.
Validate yourself. Feeling loved and understood works wonders to heal your pain. Acknowledge that your feelings are valid and acceptable. Often when I’m in a frustrating situation, I don’t even need anything to change if I can feel seen, heard, and loved.
Change your critical self-talk.
- Whenever you’re feeling bad about something you said or did, pay attention to what you’re saying to yourself. What words do you hear? What’s the tone of your voice? Notice when you’re being self-critical.
- Soothe the self-critical voice. “I know you’re trying to keep me safe, but the harsh words and judgment is making me feel even worse. Thank you for trying to help, but you can stop talking now.”
- Speak to yourself in a kind, compassionate way. “I know this is really hard for you, and I know you’re hurting. It’s okay that you’re hurting, and I’m here for you. I’m going to take care of you. You’re safe.”
2// Connection
The human experience is imperfect. Even if you were the emperor of the world, you would still experience mistakes, regret, and failure.
While we all come from different backgrounds and live with different experiences, the pain you feel in difficult times is the same pain everyone else feels during their difficult times. The trigger, circumstances, and degree of pain may be different, but the experience of pain is the same for all of us. While we might not be able to connect to each other’s experiences, we can all connect to each other’s pain.
If you can remind yourself when you stumble that failure is part of the shared human experience, then that moment becomes infused with connectedness instead of isolation. You are not alone.
3// Mindfulness
When you’re going through a difficult time, it’s important to step back and actually acknowledge that you’re in the middle of a challenging experience and your pain deserves a caring response. Without pausing to attend to your emotions, you risk dealing with them in a much less pleasant way later on. Ignored emotions tend to blow up when you least expect it!
If you’re present and accepting of your negative emotions, you can give yourself the compassion you deserve, and then more calmly and thoughtfully take action to improve the situation (if possible).
Where could you use more self-compassion?
Reflect upon these questions:
- What types of things do you typically judge and criticize yourself for?
- What type of language do you use with yourself when you notice some flaw or make a mistake?
- How does this language make you feel?
- How would you feel if you truly accepted yourself exactly as you are?
Whenever you’re experiencing pain, mindfully accept your experience, treat yourself with kindness, and remember that you’re not alone. You are human, and you deserve your love and affection!
Hey there, fellow free spirit!
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