What does it mean have self-compassion?

Compassion as Antithesis of Criticism

I talk about compassion a lot in my practice. I think about it as the antithesis of criticism. I work mostly with self-critical people, so suggesting self-compassion can often seem like a radical move. Holding compassion for yourself allows you to step away from judgment and into a space of understanding. It allows you to see your suffering for what it is and hold empathy for yourself. If you’ve experienced a lifetime of self-criticism, this is no easy task. It’s new territory and can be very confusing to navigate.

Compassion vs Enabling and Accountability

I’ve found that compassion can often be confused with enabling. It can be perceived as making excuses or a lack of accountability. These are entirely different entities. Compassion is a mindset, not an action. The action that follows is important. If compassion is held and the next action taken leads to no accountability and permissiveness, this can have negative implications.

Examples of Compassion vs Enabling in Practice

if you feel anxious at the start of every work day, a critical voice would say something along the lines of “You’re being ridiculous. People go to work every day. There’s no need to be nervous.”  A compassionate voice would say “You’re having a really hard time at the start of every workday. I know this is scary for you.” The next action following this compassionate statement can either be enabled by saying “You should just stay home. Work is too much. Go ahead and quit so you don’t have to feel nervous anymore.” On the other hand, the next action can be to continue to show up for work, while finding ways to support yourself at the start of each day. In this way, you’re holding compassion for yourself and acknowledging the challenge, but continuing to show up.

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Addressing Feelings and Needs

In each situation, you’ll want to pay close attention to what’s going on and break it down to make sure you’re addressing feelings and needs while gathering support from yourself and those around you.

The idea of continuing to show up can feel daunting for some. When fear enters the mind, it encourages you to avoid the trigger of that fear. It’s very normal to feel scared and immediately avoid whatever scared you moving forward. With some things in life, this is spectacular logic. Let’s say you go for a hike and decide to go off the trail at a time of day when feeding is high and you encounter a bear. It would make sense to avoid off-trail hiking during that time of day in the future. It’s not something you need to do, it poses a great threat to your safety and is not a fear that would not be safe to overcome. This is where avoidance is a wise tactic. This is where it belongs.

When anxiety over-activates your nervous system response, avoidance can be used in situations that don’t pose a great risk but are fear-inducing. Let’s say it’s finals week at school and you have three finals this week. You’re nervous about them because they hold weight for your overall grade and ability to successfully complete the class. If you used avoidance in this scenario, you would skip all of your exams. This would negatively impact your grade, your ability to pass the class, and ultimately achieve your desired career goals. This is a sign of the nervous system being over-activated and using avoidance as a tactic to cope.

Discipline and Compassion

Discipline requires that you show up for yourself. When I refer to discipline, I’m not referring to punishment as it can sometimes be confused with. Discipline involves routine behaviors to achieve a certain objective. We need this in some areas of our lives. You can hold compassion and discipline for yourself at the same time. You can hold your own hand as you navigate through life’s tough moments. You can tell yourself that this is hard and that it sucks to feel this level of discomfort. You can see your pain and let it not slip under the rug. And you can respond to yourself with the boundary of needing to uphold your commitment. Sometimes for others and mostly for yourself. When you maintain this discipline and show up to your commitments while holding compassion for yourself at each step along the way, you’ve entered a completely new way of navigating hard things in life. You have greatly enhanced your relationship with yourself by increasing your self-trust, self-compassion, and ability to hold space for yourself.

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We are with ourselves all the time. It’s incredibly important to work on how you treat yourself. This voice that you’re listening to in your head all day long is greatly impacting how you feel and what you do. You have the power to practice speaking to yourself in a way that enhances your life instead of blocking you from fulfillment.

Now, while this seems ideal, there are some roadblocks to navigate. I wish it was as simple as deciding to engage in self-compassion and then forever doing this moving forward. Unfortunately, the thoughts we think each day are majorly repetitive. If you think in a self-critical manner, the neural pathways that have been created are strong. If you think about how easy it is to cross-country ski across pre-made tracks vs. fresh snow, this is the difference between old thoughts and new thoughts. Old thoughts come easily and may even be automatic or happen without awareness. New thoughts require a great level of consciousness as you actively work towards creating them.

Developing Self-awareness

This means, that first, you’ll need to develop an awareness of your current thoughts. You can do this by simply paying attention to the narrative you internally hear while you navigate life. This will give you insight into which thoughts are helpful and which are harmful to your well-being.

Implementing Helpful Thoughts

Brian Holbach

Mental Health Life Coach

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Once you have the awareness in place, you’ll want to begin practicing the more helpful thoughts. You can do this in a regularly scheduled manner and through continued consciousness of your thoughts throughout the day.  A regularly scheduled practice may involve morning affirmations, where you read or recite out loud phrases that you wish to embody. Some of these phrases could look like: “I am doing the best I can with what I have”, “When I’m having a hard time, I hold compassion for myself”, “I can see and hear my pain while holding space for healing”, or “I am worthy of love and acceptance”.  Continued work throughout the day will look like catching an unhelpful thought and choosing to reframe it with compassion or replacing the thought altogether through the practice of a new one.

While this work requires pushing through much resistance in the beginning, it gets easier over time. Think about the ski tracks that are already there. That’s what you are creating every time you practice a new thought. Eventually, these tracks of self-compassion will be much easier to glide through and the tracks of self-criticism will be covered with a fresh layer of snow.

Importance of Recognizing Progress

This is a gradual process, making it essential to recognize the small steps of progress along the way. Each time you practice self-compassion, you are building your relationship with yourself and making obstacles in your life much easier to navigate.

Identifying and Implementing Support

Another important piece to holding yourself accountable alongside compassion is identifying what you need for support. You don’t have to simply push through everything hard with no support around you. Support can come through other people or different methods you find to be helpful. Let’s think about the previously mentioned challenge of showing up to work when feeling nervous. Someone in this situation could call someone helpful on their way to work. They could share how they were feeling with a person who will show empathy and offer encouragement. This person could also wake up a bit earlier to practice affirmations, meditate, exercise, or take extra care of themselves each morning. Nervousness often feels uncomfortable, so adding in comforts can help offset this. You can pay attention to how your clothes feel on your body and opt for outfits that not only promote confidence but also comfort. You can make sure you pack plenty of water and food to support your body through your workday. You may even have a comforting trinket that you can place in your pocket or on your desk so you can look at it or feel it when you need comfort. As long as your methods of support allow you to achieve your desired goals without having the potential to interfere with functioning, then it’s good to go.

Conclusion - Continual Practice and Self-compassion

When you can show up fully for yourself, the positive impact is never ending. Paying attention to how to speak to yourself, identifying what you need, and implementing support as you navigate hard situations, will make holding both compassion and discipline together a natural process. You have to choose yourself and keep showing up for yourself each day. When you slip up, that’s okay. Hold compassion for that and keep at it. Each time you practice this, it will become easier and then eventually automatic. If we can support you whether you are experiencing symptoms of anxiety, perfectionist, or feeling stuck - don’t hesitate to reach out and schedule a free first session.